Maesteg Valley Youth Consortium celebrates first commissions

A consortium of youth projects is celebrating winning two contracts to deliver projects in the Llynfi Valley. Young Llynfi Ifanc Ltd will deliver detached youth work in areas identified as potential crime hot spots as well as drug and alcohol misuse education and advice on the run up to Christmas.

Young Llynfi Ifanc Limited is a new consortium made up of four partner organisations from the Llynfi Valley. The four organisations, Noddfa Community Project Limited, Llynfi Valley 11-25 Project Limited, Nantyfyllon Youth Club and Maesteg Town Council, came together to work collectively and bid for youth work projects in the area.

The consortium has been put together to deliver youth provision in the valley after a reduction in funding led to cuts in council provision in the area. The partners were being advised by Bridgend Association of Voluntary Organisations (BAVO) who have been promoting the development of social enterprise and consortia within the voluntary sector. Through Esther Price, the Enterprising Communities Officer at BAVO, the partners approached the Wales Co-operative Centre to help them to put together a new business that would be able to encapsulate the informal arrangements they already had for working together and to allow them to jointly bid for new projects for the area.

Paul Cantrill is a business advisor at the Wales Co-operative Centre who specialises in consortia development. He commented,

“Consortia working offers a number of advantages to social enterprises, the opportunity to share resources and ideas, support networks and the development of new projects as well as efficiencies in purchasing and delivery. In this case the approach has also offered the opportunity for the partners to fill a gap in provision in their local area”.

The Wales Co-operative Centre helped the consortium with setting up the new organisation, developing its legal structure and supporting the development of a business plan. The Succession and Consortia Project is funded by the European Regional Development Fund and Welsh Government.

Les Jones is a founder Director at Young Llynfi Ifanc Ltd. He welcomed the new projects and believes the consortium approach has been instrumental in helping the new business gain the new projects.

“A number of organisations had been discussing how to support one another and to look for income together. We realised there was a need to work together and to do that it would be necessary to create a consortium social enterprise.

“When it became apparent that there would be little or no council youth services delivery in the Llynfi Valley over the next financial year, it meant that any youth provision in the area had to come from the voluntary sector or it would not be delivered at all”.

YoungLlynfi Ifanc Limited was formed in September but has already successfully tendered for two commissions. The first is funded by the Police and Crime Commissioner and will provide detached youth work across the valley, and the second is to provide drug and alcohol misuse education on the run up to Christmas on behalf of the Substance Misuse Action Team.

Les Jones continues,

“We wouldn’t have been in a position to deliver if it wasn’t for the creation of this consortium”

“The support of the town and community councils has been a massive boon. By collaborating with the two local councils we hope to be able to form a youth council for the valley which will give young people a much needed channel for communicating with politicians in the area”.