In a new column for Biddulph Nub News, town and district councillor Connor Brady has shared his views on the effects of austerity on the local area.

Read what he has to say below:

In Biddulph we have seen an increase in drugs and violence related to young people but why is that? This generation is one growing up with the direct affects of austerity and that is creating a society which is leaving young people behind.

For young people it all starts as they go through school. In Staffordshire, schools have faced a £190 funding reduction per pupil since 2015. That means a shortfall of £22.8M between 2015 and 2020 in Staffordshire alone.

In Biddulph this is even starker as Biddulph High School has faced a funding reduction of £319 per pupil. Woodhouse has faced a per pupil loss of £220 with James Bateman losing £363 per pupil.

These cuts across the country have meant between 2018/19 and 2019/20 7,600 jobs were lost across teaching and support staff across the country. Since 2011/12 16% of all teaching assistant jobs were lost, a total of 11,400 people.

A report in the British Journal of Educational Psychology by Terry Hanley, Laura Winter, and Kimberly Burrell highlights the response to the cuts as staff reported seeing an increase in the need for support of emotional well-being.

The director of children and family services at Littlewood school said there is "an increase in need, an increase in the severity of the need, and also an increase in the numbers" and a "decrease in the age at which the need becomes apparent".

The Education and Welfare Officer at Littlewood school said "we used to have a huge, huge pastoral team in school. We had a full-time mental health worker, a full-time social worker, properly qualified. We had various mentors and they're all gone and now we are left with a few people who are experienced and doing what they can".

On top of this teachers have seen a drastic reduction in their wages. From 2002/03 to 2017/18 the median salary for a classroom teacher has dropped by 10% in real terms. What this all means is that children are losing out and dropping through the gaping holes in the system.

Teachers are being asked to do more work, take on more responsibility, but do so with less help and less pay. Those extra systems in place like mental health workers and social workers are the first to be lost due to funding and mean young people are not getting proper access to these vital services.

Due to austerity young people are needing more help at school from a younger age and the support is becoming less and less each year. If our young people in Biddulph were able to get better mental health and educational support, would they have still gone down a route of drugs and gangs?

Austerity has also meant that Youth Services have been devastated. Analysis by the YMCA youth charity found that local authority spending on youth services dropped from £1.4bn in 2010/11 to under £429m in 2018/19.

This funding cut has meant that 750 youth centres have disappeared alongside 4,500 youth workers. In the West Midlands we have seen an 80% funding cut for youth services.

As local authorities receive less money from government every year, they are cutting more and more youth services. As well as this, funding for children's addiction serveries are also being cut.

Across the country £2.4m has been lost from specialist drug and alcohol misuse services for children. This has meant between 2017 and 2018 there was a 5% decrease in under-18's accessing treatment for drug abuse.

However, young people's class A drug use is up from 6.8% in 2007 to 8.4% in 2018 and a reported 15% of schoolchildren had used drugs in 2016. These cuts have created a society where young people don't have proper youth services.

In Biddulph we are lucky to have Biddulph Youth and Community Zone for young people, however, there should be far more services around. What is there for young people to go and do in Biddulph?

There is only so much that our local charities can do, government should be funding services so that young people are doing productive things with their time, not getting into drugs.

When that is combined with addiction services cut for young people is it any wonder that more and more of our young people are addicted to drugs. If they can't even get help for their addictions then how are they able to get out of a circle of drugs and violence?

Then we see cuts to policing. Between March 2010 and March 2018, 21,732 officers saw their jobs lost in England and Wales alone, a drop of 15%. Police community support officers (PCSOs), have seen their numbers fall by 40% in that time.

Staffordshire has been hit hardest by these cuts losing 570 officers in 10 years up to March 2018 whilst seeing a 79% increase in knife crime between 2010 and 2019.

The Chief Constable for Staffordshire Gareth Morgan said "There's not enough of us. Choices have been made. We have closed down a number of police stations across Staffordshire, and the reality is, not only have we had the issue of austerity, but the challenges of policing have also changed".

In Biddulph and Staffordshire Moorlands our police are understaffed, underpaid, and overworked. They are unable to do what is needed to keep our communities safe, unable to do the preventative work, and unable to stop the drug problems we see. There just isn't the funding and people to be able to do it.

Due to Covid the Conservative Government is likely to keep ramping up austerity and our young people are suffering. If we want to live in a society where young people can enjoy their lives, have a purpose, and build a better future then they need the help and support to get there.

When we look back at the last 10 years it is clear why our young people are struggling, and more austerity is only going to make it worse.

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