Election 2021: Boy's gang ordeal highlights value of children's services

Progress to improve has been slow since the authority's children's services were rated inadequate in 2018

A former children's commissioner has urged voters to quiz candidates in Bradford's local elections on 6 May on their plans for helping children and young people.

The city's children's services department has been dogged by staffing issues and criticism from watchdog Ofsted, while projects aimed at vulnerable youth have struggled for funding.

Earlier this month it was revealed the Labour-run council's bill for agency staff to work in children's social work had quadrupled in three years - currently running at £17m a year.

The problems in Bradford are against a national picture of an estimated £2bn children's services funding gap and a scaling back of council-run youth centres and other services.

Anne Longfield, who left the commissioner role last year, said councillors had an important role in ensuring that children and their families got the support they needed.

The BBC also spoke to a teenager once forced to sell drugs who credits a council youth project with helping him to turn his life around.

'We will kill your mum if you don't sell drugs'

The boy, who spent four years in the clutches of a county lines gang, knows all too well the difference the right support can make in turning lives around.

At the age of 14, he was bundled into a car, kidnapped and taken hundreds of miles away to a trap house where he was enslaved and forced to sell drugs.

"I was sleeping in a junkie house. It smelt bad... it was horrible."

Threatened and fearing he would be tortured, the youngster was unable to escape and was told he could not leave until he had sold £10,000 worth of drugs.

He said he was initially convinced by the promise of money, expensive clothes and a flashy car.

"They just pick a target when you are young," he said.

"You see money about and you just want that. It's like a role model - you see that and you want it."

The teenager, who wants to remain anonymous, is now hoping to go back to finish his education

But the reality was very different, with the boy witnessing other youngsters in his group being stabbed.

"People are forced to sell drugs and if they don't they are threatened with 'we will kill your mum'."

Eventually he rang his mother who informed the police of his whereabouts and the house he was holed up in was raided.

Afterwards he got involved with Breaking the Cycle - a youth project in Bradford which helps young people back onto the right path after being groomed into organised crime.

The teenager, who is now 17, said: "The youth worker was coming to my house, talking to me about stuff, and it had a good impact on my life - the guys helped me get on the right path."

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Having narrowly escaped going to prison, the youngster hopes to go back into education and become a youth worker.

"I was stupid. But now I have a clear mind and I know what I want for the future

"The team are very important because they changed my life."

The teenager is one of 266 that are currently being helped by Breaking The Cycle, which has worked with more than 600 young people in the city over the last couple of years.

But it is struggling for money and recently had to have emergency funding.

Former children's commissioner Anne Longfield said there needed to be a commitment to improve support for young people

Former children's commissioner Anne Longfield said local elections gave people a chance to push candidates on what their plans were for vulnerable children and their families.

"Councillors themselves have a huge role to play in ensuring that those children get the support they need," she said.

"It really is a time where councillors have never had such an important role in being able to support children and families in their areas.

"But it needs to be something which is talked about and needs to be something there is commitment for."

In response, Bradford Conservatives said money should be moved away from paying for agency staff and reinvested.

It said it was "committed to improving children services" and budget proposals included money set aside for youth projects like Breaking the Cycle.

Bradford Labour Party said better-funded youth projects were needed and "huge cuts" to the police had to led to an increase in grooming by criminal gangs.

The city's Liberal Democrats said it would put in extra funding for children's services each year, adding that work currently being done to improve the service seemed "not to be a priority".

Meanwhile, Bradford's Green Party pledged it would reverse cuts to youth services and make sure youth centres and schools were "properly funded so they can employ the staff to help identify children at risk of exploitation before it is too late".

A full list of candidates can be found here.

• Postcode search: Who is standing in your area

• Voting: All the elections on May 6

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