THE Youth Coalition of the ACT and Families ACT have called on the ACT Government to consider allocating further funding to the newly established Children, Youth and Family Services Program saying that the current allocation comes at the expense of frontline service support.

The Children, Youth and Family Services Program, is the result of the merging of two funding streams, the Youth Support Program and the Family Support Program.

The Youth Coalition, ACT’s peak body for youth affairs and Families ACT, the peak for family support services, have sent an open letter to Cabinet, that asks for additional funding to be allocated to case management; youth engagement – “drop in” services that are structured and linked; and outreach services.

According to the groups, there are concerns over the capacity of the new program “which has seen funding for the development of streamlined intake and referral, and network coordination come at the expense of frontline service supports”.

“While we support streamlined intake and referral, and network coordination, it appears we are developing a system heavily weighted to referral and lacking the capacity needed to provide direct practical support,” said Emma Robertson, director of the Youth Coalition.

“This will create a bottleneck for vulnerable children, young people, and families who are seeking support, rather than the streamlined access we are aiming to achieve.”

The peak bodies also said most case management agencies are reporting that their case management services were already at capacity.

And the closure or reduction of youth “drop in” services, has seen many reports of notable increase in inquiries and referrals to other services since the start of 2012.

“Many of those services have identified that they have not been able to meet the need, or were not the appropriate service response,” Ms Robertson said.

The open letter comes a day after it was revealed the Government was to tax the community sector to undertake the Community Sector Reform Program, that will explore how business costs and red tape can be reduced and how the sector can prepare to cope with a sustained period of change over the next few years.

The ACT Opposition claimed the government was planning to strip at least $2 million from community sector organisations to pay for the reform.

“The community sector already operates far more efficiently than this government could ever hope to. This is a completely inefficient government telling efficient organisations how to suck eggs, and ripping money out of them in the process,” Opposition spokesperson Vicki Dunne said.

Greens Leader Meredith Hunter said the letter was an unprecedented step from the two peak bodies, “that show the community sector has had enough, and comes just a day after it was revealed that the Minister is planning to tax the community sector to undertake Government reforms”.