Pledge to halt closure of Peterborough skills hub 'ambiguous'
The authority said it faced a budget gap of more than £20m in 2025/26, and closing the hub, which is part of the City College's Day Opportunities programme, could save £500,000. Hundreds signed a petition opposing the move.Ms Janceski criticised a letter to service users which said the hub "will not close for now".
"When you're telling an autistic person or a person with learning disabilities that something won't happen for now, it's ambiguous," she said."If this letter is supposed to provide reassurance, it does the opposite. If anything, it's more distressing. "It's not closing for now, but when?"She also criticised the suggestion in the council's letter that users should be supported to "be more independent, stay healthy and happy [and] find good jobs", calling it a "real insult"."These are the best jobs they've ever had," she said. "My brother's been there since 2018. He's never been more happy."
Some users needed carers or supported living, she added, making independence or certain kinds of employment an "unachievable goal".The hub, based in Hampton, provides training and work experience in woodworking, garden maintenance, recycling, painting and crafting.Shabina Qayyum, a Labour councillor who is the cabinet member for public health and adult social care, asked council officers to stop pursuing the closure of the hub and instead look at how to transform the service."I can safely say that the decision to close the hub has been taken off the table for now and a period of thoughtful interaction with all involved will now take place," she said.
"I realise the distress this has caused those who have used the hub and their families."She added that the council's commitment to encouraging "independence" and "meaningful employment" for people with learning disabilities was "driving the change we want to make to this service", as well as the need to save money.Ms Janceski said Qayyum "has been fighting for the Industrial Hub"."We have a really good councillor there on our side, but I think it's just a stay of execution," she said.Peterborough City Council said it will still be spending £5m to provide day opportunities for people with learning disabilities, including £1.7m with City College.
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However, the unfathomable reality is that I'm less convinced than ever that our politicians will do what's necessary to stop this preventable harm in its tracks. This week, Molly Rose Foundation released deeply disturbing new research that showed that in the weeks before the Online Safety Act took effect, Instagram and TikTok's algorithms continued to recommend the type of toxic material that cost my daughter's life. Vulnerable teenagers continue to be bombarded with suicide, self-harm and intense depression material on a near industrial scale. We should be in no doubt why this is still happening. The harms on social media are the direct result of business models that actively prioritise user engagement and a race for market share. Children's safety continues to be seen as an optional extra, and Ofcom's desperately unambitious implementation of the Online Safety Act will do little to change the commercial incentives that continue to cost children's lives. This preventable harm is happening on this Government's watch. Six months ago, I met with the Prime Minister and told him that further urgent action was necessary. Ofcom 'timid and unambitious' I told him that parents were heartened by Labour's commitment to strengthen the Online Safety Act in opposition. That they were encouraged by the Technology Secretary's recognition that the Act was 'uneven and unsatisfactory'. Crucially, I explained that swift and decisive action was necessary to fix structural issues with the Online Safety Act, still the most effective and quickest way to protect children from widespread harm while also enabling them to enjoy the benefits of life online, and to arrest the sticking plaster approach that Ofcom has adopted to implementation. I don't have confidence in the regulator's approach. Ofcom has proven to be desperately timid and unambitious, and seems determined to take decisions that are stacked in favour of tech companies rather than victims. For all the regulator's breathless claims to be 'taming toxic algorithms', buried in the detail of their plans is an expectation that the likes of TikTok and Instagram will only need to spend £80,000 fixing the algorithms that helped kill Molly, and that our research shows are continuing to cause widespread and pervasive harm today. This is pocket money to platforms making tens of billions every year. It sends the clearest of signals to the tech giants that the current regime expects them to pay lip service to online safety but doesn't really expect them to implement the achievable changes to prioritise safety over profit. Six months after I met the Prime Minister and Technology Secretary Peter Kyle, and received a personal assurance from them they would look again at this issue, all I have received from Number 10 is radio silence. Meanwhile, the Technology Secretary appears to be more interested in playing performative gesture politics with sticking plaster ideas like two-hour app caps that those who work in online safety immediately recognise will do little to meaningfully change the dial. Public support for Act is strong Despite the recent predictable howls of protest from free speech activists and tech libertarians, public support for the Online Safety Act remains strong. Our polling suggests that 80 per cent of adults want the Act to be strengthened, with a growing despair from parents and the public that our politicians seem unable or unwilling to protect our children, families and wider society from preventable harm. With all this in mind, my message to Sir Keir Starmer is clear. Is he prepared to take the decisive measures necessary to strengthen regulation and take on the tech companies which are a threat to children's safety? Will he listen to the public, bereaved families and civil society to deliver a comprehensive strengthening of the Online Safety Act, knowing that the majority of people in this country will be cheering him on? The alternative is that he leaves children and families at risk from largely unchecked but inherently preventable harm. Regulation that is well-meaning but isn't up to the job will not save the lives that it must.
