Cash cuts will cost Youthline $40,000

Cuts to night-class funding will have flow-on effects to community charities which take some of the money to train staff.

Each year 9.5 per cent of the total funding pool - now $1.6 million, goes towards community groups.

But this will disappear with the National Government's slashing of 80 per cent of the Adult Community Education budget.

Telephone counselling service Youthline will lose about $40,000 a year towards its volunteer training programme.

Youthline clinical service manager Jayne Lowry said the organisation trained up to 300 volunteers in Auckland every year.

They and volunteers from other Youthline centres staff the 24/7 youth helpline, giving telephone, text and email support to young people and their families.

Nationally, the youth helpline responds to about 17,000 contacts every month.

"We would struggle to make up the shortfall from funding cuts which could not only affect our helpline services but may have flow-on effects for the community," Ms Lowry said.

Youthline hopes to be involved in discussions with the Government and ministries over the issue, as it believes the effects of the funding cuts are not understood.

"Volunteering is about building a civil society where members of the local community are developed and supported to help other members of that community," she said.

"The skills volunteers learn are not only useful in a volunteering capacity but they take these into their families, communities and workplaces."

Education Minister Anne Tolley dismissed earlier claims that the matter was now in the Prime Minister's hands.

She said she was accountable for the cuts and stood by her decision.

"We are in the middle of the deepest recession since the 1930s," she said.

The priorities for education were in engaging the 15- to 19-year-olds who were seen as being "at risk" in courses and trades.

She said the Government was still investing $67 million over four years into Adult Community Education but was focused on impoving literacy and numeracy, not paying for what she called "hobby courses".