A PLAN to give funding to a young carers’ charity will have to wait after senior county councillors demanded more work is done on a key report.

Last month, a cross-party panel of councillors said it wanted the council to give money to Didcot-based Be Free Young Carers.

The charity helps about 700 young carers across the county but has battled significant financial problems over recent months.

Those were so severe in June that it was close to closing – and was only saved after donations flooded in.

But members of the council’s cabinet criticised the panel’s 'deep dive' report, with one dismissing it as ‘more of a shallow end paddle’.

Steve Harrod, who made that comment, said there was ‘deep concern’ within the council about the charity’s finances and that more certainty would be needed before it provided money.

He criticised the scope of the report because councillors had not spoken to any young carers.

Glynis Phillips, the Labour group’s representative on the cross-party panel, conceded that was a weakness – and only down to scheduling difficulties before the report was written up.

But in the short term the council will provide money from its councillors’ priority fund.

That pot was passed by the council early this year to give every councillor opportunity to spend £15,000 in their division on projects they want to support.

Mark Gray, a fellow cabinet member, said Be Free Young Carers needs substantial help and that the council must work with it for the children who receive support.

He said the council was a ‘leviathan’ in comparison to the ‘small charity’, which currently only operates in the South Oxfordshire and the Vale of White Horse districts.

He has proposed spending £10,000 from his own councillor priority fund to help the charity and is encouraging other members to do the same.

In June, trustees announced they might shut the charity. It provides day trips, social activities and training for children caring for an ill or vulnerable family member.

At the time, the charity’s director John Tabor said he had been ‘blown away by the donations’ after ‘a monster of a rollercoaster’.

A new report – which is likely to include interviews of young carers after recent criticisms – is expected in a number of months.

It will be sent back to the performance scrutiny committee for further work by members Mrs Phillips, Conservative Nick Carter and Lib Dem Emily Smith.