In the turmoil following the first meeting of the Inquiry into young people’s services there has been a fascinating exchange between Keith ‘Joe’  Jones, a youth worker of thirty years standing and Graham Stuart MP and Chair of the Education Select Committee. Joe begins his eloquent and informed  argument for a voluntary, person-centred and unpredictable youth work as follows:

I watched with interest (and some concern) the Education Committees
call for evidence on Wednesday 26 January and felt that little was
said that provided any real defence for the need of a universal youth
work offer that has been a lifeline to so many young people for so
long. For that reason I felt must write and give a practitioners point
of view.  I write to you also as a concerned parent, a worried
grandparent and as an active member in my own local community. I write
in the hope that you will consider, very carefully, the plight facing
the countries young people and the impact potential of your quest for
`hard evidence ` may have on recommendations you may conclude
regarding spend on youth work and associated services for children,
young people and their families.

For too long now I have been more than a little disturbed by the heavy
emphasis and imposition of the outcome and `purpose-driven` approaches
to youth work which are clearly at odds with the needs of the majority
of young people and their communities.  In my opinion, current
guidance flies in the face of, what to me, youth work hopes to and can
achieve. Indeed current practice is seeing more and more youth workers
spending increasing amounts of their time servicing the needs of
databases rather than those they are there to support.

I am perturbed by the production-line approach that has been wilfully
adopted as the `way forward`; and by the disproportionate use and
costly micro-management and tracking of young people´s personal
development that cannot be at all accurately be measured by the
current set of expensive, labour intensive tools and monitoring
systems foisted upon workers in the field in the name of
accountability with the mantra “we have to be demonstrating value for
money”

Towards the end he challenges MPs themselves as to what ‘robust’ evidence they provide to justify their work.

So the six million dollar question is, what evidence do your
constituents, as tax payers, have that YOU provide value for money?
What would your `robust evidence look like? Not so easy is it?

The reality is that as a constituent I have to have faith that having
you in your role as our paid MP that you provide a cost effective
benefit to me and our community, and that really is, that´s all there
is… (Unless you know something I don´t?) As a constituent I may well
be able to read on a government website how much you spent on your
lunch, but would it tell me how cost effective you have been? No! It
wouldn´t, and most of us (despite all the expenses commotion) have
positive experiences of dealings with our MP or councillor.

He closes as follows:

So I humbly request that, when asking for `evidence` remember that the
questions about youth work arise solely because `youth work` seems
less serious than mainstream education.  Somehow a seemingly
puritanical view has set in that seems to suggest that unless
something has an immediate and quantifiable benefit somehow it is of
little value. As they say, you will end up “knowing the cost of
everything and the value of nothing”

Read Keith Jones letter in full – well worth it.

The Chair Graham Stuart certainly thought so and replied,

Dear Keith,

Thank you for your letter which I read with interest.

You make a rather better fist of explaining the benefits of youth work than did the representatives before the Committee last week. I am mindful that, as Einstein said, “Not everything that counts can be counted. And not everything that can be counted, counts.”

Nonetheless, when public spending has to be cut so as to avoid something worse, champions of services have to come up with the best possible case if they aren’t to see severe reductions. The reason the Committee is carrying out this inquiry is to allow those who know the importance of youth work to have a platform from which to make that case. Our report will be based on the evidence given to us and we want that to be as robust as possible – thus my impatience when it isn’t.

Yours sincerely,

Graham”

It is to be hoped that this exchange signals that the Committee remains open-minded despite their frustration with the supposed leaders of the sector.

Late ironic news is that Tom Wylie , the previous Chief Executive of the NYA, has been appointed as a specialist adviser to the Committee!