Having followed the comings and goings of the Education Select Committee Inquiry  I wondered if it might find itself at odds with the Coalition’s cavalier assault on youth services in general and youth work in particular. The chair, Graham Stuart came across as knowledgeable and independent, whilst Tom Wylie, former HMI and Director of the National Youth Agency had been brought in as a behind-the-scenes adviser. I was put off the scent by a chummy and uncritical last session involving the smug Minister, Tim Loughton. However, in the event, the Committee’s Report – read it in full – has been welcomed by UNITE/CYWU in the following press release as illustrating that ‘the government is negative for youth’.

MPs confirm the government is negative for youth

The government has no policy for supporting young people beyond slashing youth services and handing provision over to the market, a committee of MPs has warned today.

Unite, the country’s biggest union and the union for community and youth workers, says the findings of the education select committee confirms its worse fears – that the government does not value professional youth services and believes they are best provided for by the private sector.

Further, the select committee of powerful cross-party MPs, disagrees with the minister, Tim Loughton, parliamentary under-secretary for children and young people, who claimed that money spent on youth services, which equates to just £77 per young person aged 13 – 19, was ‘large slugs of public money’, instead praising the sector for its ingenuity in sustaining one of the longest-running professional welfare services in the country on limited resources.

The report tears into the government’s ‘only flagship youth policy’; the National Citizens Service (NCS), as it warns that the cost of funding the six week programme will far outstrip the £350 million spent by local authorities on the year-round youth service.

Unite urges the government to take heed of the committees’ call for the additional funds earmarked for the NCS be diverted back into the year-round youth services which have suffered the biggest cuts.

In its report the Committee recommends:

• The scrapping of the government’s National Citizen Programme and turning this into an accreditation scheme for all programmes.

• That the government publicly declare its intention to retain the statutory duty on local authorities to secure young people’s access to sufficient educational and leisure activities, which requires them to take account of young people’s views and publicise up-to-date information about the activities and facilities available,

• That local authorities recognise that an open-access service could be more appropriate than a targeted one for improving certain outcomes for young people, or that both types may be needed.

• The creation of an Institute for Youth Work to consider the issue of the lack of workforce development in the youth service, a move Unite has long advocated.

The union has been warning for over a year that youth services were first for the axe by cash-strapped councils. So severe were the cuts that vast parts of England will be left without youth provision altogether.

Unite national officer Doug Nicholls said: “One year into this government and this country’s world-class, constantly evolving, fifty year old youth service is on its knees.

“What a damning indictment of “compassionate conservatism”, which, in yet another government gimmick, is pretending to be ‘positive for youth’, while doing the opposite.

“Between them, the ruling parties have managed to achieve what recessions, downturns and changes of the previous decades had not – the near wipe-out of a service loved and valued by millions of young people and their families, and with it the loss of an excellent, dedicated workforce.

“What will follow behind is extremely worrying. Government’s belief that the market will provide is neglectful in the extreme. Will it really be prepared to put the resources into supporting a young person through thick and thin and into adulthood?

“One million young people are on the dole now. Hundreds of thousands more will be priced out of education. To then deny them youth and community support to keep them on the right path is a scandal.

“Government must heed the warnings within this well-balanced report and stop the cull of this service before it is too late.”
For further information, please contact : Chantal Chegrinec 020 3371 2063 / 07774 146 777 Unite press office or Doug Nicholls Unite national officer 07970 345 381

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Meanwhile CYPN has also picked up on the rejection by the Committee of the National Citizen’s Service under the headline, Cost of National Citizen Service ‘not justifiable’, quoting the Chair as saying:

“The government’s idea of using the National Citizen Service to inspire young people to engage with their communities, mix socially and build their skills is a good one.

“However, the pilots are proving to be expensive and full roll-out would be hard to justify when cuts, which the government itself calls disproportionate, are impacting existing youth services provided by local authorities. The NCS should be adapted so that it accredits existing programmes while introducing a new focus and resources into the sector.”

Given the Coalition is prone to about-turns the report offers the prospect of increasing the pressure on the government. However, responding to the report’s findings, children’s minister Tim Loughton said: “I am disappointed that the select committee has sought to undermine NCS pilots before they have even got off the ground. I agree with the committee that we need evidence-based policies to ensure appropriate and quality services, which is precisely what the NCS pilots will provide.”Loughton added that all NCS money was additional money for youth services, not an alternative and that it was down to local authorities to decide how best to deliver youth services for their communities.

As for our campaign we need to  utilise the report positively, whilst at the same time delving deeper into its ideological agenda, not least its abandonment of a commitment to the ‘voluntary’ relationship between worker and young person. Having skimmed its contents, it’s time for a more careful read!

TT