Leaders call for a clearer vision of council youth work duties

The government launched a review of statutory guidance for council youth services in July, the first re-evaluation since 2012.

Undertaking a review was a key pledge in last year's Civil Society Strategy, Building a Future that Works for Everyone.

The strategy, launched in August 2018, also outlined plans to increase the influence of the National Citizen Service, expand uniformed youth groups and give young people a bigger say in shaping local provision.

The strategy was criticised for its lack of commitments on additional sustainable funding for statutory youth work and for failing to address emerging challenges for young people like knife crime, the influence of social media and mental ill health.

Progress on taking forward its pledges has been slow over the past 12 months, but the launch of the statutory guidance review offers hope of change ahead (see expert view).

According to civil society minister Mims Davies, the review is intended to focus on "the positive role local authorities can play" in the way they secure and offer services for young people, and "provide greater clarity" on the government's expectations of councils.

It is being led by the National Youth Agency (NYA) and Local Government Association (LGA), which will be holding roadshows across nine English regions to gather the views of youth workers and sector leaders. An eight-week public call for evidence is due to open imminently and run until September (see expert view).

Clarity on statutory duty

Under the Education Act 1996, every English council should "so far as reasonably practicable, secure for qualifying young persons… access to sufficient education and leisure-time activities which are for the improvement of their wellbeing".

Although this was backed by the 2012 review, since then the definition of "sufficient" has become open to interpretation, due to a reduction in government grants to councils that has seen youth services spending cut by £300m and hundreds of youth centres close.

NYA chief executive Leigh Middleton said the review must deliver "greater consistency in how the statutory duty is understood and how guidance is used to support access to local provision that recognises the benefits of good quality youth work".

The LGA has welcomed the review as a "chance to take stock of youth services", but a recent briefing on the role and sufficiency of youth services failed to mention the review or take a stance on whether guidance should be strengthened.

It states: "As local authority budgets have reduced and demand for services increased, councils have had to make difficult decisions about how to use increasingly limited resources."

Responding to a recent Labour Party consultation on Building a Statutory Youth Service, the Unite union, which represents community, youth and playworkers, states that the current sufficiency duty on councils is "open to interpretation and has largely been ignored".

"Unite believes this obligation must be strengthened to reflect every young person's right to the opportunity to take part in high-quality universal youth services," it states.

The realities

Such a view is shared by Bernard Davies, steering group member for campaign group In Defence of Youth Work.

He says the 2012 guidance inclusion of the term "reasonably practicable" has had "catastrophic consequences for that practice and those services".

"With neither ‘reasonably' nor ‘practicable' defined, the phrase's interpretation has been determined by two crucial features of the post-2010 policy environment - governments' commitment to trust and respect ‘local choices'; and local authorities' loss by 2018 of 60 per cent of their Treasury revenue support grant," says Davies.

"Put those two realities together and what do you end up with? A service that, in funding competition with, say, child protection or elderly social care, has had the statutory duty to provide it removed."

Davies called for the "reasonably practicable" phrase be erased and for new guidance to "assert, unqualified, that… every local authority has a duty to provide funding for a range of open access and open-ended youth work opportunities available by choice to all young people".

Other youth sector leaders are suspicious that the review could be a delaying tactic and that without substantial additional investment, clearer statutory guidance will be pointless.

"If the rhetoric involved a commitment to investing in local authorities securing youth work or a discussion about putting youth work on a statutory footing, then the accusation of ‘just another review' would recede," says Bren Cook, senior lecturer of youth work studies, University of Bolton.

"However, we know that things are in a sorry state for youth work and what is needed is a commitment to act."

How should youth work guidance change?
Three experts set out their key priorities

James Cathcart, director, Young Voices Heard:

"My first priority would be to strengthen the role and powers of young representatives in local authority youth councils, giving them reserved places on council decision-making and scrutiny committees.

A new youth ministry could turn its attention to checking to what extent councillors "publish at least annually, in a form that enables young people and others to hold them to account, their plans for improving young people's wellbeing and personal and social development, together with relevant funding and performance data".

Second, restore and update the original 507b guidance on measuring progress. This represented a commitment to gathering and publishing information against indicators locally and nationally. A thriving youth ministry, working with stakeholders across the sector, should know if and how policies are being implemented, and transparently report this to parliament."

Howard Williamson, professor of European youth policy, University of South Wales:

"For years, we have talked about preserving open-access youth clubs that have taken a huge hit in favour of ‘targeted' provision. But, with the proliferation and diversification of youth work practice - in terms of the issues it addresses, the groups it works with, the contexts where it takes place and the methods it uses - we need to be talking even more about awareness.

Paradoxically, this requires an open-door provision. In the past, it was often a youth club, where more specialist work overlaid universal activities, or where generic practitioners pointed young people in more specific directions. Today, it may be a digital service, a youth information initiative or something else. Whatever it is, however, within it there needs to be a guide that can signpost and support young people to the youth work they need."

Paul Oginsky, chief executive, Personal Development Point:

"The most important things local government can do is to ensure that young people know they are important and know they belong. We need to set a minimum of three per cent of the total local government budget to develop a community spirit in our young people.

This level of funding will provide trained staff, positive activities and modernised centres. It will help young people to build a positive self-image and support them to build better relationship with their family, friends and communities. It will allow for open access provision to act as a doorway for more targeted work as well as offering mainstream support after these programmes.

Well-run and well-funded youth services enhance the lives of young people, build communities and perform a preventative role which is far more cost effective than attempting to ‘fixing the problem' later on."

EXPERT VIEW
Civil society strategy: the progress so far

By Leigh Middleton, chief executive, National Youth Agency

The government's Civil Society Strategy was a long time in gestation. Once born, it has taken a while to find its feet, with a couple of stumbles and a change of minster along the way. We wait to see if the new Prime Minister and government will adopt the strategy as ‘their own'.

Crucially, the strategy described youth work as "transformational" and trained youth workers as making a "valuable difference". It promised a meaningful review of statutory guidance for youth services. Only now in the last few breaths of parliament before summer recess has the statutory review started and a renewed impetus to support youth work begun in earnest.

On the day the new Prime Minister took office, the government tabled a parliamentary debate on the role and sufficiency of youth services. It has been a long time coming, surviving a ministerial change, and the political uncertainties and paralysis in many areas of government due to Brexit.

Much credit needs to be given to the tireless work of officials to keep the strategy rolling forward. However, we would not see half as much without the strength of cross-party support and vigilance of MPs in pursuing the agenda at every turn.

In the first comprehensive parliamentary report for the best part of a decade, led by NYA and published in April 2019, the all-party parliamentary group on youth affairs set out six key recommendations for youth work. Since picked up by government, we have witnessed funding for the renewal of youth work qualifications and the important first steps in workforce development, for a base-line of youth work provision in local areas.

To accelerate change, NYA is pressing for a national census of provision and a sector-led call for investment in the forthcoming government Spending Review.

Initiated by NYA's Youth Covenant, the government recently announced its plans for a youth charter as a substantive part of the Civil Society Strategy for a policy statement and commitment to young people - a compact with government and civil society.

Meanwhile, NYA joined forces with the Local Government Association to carry out the government consultation and review of statutory guidance for local authorities to ensure access to quality youth provision in the local area, due to report later in the year.

So for the verdict: great progress made late in the day. It's now time to keep a steady nerve and keep on going on, as we enter a period of fundamental change with a new government, potential general election and the Spending Review which will follow. As the new Prime Minister might say, "it's do or die" - but with the resilience of the youth sector, we can see it through.

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