The proposals, already proving controversial in other areas of children’s services, would see authorities rated on the services they provide. But the youth work sector appears split over whether the idea is good for youth services.
Children’s minister Tim Loughton said tables similar to those monitoring outcomes for children in care would help "concentrate people’s minds" on why some authorities are doing well and others are not. He has outlined his desire to see a local audit of provision by young people over the quality of local youth services, which is likely to feature as part of the government’s imminent youth policy statement.
A Department for Education spokeswoman said local performance for young people is already measured with statistics on young people in education, employment or training, youth crime and teenage pregnancy, while league tables themselves will not feature in the policy paper.
But does the youth sector believe there is value in introducing league tables?
THE 'YES' CAMP
David Wright, chief executive of the Confederation of Heads of Young People’s Services (CHYPS), said any initiative that places attention on the strength of the local youth offer is to be welcomed.
But he has called for any league table system to have "rigour and structure". While backing the concept of young people auditing services, he said this must be coupled with independent oversight that can recreate positive aspects of Ofsted inspections of youth services, before they were scaled back.
A prospective institute for youth work would be a suitable body to provide this, he added.
"One of the real benefits Ofsted brought was the external rigour with no vested interest in who is delivering it," he said. "An institute would have the independence, once it is established, to try to provide that rigour, but it is still very much in the developmental stage," he said.
Wright said the scaling back of Ofsted inspections and reduced focus on targets has led to youth services becoming less of a priority for local authorities, something that league tables could address.
Fiona Blacke, chief executive of the National Youth Agency, agreed with putting a spotlight on authorities that are not providing adequate services, but said the structures are not in place to do so.
"We don’t have youth service inspections and, as attractive as the idea is, it will take a long time for young people to determine what they expect and assess what service is being delivered against that," she said. "Authorities need to prove they are fulfilling their duty, but the mechanism for doing that is very unclear."
Ellie Vesey-Thompson, a 17-year-old member of youth parliament for East Wiltshire, backs the concept of league tables and thinks it is important that audits by young people play a part.
"Adults and people in power can’t determine what is important to young people, so for them to be able to audit their own services is vital," she said. "A league table system will make sure there isn’t a postcode lottery-style of services around the country."
THE 'NO' CAMP
Linda Jack, who sits on the Liberal Democrat federal policy committee for education, and helped draw up the party’s youth policy paper, said league tables "don’t capture the whole story" and described them as a "blunt instrument".
"What worries me about league tables in youth services is that they force people to jump through hoops to meet certain criteria," she said.
This, she added, could lead to a situation where services could focus on the least troubled children if a measure such as outcomes is adopted at the expense of the most vulnerable children for whom it is more difficult to achieve results.
Jack favours the introduction of a "more robust inspection regime" and an emphasis on sharing best practice between authorities.
Spending per young person in each local authority could give an idea of local service provision, but concerns remain on what a good service should look like.
While the concept of young people auditing services appears to have strong support in the sector, there is no guarantee that young auditors will provide judgments that are suitable for comparison.
"There is an issue around defining what ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ looks like and there is no clarity around that," said Brian Willmore, head of integrated youth services at Croydon.
"The cuts are very painful at the moment and to impose what could be perceived as a judgment could be one step too far."
Marc Kidson, a 23-year-old trustee at the British Youth Council, said: "The questions that need to be asked are what criteria are to be used and what is to be done with the results? We need to avoid a situation where ‘under-performing’ services face closure rather than support and we need to avoid criteria that narrow the vision of what well-funded youth services can provide.
"It can be argued that the value of education has been reduced to the quantity of qualifications gained rather than the skills and experience from learning, so we would not want youth services to face similar trade-offs."
