A 70 per cent cut in council spending on services for young people has dramatically changed how local youth work is delivered; the standard model has been replaced with a patchwork of different approaches with, for example, some councils providing just targeted provision while others contract out delivery to not-for-profit mutuals.
The fall in funding has been the key driver behind the reduction in youth provision since 2010, but another factor is that youth services are governed by weak statutory guidance that requires councils to provide “sufficient” services “so far as is reasonably practicable”.
It is against this backdrop that the National Youth Agency (NYA) has produced recommendations on how to revitalise the role of youth services and address the thorny issue of what sufficient provision looks like. Its Role and Sufficiency of Youth Servicesguidance comes at a time when young people’s support needs are set to grow as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and link to a 10-year sector strategy (see box).
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