Lisa Nandy questions return of youth policy to DfE

The Labour Party has pledged to return the youth portfolio to the Department for Education, but Lisa Nandy, its lead on youth services, has said that cuts to the department have affected its ability to meet the needs of children and young people.

Speaking at the Confederation of Heads of Youth Services (Chyps) annual convention in London, she said: “One of the problems with the DfE is that it has been so pared to the bone over the past few years, the capacity to do that has gone.”

Nandy said that whichever department has responsibility for the youth portfolio post-2015, it needs to have the “buy-in” of the Prime Minister in order for the policy to be effective.

She said: “I’ve learned quite a lot from [former minister for civil society] Nick Hurd and think you need the buy-in from the Prime Minister. You need leadership from the top.

“We need one place in government where there is a real focus on children and young people.

“Whether that’s in the DfE – what’s left of it – in 2015 or elsewhere, my preference would be a Cabinet-level job.”

Minister for civil society Rob Wilson said that the Cabinet Office is the “best home” for youth policy and hopes that it will remain in the department following the general election.

He said: “It’s still clear to me why youth policy moved from the DfE to Cabinet Office, because it fits with so much of what the Cabinet Office role is in terms of supporting young people, co-ordinating business across government, new models of offering public services, encouraging more citizenship – they are all things that I think work well with having youth policy within the department.

“I think that youth policy now has found the best home it could have in government and it’s found a department that is very innovative, very forward thinking, that wants to do things in new and different ways – and indeed has to do things in new and different ways in the financial environment we find ourselves in.”

Wilson also told Chyps members that he hopes to make a series of changes that will “drastically improve” youth services but said he is unable to make further comment until early 2015.