CYP Now - Commissioner for Wales is up to the challenge

It was an "exceedingly drawn-out" appointments process, according to one Welsh politician. But Keith Towler came through the interviews, both with young people and politicians, to secure the position of children's commissioner for Wales, just under a year after the untimely death of his predecessor Peter Clarke.

The appointment was announced by Jane Hutt, the Welsh Assembly's education minister and an Assembly minister since its start. Hutt, unlike many politicians, can spot someone with knowledge, experience, a sense of independence and a reputation for integrity. She also had the courage to appoint one.

Towler has a background in youth work, youth justice and children's rights. In 1992, he was one of the "ministerial appointments" to the original management board of the Wales Youth Agency. He was a member, then chair of the agency's Advisory Council for Youth Work in Wales. During that time he worked for Nacro Cymru and pioneered the idea of preventing youth offending through extending entitlement - building on the Extending Entitlement youth policy of the then new Welsh Assembly Government. Indeed, Towler was a member of the experts' group that injected the ideas for that youth policy model.

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