Participation is too bland to be meaningful

"Have we consulted with young people" has become the repetitive mantra of the right-on manager and civil servant. It has become so repetitive that it has started to lose any meaning.

My remark was intentionally provocative. I wanted to stir people into thinking, or perhaps it would be fairer to say rethinking, precisely what is actually meant beneath the rhetoric. I think we need to be much clearer about why, what, how, when and with whom this mantra should apply.

The framework for me is clear and offers us a chance to think through the issues much more carefully. Rather than continue to use the rather tired phrase "participation" - which, on the one hand, has lost all meaning but, on the other, continues to be viewed as the answer to everything - let us make use of the term "youth voice". With that device, it is immediately obvious that while some young people do have a voice, through existing structures of participation, there are other young people who continue not to speak. We have to think about how we hear the voice of those already speaking and how we develop ways of hearing those who feel unable or remain reluctant to speak.