"A year after the launch of Youth Matters: Next Steps, it is still a work in progress rather than the finished article," Tom Wylie, chief executive of The National Youth Agency, told delegates at Young People Now's Youth Matters In Practice conference last week.
One part of the Youth Matters agenda that is still very much in progress is the move of local authorities towards commissioning rather than direct delivery of services. Youth minister Beverley Hughes is particularly keen to promote this. "Local authorities' role is changing; they should be standing shoulder to shoulder with the people they are serving and drawing from wherever the best services they can - they should not be saying 'our primary objective is to keep as much in-house as possible'," she said at the conference. "Commissioning is becoming increasingly established in some youth services, but it is a step some local authorities are yet to take."
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