The election caused us to say goodbye - for the time being at least - to several youth sector notables, including schools minister Stephen Twigg, youth work champion Oona King, shadow education minister Tim Collins and Liberal Democrat youth spokesman Matthew Green (see p5).
Claire Ward, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Youth Affairs, had to fight tooth and nail to retain her seat in Watford, as did Liberal Democrat and previously the youngest MP in the House of Commons, Sarah Teather, in Brent East.
In Wealden, shadow youth minister Charles Hendry has one of the safest Tory seats in the country and was never in any danger. But education minister Ruth Kelly narrowly retained her Bolton West seat, as did youth minister Margaret Hodge in Barking - although she will have been dismayed to see the BNP registering almost 5,000 votes in her constituency.
Given Hodge's statement last week that she is looking "very closely" at the possibility of youth work being put on a firm statutory footing (YPN, 4-10 May, p2), it will be interesting to see what happens now the election is in the bag.
If statutory services were to be implemented, it would represent a sharp change in direction compared with the proposals in the draft version of the youth green paper seen by Young People Now earlier this year (YPN, 16-22 March, p8).
My understanding is that the issue has flitted in and out of the proposed green paper over the past few months, only to be withdrawn by lawyers - but its proponents may have won the day.
Some say local authorities do as they like whether services are statutory or not. But if a finance officer defines statutory services, the authorities don't tend to worry about what the services are - they just know they have to deliver them. Becoming statutory gives youth work that extra credibility.
There will still be horse-trading, but the key lies in the definition of a statutory service. It has to be a definition that is flexible enough to be relevant to young people in the future, not one just laid down in law that can't be changed. The Secretary of State must have the power to refine the definition.
- Steve Barrett, editor, Young People Now.
