Editorial: Young people in care deserve better policy

But recommendations by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) this week on looked-after children have more authority than most (see page 5). It was the Blairite thinktank that first came up with the idea of the child trust fund, now government policy. Now the IPPR is calling for all looked-after young people to be given an "asset account" that they can access before they are 18.This, it says, would develop young people's life skills and help them with the transition to independent living.

Giving money to young people to access opportunities as they see fit certainly links in with current government youth policies such as the youth opportunity card, and the IPPR suggests that one of the effects of such an account would be to improve looked-after young people's access to out-of-school activities and after-school clubs. It may, however, attract some of the same censure as the opportunity card, which was criticised for emphasising access to leisure facilities over youth work support.