Labour makes youth service pledge

Labour has marked a clear contrast with the coalition’s fervour for localism with a striking pledge to make youth services statutory in its next election manifesto. It announced the promise at a Unite conference last month. On the face of it, the move is likely to be welcomed by many youth workers whose services are among those to have suffered the brunt of the cuts.

“It is hard to blame councils, which are in the front line of the public spending squeeze, but that does nothing to protect the services on which young people depend and which have an important preventive role,” Labour’s shadow minister for young people, Karen Buck tells CYP Now.

“A statutory duty to provide youth services appropriate to each community won’t of itself solve the problem, of course, but it does send a strong signal of intent. A rigorous audit of local need and provision across statutory and voluntary sectors will help us rebuild the youth service.”

Buck says the party will develop a “framework” to allow councils to review their provision and show they are delivering effective services. This will draw on current efforts to determine how and what services should be delivered in the future, including the National Youth Agency’s “commission on sufficiency” and the work of the Department for Education-funded Catalyst consortium.

Buck insists that it will go beyond DfE guidance on sufficiency in youth services published in July, which simply calls on authorities to “do all that is reasonably practicable to secure a sufficient local offer for young people”. She says a statutory offer will address the “disturbing reality” that youth services are undergoing disproportionate cuts.