Minister is kicking youth policy into the long grass

Two decades ago, the concept of youth policy was hardly on the map. Of course, there were policies for young people across the public sector. This was most obvious in the fields of education and training, health and criminal justice, and social care; and less visible in housing and in social security. It may not always have been active nor positive, but over the course of time all countries in the UK have had a youth policy – by intent, default or neglect. Now, seemingly, according to Education Secretary Michael Gove, England does not, or should not: youth policy should be a matter for local authorities.

Youth policy is hard to define, although it concerns clearly more than youth work. It can be envisioned as all those policies specifically directed at young people and those elements of other policies that affect the lives of young people, either intentionally or because a youth dimension is conspicuous only by its absence. It became apparent during the 1970s and 1980s that there were often inherent and absurd contradictions between different policies, as young people were prioritised by one policy domain (for example, criminal justice) but neglected or abandoned by another (for example, social security). The aspirations of the former policy were unlikely to be realised unless they dovetailed into wider policy measures. It was this thinking – captured later in the Blairite mantra that “joined-up problems require joined-up solutions” – that produced attempts to break down policy silos and to construct a more integrated policy framework to support young people in their increasingly complex and challenging transitions to adulthood. Some of this would be generic and universal, and some targeted at the issues experienced or caused by troubled and troublesome youth.

Consistency and quality
The purpose of the national framework was to ensure consistency and quality in the delivery of the services that flowed from the policy objectives. Of course there was recognition that some flexibility would be needed at a more local level, in response to variations in local need and demand within a constellation of somewhat different issues. But the intention behind forging a cross-sectoral youth policy framework at national level – from the Connexions strategy more than a decade ago to Positive for Youth – was to try to ensure an equitable offer for young people wherever they live and to avoid the unfairness of too much local variation.

If we could be sure that local variation was genuinely the outcome of a careful evaluation of differential need, over and above the guarantee of a basic youth “offer”, then few would quibble with Gove’s assertion. But local government in England does not work like that, as has been seen quite clearly by the decimation of (non-statutory) youth services. Anything that is discretionary becomes a postcode lottery.

Without doubt, across Europe, different policy instruments have to be used (both sticks and carrots) to effect transmission and translation of central youth policy objectives to ground level. But there is a broad consensus that a country should provide a central vision for the future of its young people, built on both pragmatism and aspiration, for the shaping of its human capital and for democratic and generational renewal. Gove’s perspective is disingenuous, a convenient way of shifting the blame onto local authorities for the narrowing and weakening of services for young people. As one sharp commentator caustically observed in response to Gove’s comments, perhaps local government is in fact Gove’s code for “long grass”, into which youth policy can be tactically kicked out of sight.

Howard Williamson is professor of European youth policy at the University of Glamorgan