YES - Tom Wylie, chief executive, National Youth Agency
I think it would be valuable for the Government to publish the Section 52 returns on youth and community spending. We have published data based on the budgets of principal youth officers, and it would be interesting to see if these figures differ from the returns of council treasurers.
Some Section 52 returns are likely to be higher than the actual budgets that PYOs say they have to spend, because the treasurers add on corporate re-charges or a proportion of the authority's debt charges. Perhaps some of these add-ons are justified but, in the interests of transparency, the figures should be published.
A key issue, however, is that there must be more clarity on the definitions of spending so that we don't have different councils counting different things. It's also important to stress that high spending is not the only indicator of quality services.
YES - Ian Comfort, principal youth officer, Kensington and Chelsea
I would support the publishing of councils' spending figures. The NYA has been providing that information for a number of years, trying to tease out the true picture on spending.
But there are a number of caveats to Government publication of data, most notably the different approach local authorities take on how they calculate their youth services budgets. For example, some will include central re-charges, such as legal services.
Another difficulty is that the youth and community budget in the education spending formula covers things other than youth work, such as some adult education services and education maintenance grants. It would be necessary to unpack some of these issues from the youth work aspect.
An account needs to be taken of other circumstances that affect what councils spend. For instance, we have the highest property prices in the UK, so that leasing buildings for service provision can be very expensive.
We also have to pay London allowances to staff.
NO - Graham Lane, chair, LGA education executive
The main problem is that published figures often do not reflect the true spending picture and are not comparing like with like. Aspects of youth services in an authority can be shared by different agencies. For example, work in youth parliaments or student councils may not appear.
There's a danger in such league tables that councils don't always understand the forms they're filling in, as was seen in the schools figures.
The issue is not necessarily how much a particular local authority spends on its services but what the quality of those services is, and that's where Ofsted comes in. I believe the way forward is that local government should have the aspiration of spending at least two per cent of the education budget on young people's services.
YES - David Curtis, head of education, Audit Commission
This is a complex issue that deserves more attention. Of course, all local government spending should be reported as clearly as possible to local people in a way that is understandable.
It should be linked to what local councils have achieved and hope to achieve themselves and when working with others, including voluntary organisations. Only then can local people engage in constructive discussion about how well councils are doing and what they might do differently given their local circumstances and local needs.
The Government already allocates money to councils in a youth and community block. Councils in turn are required to complete an expenditure return that sets out their expenditure on youth service and the Connexions service.
But it's also about what use councils make of the money. It's important that they retain their freedom to make choices based on local needs. But they need to be accountable. The challenge for councils is to make information available to their community public arenas in a way that helps discussions.
