In mid-May in The Independent, Polly Toynbee berated the Prime Minister for kowtowing to the media, the big press barons in particular, who were out to undermine his premiership. Toynbee said Blair should be broadcasting his commendable record on public services, with significant achievements on crime, health and education too often hidden behind the latest moral panic in the media.
Yet only a week or so later, the front page of The Guardian was exclusively given over to testimonies from heads, teachers and governors about the parlous state of school budgets. At least The Guardian acknowledged there had been considerable increases in school spending, but it was still not enough. We in youth work are already asking how we will really know the true level of expenditure by local authorities, despite proclamations that it has been put on a firmer footing. How can we be sure sufficient resources are really being allocated to, as Connexions PR would put it, giving every young person the best start in life?
I am involved in a cross-governmental committee concerned with developing standards for youth policy development in Europe. We want to know what the intentions of governments are, what indicators can be used to judge the range and depth of implementation, and how these need to be interpreted. These three "I"s clearly need to be based on a fourth: information.
Reliable information is hard to find. There is the usual political flag-waving about how much is being done and there is sometimes the wailing of others that there is neither the money nor the infrastructure for effective practice. More often, useful hard data is simply not available, though there are moves afoot to establish a European database to rectify this.
Meanwhile, however, politicians and the media play ping pong with the material that serves them best. It reminds me of the time when academics and charities were reaching a consensus that well over 100,000 young people aged 16 and 17 were not in education, training or employment. A government minister swore blind the number was no more than 144. If you torture numbers long enough they will confess to anything.
Information needs to be appropriate, available and accurate. It is a dreadful indictment of our modern world that children and young people end up as pawns in political and media games.
