Some in the audience wondered whether this was deliberate provocation, or an indication that youth work has fallen off the ministerial agenda.
Hodge didn't improve things when a participant questioned her omission of youth work. She tartly rebuked him for continuing to work "in a silo" - the current buzz phrase in Whitehall for the opposite of joined-up working.
Further bemusement came when she repeated the need to put children and young people at the centre. Youth workers are, by instinct and training, committed to putting young people at the centre. They have been doing it for decades in the face of official neglect. So it seems perverse for a minister to continue to marginalise them while repeating her newly adopted slogan.
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