Policy & Practice: Soapbox - Poor budgeting has disrupted theConnexions service

The restructuring is not being determined by an assessment of what best suits the needs of young people in each area. The driver here is a questionable VAT ruling caught up in a budgeting issue that overnight has made one delivery model more expensive than another.

Let's be clear, this is a budget cut in the Connexions programme, made to finance Department for Education and Skills (DfES) initiatives. It wasn't a cut in the department's budget, it wasn't a result of the Gershon efficiency review and it wasn't because Connexions didn't need the money. It wasn't inevitable.

This is not a criticism of initiatives contained in the children bill, where the VAT money has gone. It is clear that it was the department's choice to make that programme cut in a way that damages some Connexions partnerships much more than others. In doing so, in an instant, it went back on a written promise to continue with VAT relief payments through to 2006. The promise was made in 2001, by a minister previously responsible for Connexions, Ivan Lewis, that there would be a level playing field for everyone contributing to Connexions. The DfES acknowledged the inequity in the VAT ruling affecting public and private sector providers and the problems that could cause.