The National Youth Agency: Comment - An opportunity wasted

With so much positive on display about youth work, what a crying shame that our minister Beverley Hughes was treated so shabbily. Here is a member of the Government who has shown herself both interested and receptive to ideas from the youth work field. But she was given the impression that we cared not one jot for all the positive elements in Youth Matters and were only interested in giving her a rough time over the opportunity card.

Conference chair, the admirable Alex Thomson from Channel 4 News, allowed his journalistic nose for "a story" to overcome other instincts and, perhaps unwittingly, stirred things up even more. The minister's session ended in a hubbub and she left, clearly disconcerted and denied even a polite round of applause. Whatever the conversation was in the car and subsequently at the Department for Education and Skills, I doubt whether it was about how constructive those youth workers are.