It is the extent to which the goodwill that has historically underpinned so much of youth work's "architecture" is being undermined by the requirements of a contract culture.
Work that is done by volunteers or by paid staff in "extra time added on" because they believe that work that is valuable is being quantified, given targets and has a price put upon it. Such mechanistic measurement does not sit easily in youth work and many activities that youth workers have traditionally undertaken in a spirit of goodwill become harder to justify when all the resources have to be quantified. International youth exchanges, expeditions, conferences and residentials can often be key turning points in young people's lives, but increasingly, these are the elements of youth work that are seen as too resource intensive and not sufficiently focused on the all important National Indicators.
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