The reply was the same to both questions: this information is not held centrally. In other words, no-one knows. That was in June 2002, and the situation is no different now. No department collects this information, so contacting all 32 local authorities in Scotland to ask what they spent on youth work with an aim of comparing it would be a fruitless task.
Sylvia Murray, policy manager at the children and young people team of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, says: "You have to compare apples with apples, but this would be like comparing apples, pears and oranges with the odd grape thrown in."
Scotland attempts comparison
YouthLink Scotland did run a mapping survey based on returns provided by all 32 of the local authorities in Scotland. Expenditure ranged from 31,500 in one authority to 5.8m in another.
Expressed as a proportion of their authority's total education budget, one youth service received a healthy 2.67 per cent, while another barely troubled the accountants with 0.18 per cent. But when YouthLink Scotland published its report, the sensitivities around comparisons were such that it "anonymised" the data, and didn't print authorities' names alongside their specific figures.
This lack of transparency does not worry Joan Fraser, interim chief executive of YouthLink Scotland. "Rather than make comparisons across local authorities that are not necessarily appropriate, a much more important question is whether young people feel they have the services they need or would like," she says.
It is more straightforward to make comparisons of funding in Wales. Each of the 22 local authorities has a statutory duty to ensure there are adequate facilities for youth work. They are supported by a direct grant from the Welsh Assembly Government.
John Rose, assistant chief executive of the Wales Youth Agency, says: "Linked into that is a range of funding streams, such as Communities First.
Some local authorities give youth services greater priority than others."
Welsh youth service budgets are not ring-fenced, but can be spent as local authorities see fit. Just how much that varies is clear from a glance at the official figures. The table opposite shows a low-spending Ceredigion at just 40 per young person, with Caerphilly at the other end of the spectrum on 190.
Ceredigion's chief youth officer, Rhydian Wilson, says that although its budget is "peanuts" compared with most of the UK, it is still considerably higher than it was just four years ago, when the authority advertised a head of youth service post at a salary of just 17,200. Wilson says at that time the service budget was a mere 89,000 a year: "You had absolutely nothing left after you'd paid for salaries and buildings." It is now over 300,000 and a principal youth officer post was recently advertised at 29,000-32,000.
Wales raises budgets
Ceredigion Youth Service is waiting to learn whether the newly appointed principal youth officer will have an increased budget to match the service's new status. Figures of up to 500,000 have been talked about, says Wilson.
He is convinced that improvements of recent years have come about because of consistent pressure from beneath, rather than any political edicts from the Welsh Assembly Government.
"Part-timers and face-to-face youth workers are the ones that can really influence policymakers," he says.
Caerphilly is at the top of the spending league for the principality.
Its 2.6 per cent of the total education spending is more than four times the rate of Ceredigion.
Steve Mason, principal community education officer at Caerphilly Borough Council, says: "At the time of local government reorganisation in 1996, Caerphilly had one full-time youth worker and a network of part-time provision. It now has 24 full-time youth workers and a diverse range of projects."
In Northern Ireland, money destined for youth services cannot be siphoned off elsewhere into other education spending, which is one of the main bones of contention elsewhere in the UK. The downside of this, says Gilbert Bell, head of youth service at the North Eastern Education and Library Board, is that when money is plentiful, perhaps from an underspend in schools, it cannot be passed on to the youth service.
But the biggest problem, according to Bell, is that year-on-year budget increases are not keeping pace with the increase in staff costs. "In many ways, the service is standing still," he says.
Other issues identified by Bell, who is also the current chair of the interboard youth panel, include building and equipment maintenance, for which he sees a backlog across the board.
The problems identified by Bell were echoed throughout a Best Value review published last month by the Northern Ireland Education and Library Boards.
But the document did express some satisfaction at the achievement of the service. It serves the largest age range of any in the UK - from four- to 25-year-olds - and is proud of its participation rate.
The report made comparisons with six selected English local authorities of similar urban and rural mix. The English authorities had an average participation rate of 17 per cent; the boards report an average of more than a third. Though the report's authors do, of course, issue a health warning about the dangers of comparing apples with other types of fruit.
LOCAL EDUCATION AUTHORITY YOUTH SERVICE SPENDING IN WALES 2000-04 Unitary authority 13-19 Youth service Youth service population spending spending 2000-01 2001-02 Blaenau Gwent 6,600 281,000 487,000 Bridgend 11,600 1,089,000 1,201,000 Caerphilly 16,000 1,639,000 1,774,000 Cardiff 30,900 3,466,000 4,626,582 Carmarthenshire 15,600 827,000 1,201,000 Ceredigion 7,600 220,000 380,000 Conwy 9,200 975,000 886,000 Denbighshire 8,300 402,000 886,000 Flintshire 13,400 1,252,000 1,457,000 Gwynedd 10,200 1,125,000 1,300,000 Merthyr Tydfil 5,500 617,000 802,000 Monmouthshire 7,500 973,000 974,000 Neath Port Talbot 12,200 417,000 981,000 Newport 13,500 921,000 1,609,000 Pembrokeshire 9,900 568,000 916,000 Powys 10,700 1,057,000 1,127,219 Rhondda Cynon Taf 21,800 1,597,000 2,657,000 Swansea 21,000 2,000,000 2,223,000 Torfaen 8,600 428,000 953,000 Vale of Glamorgan 11,400 699,000 1,002,000 Wrexham 11,500 1,751,000 1,707,000 Ynys Mon 5,800 348,000 489,000 Total 268,800 22,652,000 29,638,801
Unitary Youth service Youth service Budget per Youth authority budget budget head 13-19 service 2002-03 2003-04 2003-04 as % of educaton spending 2003-04 Blaenau Gwent 544,000 662,000 100 1.4% Bridgend 2,381,000 1,706,000 147 2.1% Caerphilly 2,285,000 3,036,495 190 2.6% Cardiff 5,139,000 3,460,911 112 1.8% Carmarthen- shire 1,345,000 1,787,696 115 1.5% Ceredigion 298,000 303,791 40 0.6% Conwy 1,091,000 1,591,800 173 2.4% Denbighshire 964,000 870,000 105 1.5% Flintshire 1,425,000 1,760,000 131 2.0% Gwynedd 1,436,000 1,547,000 152 2.1% Merthyr Tydfil 620,966 924,674 168 2.2% Monmouth- shire 936,000 869,000 116 1.8% Neath Port Talbot 934,064 1,238,000 101 1.4% Newport 811,000 844,195 63 0.9% Pembroke- shire 1,058,000 1,187,703 120 1.5% Powys 1,277,245 1,888,564 177 2.2% Rhondda Cynon Taf 2,441,108 4,013,779 184 2.4% Swansea 3,652,000 2,510,000 120 1.8% Torfaen 952,000 1,036,000 120 1.6% Vale of Glamorgan 1,300,764 1,490,000 131 1.9% Wrexham 2,422,300 1,259,800 110 1.8% Ynys Mon 446,000 514,530 89 1.2% Total 33,759,447 34,501,938 n/a n/a Note: Figures are based on data supplied by the Wales Youth Agency and include running expenses of residential and non-residential youth centres, including all staff costs. They also include the costs of development work and development workers and advisers/youth leaders not based in youth centres.
NORTHERN IRELAND YOUTH SERVICE EXPENDITURE FROM 2001-04 Education and Recurrent Capital Recurrent library board expenditure expenditure expenditure 2001-02 2001-02 2002-03 Belfast 3,619,362 840,969 4,133,081 North Eastern 2,998,449 416,261 3,316,565 South Eastern 3,059,040 115,656 3,360,015 Southern 3,292,398 163,147 3,278,770 Western 2,971,100 121,588 3,335,527 Total 15,940,349 1,657,621 17,423,958
Education and Capital Recurrent library board expenditure expenditure 2002-03 2003-04 Belfast 197,276 not available North Eastern 351,813 3,874,512 South Eastern 867,253 3,528,916 Southern 353,169 3,596,323 Western 213,645 3,367,126 Total 1,983,156 n/a
Education and Capital Spend per head library board expenditure 4 to 25 2003-04 2001-02 Belfast not available 39.57 North Eastern 165,048 24.89 South Eastern 110,485 26.37 Southern 144,415 28.55 Western 379,565 30.32 Total n/a n/a Note: The above figures are contained in the Northern Ireland Education and Library Boards' Best Value report. It is advisable to treat the financial figures with some caution, because of the difficulties of comparing like with like.
