Commission on Youth reveals scope of its year-long inquiry
Neil Puffett
Friday, August 17, 2012
Young people's relationship with the authorities, family structures, and participation will be the focus of the year-long Commission on Youth, it has emerged.
Launched in April by the National Council for Voluntary Youth Services (NCVYS) and think-tank Respublica, the commission is tasked with creating a broader understanding of the causes behind last summer’s riots.
After settling on the topics it will cover, the commission has now made a call for submissions of evidence, data, case studies, written articles and commentary.
The commission’s findings will then form the basis of a policy green paper, with recommendations being made to government in each of the three main subject areas.
Faiza Khan, deputy chief executive at NCVYS, said the tranche of work on young people’s relationship with the authorities will include an analysis of the education system.
“It will look at where education fits in with a young person’s life, and how it prepares them for interaction with other social institutions,” she said.
Meanwhile the strand on family structure and community support will assess how important a good support system is in looking for employment, and how families can influence aspiration.
Work on young people’s engagement and participation will assess how politicians can reach out to young people, and how young people can be engaged as active citizens.
“We will use all the evidence to develop a green paper and put forward some solutions in these areas," Khan said. “There has been a fair bit of analysis, some of it good, but we are trying to look at it in a bit more depth."
Details of the commission membership shows that it will feature a number of high-profile political figures including Paul Oginsky, adviser to children’s minister Tim Loughton, Tory MP David Burrowes, and Shaun Bailey, a special adviser to Number 10 on youth and crime.
