Hurd hails young generation at CYP Now Awards but says some youth services are 'ok to lose'
Derren Hayes
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Civil society minister Nick Hurd has said some local authority youth services closed in recent years because they were not good enough.
Speaking at the CYP Now Awards last night (Wednesday), the minister said one of his "biggest challenges" was to look at how local authorities are delivering youth services.
He said: "Of course they have been lost in lots of areas. And sometimes what is being lost, it's ok to lose, because it was cr*p. But in other areas it's not, because these extra-curricular activities, these opportunities for young people to develop and be challenged and work with fantastic youth workers is incredibly important."
Hurd added that the Cabinet Office was committed to helping local authorities decide how best to deliver youth services.
He said: "What we're going to do is to map what's going around in the country and work with partners, work with local authorities, to say ‘how can we help you meet your statutory duty', ‘how can we develop new models', because there is some brilliant work going on around the country.
"Sitting in the middle, that's what we are going to try and do - to pull this together, to work with local authorities to try and preserve what's worth preserving and try to encourage even better practice in helping young people access those kind of opportunities."
In a wide ranging and well-received speech, Hurd said he had personally persuaded Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude to sanction the move of the youth portfolio to his department from the Department for Education.
"I felt it needed some fresh energy, because I thought it was really important that it actually sat at the heart of government, where the Cabinet Office sits," he added.
He described the role of the Cabinet Office as to "pull people together" and to "pick up stuff that falls through the cracks".
One such issue, he said, was the shortage of play opportunties. "Some of you are passionate, like I am, about young people having the chance to play. Some of you think that's slipped off the agenda.
"I've made funding available for youth but I want to advocate for that as well. Stuff that's slipped between the cracks I can pick up."
Hurd also praised young people, with the current generation having the potential to be "most socially responsible and entrepreneurial generation this country has produced for a very long time".
He added: "I stand in awe sometimes of what I am presented with and compare what I was at 16 to 17 and think wow… this is an incredible generation. And the other thing is, there are so many people out there who know how difficult and complex and challenging the environment they are growing up in is and want to help."
There was also a rallying call for children's professionals and society to "connect young people with their power to make a difference and the importance of their voice being heard". Without young people becoming more engaged with the political process "priorities of old people and we cannot let that happen", he added.
To read the full transcript of Nick Hurd's Awards speech click here