Loughton considers league tables for youth services
Neil Puffett
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
League tables for youth services could be introduced to help decide when government intervention is necessary, children's minister Tim Loughton has said.
Speaking at the Confederation of Heads of Young People’s Service (CHYPS) annual convention in Birmingham today (8 November), Loughton said he did not want to outline specific examples of when he believes intervention should occur.
Instead he suggested that performance tables could be created similar to those monitoring the outcomes of children in care.
"It really concentrates people’s minds on why some areas are doing well and others are not," he said.
"If you can produce some sort of criteria for where young people’s services are scored by young people themselves, I am all for seeing where they are doing well and asking questions where they are really not doing well."
The government has been coming under increasing pressure to intervene with local authorities that are failing to provide an adequate level of youth services as a result of service cuts.
The suggestion of league tables for youth services comes after Loughton reaffirmed plans for young people to audit youth services, ahead of the expected publication of the government’s youth policy later this month.
Speaking at the CHYPS convention, Loughton also suggested that the term Neet (not in education, employment or training) is set to be dropped by government in favour of another, more positive term.
He said one early idea is to replace the term with Greet (getting ready for education, employment or training) to "send out a positive message".
"We are very keen to replace [the term] Neet," Loughton said.