Editorial: Youth taskforce is a better way to get respect

In its place, and within the auspices of the Department for Children, Schools and Families, is a new Youth Taskforce. This takes on Respect's responsibility for preventing and tacking antisocial behaviour. Led by Anne Weinstock, formerly director of supporting children and young people at the DCSF, the unit also takes charge of driving forward the 10-year youth strategy's mission to provide young people with positive activities. Louise Casey - head of the now-disbanded taskforce and dubbed the government's "Respect tsar" - has been commissioned instead to lead a cross-departmental review on "how to best engage communities in the fight against crime."

This appears to be a sensible reshuffling and rebadging of responsibilities in Whitehall. The official line is that the commitments of the Respect Action Plan, which included setting up a national network of family intervention projects, "have been met". But let's face it, the Respect agenda has never held much respect among the range of professionals who work with children and young people. It has had a predisposition to view the young foremost as potential offenders instead of as potential achievers. The 10-year strategy aims to help them realise their potential with the emphasis on providing things to do and places to go.

It is right that the new youth taskforce deals both with driving forward positive activities and tackling antisocial behaviour. They must go hand in hand. Its standpoint is in line with Children's Secretary Ed Balls' stated philosophy of seeing "children in the whole". Moreover, it is crucial and right that policy regarding adolescent years has a dedicated strategy so as not to be in danger of being subsumed into an overarching birth-to-19 policy superstructure. The unit itself has been allocated a £20m-a-year budget over the next three years.

By the time you read this, the government will have published the eagerly awaited Comprehensive Spending Review. It's crucial that the balance of funding places proper emphasis upon providing opportunities and improving the life chances of today's disadvantaged adolescents so that they don't risk being written off. Respect, as they, say, goes both ways.