NUMBERS GAME: Youth work staff levels

Almost 12 months ago, the Government launched its Resourcing Excellent Youth Services blueprint to level up the quality of youth services throughout England and bring all services up to standard. This went with an extra 54m in funding and measures to force local authorities to spend the money they were allocated on youth services.

Part of the pledge was a National Youth Agency document of standards for youth work provision that the Government wanted youth services to work towards. One standard was for there to be a full-time nationally qualified youth worker for every 400 young people aged 13 to 19.

The Community and Youth Workers' Union says insufficient progress is being made. It has analysed NYA data and calculated that an extra 3,966 full-time JNC-qualified youth workers need to be appointed throughout England. It says only 19 local authorities for which data is available meet this ratio. This means that in areas such as Kent, which has one worker for every 1,190 13- to 19-year-olds, an additional 233 full-time JNC-qualified workers need to be employed.

Doug Nicholls, general secretary of the union, says: "Local authorities should do what the Government and the profession want, which is to employ the extra youth workers to comply with the targets."