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Big society could hit small charities hard

    Opinion
  • Wednesday, September 1, 2010
  • | CYP Now
Will small and medium-sized youth charities be among the biggest losers of the coalition government? It seems an odd question to ask given the now youth minister Tim Loughton's comments before the election that he would make it a personal priority to find new ways of supporting the voluntary youth sector.

Shhh... Every Child Matters lives on

    Opinion
  • Monday, August 9, 2010
  • | CYP Now
Watch out, the language police are about. An internal Department for Education memo lists 30 terms the government wants consigned to history, and the words that should be used in their place. Many relate directly to children's services.

Hidden costs of payment-by-results

    Opinion
  • Monday, July 5, 2010
  • | CYP Now
We are in an age of austerity where outcomes are critical. So it is difficult to take issue in raw principle with the government's desire to commission more public services on a payment-by-results basis.

Keep a young hand on purse strings

    Opinion
  • Wednesday, June 30, 2010
  • | CYP Now
An impressive 2.5 million young people benefited from the youth opportunity and youth capital funds between 2006 and 2009, according to data compiled by the previous government.

Today's youth is vital to big society

    Opinion
  • Monday, June 28, 2010
  • | CYP Now
Conventional wisdom might hold that youth participation -- any work that gives young people a voice and involves them in shaping services -- is near the front of the queue for cuts in our age of austerity.

Can good services remain standing?

    Opinion
  • Monday, June 21, 2010
  • | CYP Now
Like the suffocating drone of vuvuzelas, cuts continue to dominate the atmosphere in the children's services arena and in public services more generally.

Protect the youth opportunity fund

    Opinion
  • Monday, June 14, 2010
  • | CYP Now
As CYP Now predicted last week, the Department for Education has removed the ringfence around the remaining 40.8m of the youth opportunity fund. The ringfence guaranteed that money went to local grant-making youth panels to spend on projects requested by local young people.

Less money, but much more purpose

    Opinion
  • Friday, June 4, 2010
  • | CYP Now
The Association of Directors of Children's Services' (ADCS) policy paper, which outlines some priorities to Education Secretary Michael Gove, is compelling and constructive in how the sector can do more with less while meeting government objectives.

Yell out about youth work's success

    Opinion
  • Friday, May 28, 2010
  • | CYP Now
The New Labour years were hardly characterised by profligacy in spending on young people's services. It was generally only the most deprived areas that received more than 100 a head to spend on providing youth services.

Sector must influence the coalition

    Opinion
  • Monday, May 17, 2010
  • | CYP Now
They say that a week is a long time in politics. Quite. As predicted in these pages for many months, the new Tory Secretary of State Michael Gove has renamed the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) as the Department for Education.

Election result prolongs uncertainty

    Opinion
  • Monday, May 10, 2010
  • | CYP Now
At the time of writing -- on the historically uncertain afternoon of Friday 7 May -- the Conservatives were about to enter into negotiations with the Liberal Democrats about helping them to form a government.

Every Child Matters faces biggest test

    Opinion
  • Monday, April 19, 2010
  • | CYP Now
The Association of Directors of Children's Services (ADCS) pledged, in its annual report last week, to assess and build on the progress of Every Child Matters (ECM) for the next five years, as a policy priority for the coming 12 months. It is a good priority to hold, particularly given the uncertainty ahead.

Tories must go beyond citizen service

    Opinion
  • Monday, April 12, 2010
  • | CYP Now
The Conservatives scored a PR coup in securing such a luminary as Michael Caine to launch their flagship youth policy, the National Citizen Service (NCS), to the electorate last week. Party leader David Cameron cited Gandhi - "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others" - among a flurry of uplifting soundbites to unveil the summer youth scheme for school leavers.

Gove gives joint working a rude jolt

    Opinion
  • Tuesday, April 6, 2010
  • | CYP Now
Michael Gove's revelation to CYP Now that a Conservative government will remove obligations on local authorities to have children's trusts in place will come as a thunderbolt for children's services, particularly in their efforts to safeguard children and enable them to thrive.

Offer young people real work opportunities

    Opinion
  • Thursday, April 1, 2010
  • | CYP Now
The latest figures show there are almost 900,000 16- to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training (Neet). Yet young people face many challenges in taking up the formal opportunities that do exist.

A robust case for early intervention

    Opinion
  • Monday, March 29, 2010
  • | CYP Now
Among the flurry of government announcements to come out in the dying days of this Parliament, last week's long-awaited early intervention paper is the most important.

Youth work should be in the limelight

    Opinion
  • Tuesday, March 23, 2010
  • | CYP Now
The Benefits of Youth Work initiative, targeted at local decision-makers and purse-string holders to persuade them of youth work's value, is sorely needed.

Neet strategy is not fit for purpose

    Opinion
  • Monday, March 8, 2010
  • | CYP Now
At last week's Generation Neet debate, CYP Now aimed boldly to identify "how to solve the problem of young people not in education, employment of training (Neet)" via a panel of politicians, experts and young people. Of course, we didn't actually solve the problem.

Funding resolution needs consensus

    Opinion
  • Friday, February 19, 2010
  • | CYP Now
The youth worker strike in Coventry is likely to be followed by further walkouts if other councils go ahead with their proposed youth service cuts.

Outstanding challenge for Ofsted

    Opinion
  • Monday, February 1, 2010
  • | CYP Now
Ofsted-bashing has been on the rise for several months. Cries of exasperation over the way the children's services inspectorate goes about its business have come in fits and starts from all quarters.

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