The government has detailed a range of measures designed to tempt young people into helping their community and away from anti-social behaviour.
Announcing the consultation, children's minister Beverley Hughes said the government would support councils piloting 'opportunity cards' to get more young people involved in positive activities.
The cards would provide discounts on a range of activities and could be used to give young people who volunteer rewards. They would be withdrawn from teenagers who commit crimes.
Young people in each local authority would also be given control over a share of up to £30,000 to be spent on local projects that young people want.
Government response: Beverly Hughes, Hazel Blears and Richard Caborn
Children's minister Beverley Hughes said: “We want to give teenagers more of a say about what services are provided for them using government money. Teenagers tell us that they want a better choice over ‘things to do and places to go’ and that they want services better tailored to their needs. Youth Matters sets out how we will build on the Every Child Matters Green Paper to do that. It will put power in the hands of teenagers up and down the country – allowing them to decide how money can be spent.
“Our proposals recognise that having more for young people to do in their local area is a key issue for teenagers and for their parents – and also for local communities. We also know that engaging in the right kind of activities in their spare time can make a big difference to young people’s prospects – it can increase their motivation, improve their health and help them develop new skills.
“But this package also focuses squarely on the responsibilities teenagers have as members of a community. Thousands of young people are doing well in school or college and playing a part in society through volunteering. We want to celebrate that. By empowering teenagers we afford them respect – but society can reasonably expect respect in return and we need to provide young people with the right mixture of support and challenge. For example, the new opportunity cards will mean teenagers can access a wider range of activities – but where young people engage in unacceptable or anti-social behaviour, the card would be suspended or withdrawn.”
Announcing measures to encourage more teenagers to volunteer, Home Office minister for active citizenship Hazel Blears said: "I am delighted to confirm that the Home Office is creating an independent body to implement a new national framework for youth action and engagement in line with the Russell Commission Report recommendations. Today's action to expand opportunities for peer mentoring through the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation and the extension of the Young Volunteer Challenge until March 2006 will help more young people get involved. This package of measures will provide real opportunities and incentives to young people to make a difference."
Richard Caborn, minister for sport, said: “Youth Matters is a great opportunity for everyone concerned with providing activities and opportunities for young people to join forces so all young people have the places to go and things to do that they want.
“Having access to high quality sporting and cultural opportunities is crucial to this and can make a real difference to the lives of young people. This is why we have ensured they are an important part of the proposed national standards. Youth Matters will help to reinforce our plans for the Olympic and Paralympic games in 2012. The games will provide a catalyst to draw young people into a diverse range of sports, volunteering and cultural activities. They will encourage participation and inspire young people onto excellence. Let’s hope that many of today's teenagers will be 2012 medal winners."
Opposition response: Liberal Democrats
Liberal Democrat education spokesman Edward Davey said it was positive that "ministers are talking positively about young people rather than continually attacking them".
"This change of tone is welcome, but there are glaring weaknesses in these ideas," he said.
"It is unclear how the impartiality of careers advice will be guaranteed if schools and colleges directly commission advice, and confusion continues over the relationship between children's trusts and local authorities.
"By treating advice for apprenticeships and work based learning so differently from other education advice, ministers are making the academic and vocational divide even worse.
"Coming after the rejection of 14-19 curriculum reform this green paper suggests ministers are still wedded to education for the best and skills for the rest."
Stakeholder response: SHA
SHA welcomes the government’s move to tackle disaffection among youth, announced in today’s youth green paper, but stresses that careers guidance must play a key role in the strategy.
SHA general secretary Dr John Dunford said: “If young people are to have a more positive attitude to life and greater responsibility in their community, they need a sense of direction and purpose. Therefore schools and colleges must have access to an effective careers service to ensure that students are going in the right direction.
There has been too much variety in the quality of the universal careers service which Connexions is supposed to provide. Many schools have reported deterioration in the extent of careers provision in recent years. The Connexions service also has given greater priority to disadvantaged and disaffected students.
Schools and colleges need to be given the resources to buy in the best available careers advice and I welcome the statement in the green paper that this will be possible, especially where the local service is poor.
Stakeholder response: The Prince’s Trust
Martina Milburn, chief executive of The Prince's Trust, said: "With over one million young people not in education, employment or training, The Prince's Trust welcomes the Government's Green Paper on youth and the recognition that opportunities for young people are central. We welcome the emphasis on empowering young people, particularly those who are left out and left behind.
The importance of qualifications is vital and our research shows that young people and employers put a high value on them. The Trust offers opportunities across its programmes for young people to learn new skills and gain qualifications.
The importance of young people volunteering and giving back to their community is something The Trust strongly advocates and last year alone we enabled over 10,000 young people to give back to their local communities. The proposals for more mentoring are also key. With The Trust having offered mentoring to young people for over twenty years we look forward to sharing our experience in this field.
Overall it is important to recognise that young people in the poorest areas often have the fewest opportunities. We welcome the broad focus on improving opportunities for all young people, but we must not allow those in areas of greatest need to be left behind."
Stakeholder response: ATL
Commenting on the publication of the Youth Matters Green Paper, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) said:
"ATL welcomes improved opportunities for young people but expects local authorities to take the lead role, with no extra demands made upon teachers.
"ATL also hopes that careers and guidance resources will be put in place which support curriculum developments and establish collaborative partnerships 14 -19."
Stakeholder response: Local Government Association
Local government leaders welcomed today's youth green paper giving teenagers the same rights as children to services, but challenged government to also meet the costs of a good service.
The Youth Matters Green Paper offers support and leisure services with real opportunities for local young people to shape their local service, it incorporates a progressive shift in government thinking towards devolving decision making to local people.
Cllr James Kempton, who chaired at this morning’s Local Government Association Children and Young People Board, said: "The Green Paper rightly recognises the central role councils play in securing the provision of better support for young people, and that it is consistent with the vision for youth services presented by the LGA and the National Youth Agency in Hear by Right. We also welcome the emphasis on the positive contribution young people want to make, and on engaging young people in designing the services and shaping the decisions that affect them."
The board's lead member on youth issues, Cllr Les Lawrence, called for greater clarity over who will manage and lead on the careers services: "The successful delivery of young people’s services depends on all partners and stakeholders working together, under one common plan, to ensure positive outcomes for young people. The council’s role in these arrangements, co-ordinating and managing services is fundamental, what other organisation can join up such a wide range of services, providers and have a legitimate mandate for doing so? Schools and colleges should not be able to opt out of these arrangements."
But he questioned the need for yet another statutory duty to be imposed on them and expressed frustration at the lack of finance to carry it out, warning that placing a duty on councils was unnecessary and problematic. He suggested instead that government guidance was a better solution.
Early reaction to funding levels from within councils was characterised by disappointment and contrast against the welcome levels of investment in the children’s service. The £20 million per annum for capital projects in the Green Paper represents less than £50,000 per council if divided by the councils in England. Les Lawrence said: “Typically, £50,000 is a quarter of what it would cost just to replace the windows on a school – this is not sufficient to establish the infrastructure for a good youth service.”
The LGA also expressed concern that a three tier system could emerge for young people with councils, schools and colleagues all providing different careers advice. Speaking on the future of the Connexions service Cllr Lawrence said: “Local authorities rather than schools are the natural home for Connexions. Support services for teens who are not involved in education, training or employment should be more closely aligned with other services for vulnerable children and young people in Children and Young People’s Trusts. The career’s element of the service is widely regarded by schools, employers, colleges and others to have deteriorated – and arguably becomes even more important as the 14-19 curriculum becomes more complicated. Presenting these services to schools would be wrong because it would lose scale and economy, jeopardise partiality of advice and fail to help disengaged teens.”
The board also expressed its hope that clear policy links and real financial commitment would be forthcoming from all those government departments with a responsibility to deliver for young people including the Home office, Department of Health, Department of Transport and Department Culture Media and Sport.
Stakeholder Response: Equal Opportunities Commission
Jenny Watson, acting chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission, said: “We are delighted the government has acted on the Equal Opportunities Commission's recommendation for all young people to be provided with careers advice. This will stop young people moving on autopilot into careers that do not realise their full potential and should mean that no child has their ambition for the future restricted because of other people’s prejudice and bias.
"EOC research earlier this year proved that young people's attitudes are way ahead of society's assumptions. We found that 8 in 10 girls and more than half of boys would be interested in a non-traditional job. Yet when they come to put that interest into practice, barriers get in their way. Only one percent of construction workers, for example, are female.
“The Green paper will help the government and education sector work together to make sure that the advice and help given to young people setting out on their careers has a real impact on dismantling the segregation between men and women, which still exists in the workplace.”
Details of the EOC’s report, ‘Free to choose: Tackling gender barriers to better jobs’ can be found at the following URL:
http://www.eoc.org.uk/cseng/policyandcampaigns/occseg.asp
Stakeholder response: ACPO
The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) welcomes the publication of the Youth Green Paper: “Youth Matters”.
In particular the police service welcomes the thrust for earlier identification of those children, young people and their families who may be at greatest risk and the proposals for greater integration of service provision to enable a more coherent multi-agency approach to be adopted. It is often those children, young people and their families who are at greatest risk who turn to crime and anti-social behaviour and the explicit call for earlier intervention and prevention across all agencies can only be beneficial.
The police service has signed up to a comprehensive youth strategy that covers:
· Engaging children and young people.
· Children and young people as victims and witnesses.
· Pre-crime prevention: helping those in need.
· Post crime reduction: effective youth justice.
· Deterrence and detection: serious and prolific offenders.
· Human Resource Development: towards a qualified workforce.
Police forces across the country are undertaking a range of innovative work with their partners to work with young people and their families to prevent, deter and reduce youth crime.
ACPO have been working closely with Government on the Youth Green Paper and will be keen to ensure that the work of the police service with children, young people and their families is fully integrated at the local level and that the police are fully involved in decision making on resourcing and determining local priorities. ACPO will also be working closely with Government and its partners to ensure that any new funding or support recognises the role the police have in this area of early involvement and prevention.
Charles Clark, chair of the ACPO Youth Issues Group and deputy chief constable, Essex Police, said:
“The Youth Green Paper is welcomed as it seeks to bring greater integration of services for children and young people at the local level. From the police perspective the focus on prevention and the recognition that some children, young people and their families may need targeted support and that this will involve all agencies, can only be beneficial. It does not help to have multiple visits to the same family to ostensibly deal with the same problem. The new proposals provide an opportunity for more constructive intervention into the lives of children and young people at greatest risk of turning to crime or anti-social behaviour and in doing so improve the lives of the communities in which they live.”
