Unite slams youth minister as policy paper sounds the death knell
for young people’s services
19 December 2011
The modern youth service is set to vanish completely, as the
government’s so-called ‘Positive for Youth’ policy paper fails to
deliver the safeguards needed to protect the service, predicts
Unite.
Commenting on the paper, published today by children’s minister,
Tim Loughton, (Monday, 20 December), Unite, the country’s biggest
union, said that the government has failed to protect
council-funded youth services from crushing cuts which have been
tearing the youth service apart.
Unite has repeatedly warned that the government needs to do much
more to protect the future of the country’s modern youth service,
but its calls for ring-fenced funding and stronger statutory
protection has fallen on deaf ears.
Across the country, councils are taking an axe to their youth
services – the very youth clubs and projects that have been cited
by the prime minister as examples of excellence are being lost -
with spending on young people falling to a paltry 28p per day; less
than the price of a Mars bar.
£200 million worth of cuts will have been made to youth
services by April 2012, and the jobs of at least 3,000 youth
workers will go, threatening the vital services that help young
people find jobs and educational opportunities.
With a generation of young people facing a future of economic
hopelessness, the tripling of tuition fees, loss of the Education
Maintenance Allowance and spiralling unemployment the government’s
so-called positive for youth agenda needed to deliver proper
investment and statutory protection to ensure that the youth
service can tackle the challenges facing young people today.
Sally Kosky, Unite national officer, said: “Young people are
paying a heavy price for a crisis not of their making and this
government is doing too little to protect them. This paper sounds
like the death knell for the modern youth service.
“Unite believes that a society that is ‘positive for youth’
invests in the future of young people. Instead, we have a
government which is prepared to turn a blind eye and let councils
abandon their youth services altogether.
“It is simply mind-boggling that, despite, emerging government
research which cites the closure of youth clubs as a factor in this
summer’s riots, the government’s proposals rule out providing
ring-fenced budgets for youth services.
“Since taking office the government has done all it can to
alienate young people and has shown time and again that far from
being positive for youth it is negative for young people”.
ENDS
For more information please contact Chantal Chegrinec, Unite
press office on 07774 146 777
