Around 1,000 young people will take part in a day of action against cuts to their services today, culminating in a silent disco outside the Houses of Parliament, as Unite finds government spending on youth is 28p per young person per day.
Choose Youth, an alliance of over 30 national organisations affiliated to the youth sector set up to protect youth services in the face of government cuts, has organised the rally with Unite the Union. Starting from 11.30 this morning participants will take part in a range of activities from banner-making to campaign and lobbying workshops. The grand finale to proceedings will be a silent disco from 3pm taking place in Old Palace Yard, opposite the House of Lords.
Speakers at the event will include Stephen Twigg, shadow minister for education, and Unite General Secretary Len McClusky.
Cuts to youth services
Unite the Union announced today that spending on young people has fallen to just 28p per young person per day. The figure is the conclusion of a Freedom of Information inquiry into 430 English and Welsh councils, and Unite predicts that 20 per cent of the countries' youth centres may close in the next year.
The report found "vastly differing approaches to how councils trim their youth services", creating a postcode lottery for young people. Norfolk, Somerset and Lancashire County Councils and Oxfordshire and Birmingham were highlighted as implementing the harshest of cuts for youth services.
McCluskey said: "Youth services are a soft target for cash-strapped councils. Councils gamble that the problems caused by pulling youth support now won't be seen for years. But as this summer's riots and the near one million young people on the dole show, the day of reckoning may well dawn sooner than expected.
"Young people are fed up by being short-changed. They are bearing the burden of austerity while this government imposes an absurd plan to replace a high-calibre, low-cost, professional youth service with an amateur service limping along on handouts. This is not governing for the people, it is neglect."
A Commons Select Committee report found that spending on youth services in England and Wales was £350m in 2009/10. The Education Committee said last week that the figure left the sector tight for funds, and warned of tougher times ahead:
"We disagree with the minister (Tim Loughton MP) that spending of £350m per year - equating to around £77 per young person aged 13 to 19 - on youth services in England equates to 'large slugs of public money'.
"On the contrary, we congratulate the sector for its long-standing dexterity in making limited resources go a long way and for continuing to support young people despite reliance on a patchwork of different funds.
"However, in the tight financial settlement, services will need to redouble their efforts to leverage in other sources of funding, including making better use of philanthropic and charitable funds and private sector investment. Our evidence suggested that many smaller services found it hard to access such sources: we recommend that the government and local authorities take positive action to support them by brokering partnerships with alternative funders," the report stated.
The government subsequently "dismissed" the figures from the committee, despite them being based on the government's own figures.
Choose Youth launched its manifesto after the threat to the modern young people's services system, which was created 50 years ago, was identified. Some 7,000 professionally qualified staff, 30,000 trained youth support workers and half a million volunteers work in British youth services but the campaign warns that nearly every project working with 13 to 18-year-olds is under risk.
