The leaders of 25 charities working with young people have called upon the Secretary of State for Education to urgently clarify remarks he made advising the government would delegate responsibility for youth policy to local authorities.
NCVYS, the Scout Association, National Youth Agency (NYA) and vInspired are among the charities who wrote to Michael Gove yesterday pleading for the government to retain control over youth policy.
"We need central government to ensure that all aspects of policy - be they health, education, employment, criminal justice and community engagement - articulate coherently a framework that ensures a strong and seamless mesh of support in the often difficult transition between childhood and adulthood," they say.
The letter is in response to comments made while Gove was giving evidence to the Education Select Committee on 23 January:
"We believe that youth policy is a priority for local government and not central government,” he said.
“We believe that the emphasis that the last government, for example, put on the co-ordination of access-to-play spaces, is a matter that would be better left to local government, than co-ordinated by central government.”
The group claim Gove's comments indicate a "major reversal in policy" one year after the publication of the Positive for Youth report pledging cross-governmental support to young people.
Disproportionate cuts
The latest statistical release from the Department for Education on local authority expenditure shows a cut of more than £300m to youth services for 2011/12 - 26 per cent of total expenditure in this area.
The letter claims that disproportionate cuts to youth services would be directly attributed by many to "a lack of policy directive from central government".
Commenting yesterday on the data, released on 24 January, NYA chief executive Fiona Blacke said: “Local authorities are key in securing a local offer to young people. In partnership with other organisations, they are striving to ensure that young people can access the important services they require.
"However this data also reveals that if councils are left to make their own decisions, the result is a postcode lottery. It is therefore crucial that the government does not relinquish its role in ensuring that services are adequately funded.”
Blacke's comments on a "postcode lottery" are echoed within the joint letter which ends: "We urge you not to take the unconscionable action of consigning overarching youth policy to the inconsistencies that often arise as a consequence of local decision-making."
Susanne Rauprich, chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Youth Services, said: "Following our letter to the Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove, we are now awaiting a response from his office.
"In the meantime NCVYS will continue working with the youth sector to increase the number of organisations signing up to support our concerns expressed in the letter. We know young people that our members work with are just as troubled with the Secretary of State’s comments, and will look to facilitate their voice on this matter.”
