GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

loneliness and mental ill health and soaring levels of knife crime. It is not just

me saying this. Tory peer and Olympian Sebastian Coe recently described the

correlation as “bloody obvious”, yet this Government refuses to listen and

continues to spend billions on funding the consequences whilst doing little to

tackle the root causes. But Labour is committed to rebuilding the Youth service

and putting forward a bold vision for youth work that is fit for the modern age,

one that brings together fragmented services, celebrates diversity of provision

and can respond to the unique challenges facing young people today.

Ultimately, we want to build a nation for young people where they feel safe and

secure, they are treated fairly, supported in the present and ambitious for their

future.

Over the last year I have been refining our policy offer following various

meetings and round tables with stakeholders, visits, as well as the consultation

by the Labour Party Policy Commission. It has been a valuable process and

whilst the outcome is still being developed, I am delighted to share with you

some of the initial findings and some of the initial conclusions. A major flaw in

the current system is the lack of statutory protections for youth work. The last

Labour Government attempted to strengthen the legislation by placing a duty

on local authorities to secure sufficient access to positive activities for young

people. However, because there is no legal definition of what access to

provision should look like, this is open to interpretation and can be ignored by

local authorities when they are faced with the significant Tory cuts. So, as a

result, accessing youth services has become a postcode lottery for young

people and there is no accountability or strategy to ensure that that is not the

case.

We believe this statutory obligation must be strengthened, which is why a

future Labour Government will introduce new legislation that clearly defines a

base level of sufficiency to reflect every young person’s right to access high

quality youth work and provision and to hold their local council and local

partnership arrangements to account for the provision in each area. All key

elements of youth provision will be specified in a national charter for youth work

that is underpinned by law.

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