GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

are looking at to achieve when we have a Labour Government. Thank you.

(Applause)

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Cat, and thank you for coming this

afternoon. I know you have got a tight schedule. What we did forget to do

(continuity was not very good here) is to show the short film that we were going

to do before you spoke, so if you have got a few minutes we will show it now

and I wonder if Ade who has put together this film would like to say a few words

before we show it.

ADE MARSH: Ade Marsh, freelance photographer, film maker, active trade unionist

and I spent 20 years as a youth worker in Birmingham, so I appreciate

everything that Cat has just said and understood most of it. This film is a film I

made very recently. It is only about two minutes long. Hopefully it adds to what

Cat was saying.

Film played (Applause)

THE PRESIDENT: Cat has got to go soon, but she will take a couple of questions if

they are quite quick. So anybody who has got any points to make, make them

now.

SIS DEBORAH LAWSON (Voice): Deborah Lawson, General Secretary of Voice, the

union for education professionals. I welcome what you have got to say and I

think we all know that the decimation of the youth service has had unintended

consequences right across the piece. Not least for our members is that along

with many other things, other support services and agency cuts, it actually

means that schools are constantly being expected to pick up the pieces. I

worked for a local authority with the last Labour Government when there was

the extended Schools Programme and the Safe Place to Be and actually saw

the benefits that that brought to the whole community. However, that was cut

off in its prime with the Coalition Government. But I think as we go forward it is

perhaps more of a comment, but I would be interested to know your thoughts

that actually for the benefit of our young people, and you very clearly said that

youth work will be part of the informal education, what sort of synergy do you

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