Young people urged to stand up in cyberspace for their services

4 March 2011

Unite, the leading union for community and youth workers, is urging young people to speak from the heart about why the country's rapidly disappearing youth service must be saved.

The union wants young people to make every use of the opportunity presented by the education select committee's move to team up with the leading online student community, the Student Room, to launch an online consultation into the services they use.

The education select committee's newly launched online consultation comes as services for young people are disappearing fast in the face of deep public spending cuts. Throughout the UK, youth clubs and projects, young people's volunteering schemes and a wide-range of voluntary-led youth programmes are to close as councils race to shed the services they provide.

Unite has predicted that, so vast are the cuts, the service could disappear altogether in six months' time.

Doug Nicholls, Unite national officer for community and youth workers, said: “This is a chance for young people to have a say on the services that matter to them, but with councils already slashing funding to the youth service and closing youth clubs and centres, urgent action to stop these appalling cuts is needed now rather than later.

'We urge young people throughout the country to join the Student Room. This is your chance to speak from the heart about how much your youth club and youth worker matters to you.

“The government's latest pie-in-the-sky scheme, the National Citizen's Service, a summer programme for 16 year olds, comes at the expense of the 365-day a year youth service, as funding for the service is diverted to the new scheme.”

The consultation is part of the education select committee's ongoing inquiry into services for young people, which is due to report at the end of this month.

The committee wants to hear from young people aged 13 to 25 about what out-of-school activities they do; whether they volunteer; their views on a summer programme for 16 year olds and how they would spend the budget for young people in their area.

The site went live at 4pm on Wednesday 2 March and young people are encouraged to contribute at www.thestudentroom.co.uk/youthservices.

A survey by Unite Children & Young People Now magazine, conducted in January 2011, revealed that more than 25 per cent of youth services in England faced cuts of between 21 and 30 per cent.

A study of youth service chiefs – conducted by the Confederation of Heads of Young People's Services – estimated that local authority youth service budgets will be hit by £100 million of cuts by the end of March, which will threaten the jobs of 3,000 full-time youth work staff.

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