Governments Youth review.

This is a rather belated post, but necessary nontheless. I would have posted this lat week, but i couldn't be bothered.

Last week, last Thursday to be precise, the Government launched their new Youth Review. The Governmet are to be applauded for this, as it representes a clear step foreward, a step in the right direction with the Government taking into account many of the recomendations of Youth charities, such as 4Children who have been key in the process.

Before Beverley Hughes made the announcment in Parliament last Thursday the PM had a load of Kids over to No 10 to talk about the review and general childrens matters. I was at this, it was very good, we were sat at the cabinet table and everything, and had a good talk with the PM, Ed Balls, Ed Miliband and Hughes. All were very responsive and keen to hear what we had to say.

In addition to this, yesterday i and several others who had gone to the thing at No 10 went along to chat with the Childrens commissioner for England, the interview will be on BBC Breakfast on Saturday. 6 of us say around talking to the childrens commisioner, which was good and from his interview afterwards for the BBC cameras it seemed that he took on board much of what was said.

The Governments Youth review is good, and they are to be rightly applauded for it. However, there is still much to be done. For example, the Government had pledged to build a youth centre in every ares ( a rather vauge term, what is an area? a constituency, town...?), i understand this term area is supposed to mean in every constituency. This isn't anywhere near enough. There needs to be a youth centre in every ward, considering that a constituency is very big, averaging around 50,000-60,000 of which aprox. a third to a half will be kids, this is not neaarly enough, furthermore the timescale is too large, with the Government pledging to have this done in the next 10 years. This could be done easily in the next 2-3 years.

I know that my aim of a youth centre in almost every ward is unrealistic at the moment, that doesn't me that we shouldn't have that as our final goal. In inner city areas it is vital that there are sufficient serivces avalable for the youth in peoples locality. I am not saying that we should have a youth centre in every countryside ward, but i think we should have one in every city ward, meaning that kids have acess to the services and support necessary, as youth centres not only give kids something to do, they also offer support.

So, the Government needs to shorten the timescale, along with building more. I understand that practicality may make much of what i would like to see impossible at the moment, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try, if we aim high then we will acheive higher than if we aim low.

This feeling that we are doing alot, but this isn't enough is a feeling shared by many. Even by ministers, with a certian minister i have spoken to saying that he thinks that the what the Government is doing is good, but not enough. This senior Brownite is a good bloke, and i hope that he presses this with Brown and forces it into the manefesto so it can become key government policy.