RPA has not paid attention to youth service provision - Parsley

12.01.00am GMT Fri 2nd Dec 2005

Young Alliance Chair Ian James Parsley has said the Review of Public Administration has ignored calls for youth service provision to be devolved to local level.

The North Down Councillor stated: "The Review team appears to have paid little attention to the specifics of provision for young people in Northern Ireland. It is not good enough simply to lump youth service in with a single education body at regional level.

"Education is about much more than what happens in school. Young people have access to information from a range of sources that the previous generation could only have dreamed about. The result is more information, but also more confusion.

"Youth service provision is something that can only be provided at community level, and it requires the involvement of community leaders, most obviously elected politicians. Yet the Review of Public Administration suggests distancing this provision still further, to a single regional board which, should the Assembly not be restored quickly, will be answerable only to bureaucrats.

"No one can have failed to notice the sense of distance young people have from politics and political influencers today. This is hardly surprising if the politicians they encounter are powerless to provide the range of educational and leisure facilities necessary and appropriate for them.

"I will continue to press for youth service provision to be placed closer to the people who actually need it - overseen by elected community leaders who are genuinely accountable and able, both in terms of local competence and local knowledge, to achieve results."

ENDS