ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to design a model for statutory support for the youth service. The statutory basis for the youth service has always been precarious, consisting of the requirement in the 1944 Education Act for local authorities to provide adequate facilities for young people in their leisure time. Despite political observations that local authorities are required to make some sort of informal provision for young people, the youth service as remains seriously at risk. Left to local authority determination, resource levels for the youth service are subject to enormous variation, meaning that young people in one area may have some excellent provision while elsewhere they are starved of it. Youth work involvement would indicate that young people’s interests would still have a major stake in the exercise, but other specific social goals would also be included.
