8. 6. Statement: The Future of Youth Work Delivery in Wales

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:32 pm on 4 April 2017.

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Photo of Alun Davies Alun Davies Labour 6:32, 4 April 2017

I think extending out the question was a better thing to do, actually, Hefin. [Laughter.] In terms of individual youth centres, the Member would not expect me to give any commitments for the funding of organisations that I’m unable to give. But let me say this: we have a changing landscape, as the Member points out, and I enjoyed the visit when I joined him in SYDIC last summer and saw the facilities available there and the services provided there. Those services are essential services, particularly being delivered in somewhere like Senghenydd, which is a community very similar to those communities that I represent in Blaenau Gwent, where we need to be able to reach out and reach beyond perhaps the traditional way of delivering services. Organisations such as SYDIC do a fantastic job in enabling us to do that, and that needs to be recognised within the landscape that he has described. When we come to taking decisions in terms of the overall extending entitlement, the strategy that we’ve described already this afternoon, those sorts of services have to be at its core and at its heart. I hope, and I’m sure, with Members such as Hefin standing up for those people, they will be at the core of how we take these things forward.