Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many youth service staff posts have been removed since 2010 and what assessment have they made of the affect of the reduced provision for young people.

It is the responsibility of local authorities to decide how to allocate funding for youth services and as part of this, youth service staff posts, according to local need. There is an existing statutory duty on local authorities through Education Act 2006 (Section 507B) to secure, as far as is practicable, sufficient services and activities to improve the wellbeing of young people. Individual local authorities would be best placed to advise on any changes there have been to the number of youth service staff posts in their local area.