A TOP ranking Blackburn Labour councillor has pointed the way forward for youth services in Britain into the new millennium.

Coun Bill Taylor, the deputy leader and education chairman of Blackburn with Darwen Council and the head of the Youth Service in the Ribble Valley painted a picture of radical change in a speech he gave to a national conference in London.

He told delegates the days of the "issue obsessed, self possessed, self employed" youth worker are numbered and demanded "action not interia."

Coun Taylor added: "The Youth Service has come of age and it must grow up. The next millennium is less than ten weeks away.

"The Government expects new things from councils, local education authorities and schools, and the Youth Service cannot expect exemption from this change.

"We must act engage in urgent dialogue with the Government and act as consuls, heroes and champions for those young people in the greatest need who would benefit the most from our work.

"Young people are our future but they also have the right to their present. Anything designed for young people that is framed and shaped by adults in concept, purpose, process or timescale will neither be attractive, relevant or successful. It will fail."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.