I am delighted to be with you this evening to help mark your 75^th anniversary.

The National Association of Clubs for Young People (NACYP) well deserves its reputation as one of UK’s leading voluntary youth organisations.

It’s a reputation based not just on the fact that you’ve been around for 75 years – and as Mike mentioned a lot has changed in that time.

But it’s also a reputation founded on the tremendous range of work that you do, the way that you do it and the number of young people you reach.

400,000 members in 2,500 clubs in the UK is quite some number. It’s even more impressive when you add the 23,000 adult volunteers who help to run the clubs and activities. I wonder how many people you’ve reached altogether in your 75 year history. It must be a staggering figure.

Well as the saying goes, size matters. But actually I think what’s just as important is the dynamic and inclusive way you run your programmes as well as the incredibly diverse range of activities you offer.

• Activities that are designed to appeal to young people’s sense of fun and adventure like the water sports holiday which 400 youngsters from across the country took part in this summer. Or the annual music festival which gives young people the chance to perform on stage in front of an audience – as well as benefiting from expert professional advice.

• Activities which build up skills that will help young people in adult life. Your training network, both for young people and volunteers, covers many useful issues.

• And activities which help young people gain self-esteem and confidence. Your Keystone Awards are a fantastic way of doing this by getting participants to think about their attitudes, responsibility and behaviour.

I’m sure you’re looking forward to hearing from the young people themselves later on this evening about what these activities mean to them – and hearing from some of them in song as well I think!

Mike has already talked a bit about how your valuable work takes you into the lives of some of the most vulnerable young people in some of the most disadvantaged areas of our country.

And in so doing you offer them a friendly face and the chance of fun or a challenge – and the chance of a better future.

‘Realising young people’s potential’ is a truly inspiring motto.

It’s also something which has motivated me throughout my career and been one of the driving forces that encouraged me to get into politics.

From my early days as a youth worker in Redcar to my current job in Government keeping tabs on the government’s social exclusion agenda, young people have been a major concern of mine.

Because we all know that disadvantages in early life can narrow the options for a young person in later life.

All young people have a right to build decent lives for themselves. But socially excluded youngsters start with burdens which can weigh on them throughout the rest of their lives.

The work of the Clubs is so effective because it pulls together a range of sporting, creative and training opportunities which add up to something really attractive for young people. It’s a great combination, drawing them off the streets and into your clubs.

Clearly you have understood that the best approach is the one which covers as many of the bases as possible.

In a nutshell, that’s where we are coming from as a government as well. It’s the only approach which makes sense. One-offs don’t work.

If we’re going to tackle social exclusion we have to tackle the root causes – and the links between them – in a co-ordinated way.

And this is certainly the case when it comes to young people. It is a sad truth that the seeds of lifelong exclusion are sown in childhood.

We want to create a society in which no child lives in poverty, where all children have the chance to realise their full potential.

That’s not just a pipe dream; it’s not just warm words. It’s an ambitious and wide-ranging strategy.

It means making sure that all children get a high-quality education and get support in the crucial pre-school years with initiatives like Sure Start.

It means combating family and child poverty with the Working Families Tax Credit and the National Minimum Wage.

It means tackling worklessness with the New Deal and improving the environment in which children grow up with the National Childcare Strategy.

What we want to do is make a difference to the life chances of the most vulnerable kids.

This year’s Spending Review announced a new Children’s Fund worth £450m over the next three years to help prevent children and young people falling into drug abuse, truancy, exclusion unemployment and crime.

Schemes funded will include mentoring, counselling and advice services, and parenting courses, as well as local community and voluntary groups.

In the past, at a national level, it has been the responsibility of no one Unit or Department to ensure the co-ordinated delivery of Government policies on young people at risk.

No cross-Government youth policy. No ‘Minister for Young People’.

No single point of contact within Government to speak, and listen, to young people.

We’ve failed to produce a coherent strategy for young people. This failure is unacceptable.

It has a direct impact: on the quality of help young people get, on the quality of their lives. And it is felt hardest by young people from disadvantaged communities.

Let down by public services, passed from pillar to post, many young people fall between the cracks and in the most extreme cases can end up drifting into homelessness, crime and long-term unemplyoment.

Clearly, this is unacceptable and it must change – a challenge for us all, at national and local level.

The new Unit for Children and Young People headed by Paul Boateng is spearheading this work in the Government. It will:

• Build a new alliance with the voluntary sector;
• Ensure better co-ordination of policies which prevent poverty and underachievement;
• Enjoy a dialogue with children, young people and their parents;

• Share good practice across different agencies about risk factors and how to prevent young people going ‘off-track’.

The new Youth Unit has a key role to play in establishing how different government departments can work best together. This is real progress, and it will have a real impact working alongside the other important initiatives which we have put in place to tackle exclusion – so many of which touch young people in particular.

Teenage pregnancy is being tackled; initiatives designed to cut truancy and exclusions from school are already having an impact; the numbers of people sleeping rough on the streets has fallen from 1,860 to 1,200 in two years; and we are determined to improve the options for 16 to 18 year olds who are currently not in education, training or employment.

Young people are central to all of these developments. They have to be.

What is crucial is that this challenge is taken up at all levels of Government, not just at the very centre.

Joining up government and the move towards better co-ordination in planning and delivering services for young people has to happen at a local level too.

We will only succeed by working in partnership with organisations like yours; and by listening to and being responsive to the needs of the vulnerable.

That means involving young people in the making of policy and in the delivery of services.

Only when we are doing this together, at all levels, will we be able to tackle the problems of vulnerable youngsters in our society, and give them the chance of a better life.