In the battle to get young people to the ballot box it is important that the left does not forget that voting alone is not enough. Austerity has radically shrunk the size of our public services, and it is increasingly the case that community and religious groups and small charities are having to come together to take over the libraries and youth centres left empty by the Scottish National party and the Tories’ squeezing of council budgets.
In the same way that it is sensible to want to be represented by politicians with a range of different lived experiences, it is also right that community groups are empowered to encourage age diversity, particularly at a time when they are taking on many of the responsibilities of local government.
Power in the third sector is not held proportionately to the make-up of society: less than one per cent of charity trustees are aged between 16 and 25. Research conducted for the ‘A Breath of Fresh Air’ report by the Charity Commission reveals a lack of expertise in the third sector on how to recruit and retain young people, and sheds light on young people’s perceptions that trustee roles are time-consuming and not as rewarding as other forms of volunteering.
But young people bring unique experiences to the decision-making table. This generation has grown up in the white heat of a communications revolution that has fundamentally changed the process of growing up in ways that older decision-makers may not always fully comprehend. This experience at a strategic level is invaluable in ensuring that public services are proactive in reaching out to all age demographics.
Building services that can serve and reflect the whole of society will require a drastic realignment of where power is held, something which a Labour party still in power in councils across the country can seek to achieve. In the third sector, councils are increasingly becoming seen as resources for training and support; simple initiatives like running courses on young people’s recruitment and retention to leadership and trustee roles in community groups and charities could make a big difference to how these groups approach youth empowerment. And, although we are not in government nationally, we can still make a tangible difference to how decisions affecting young people are made by giving them a seat at tables to which we are no longer invited.
As a party we also need to look at how representative our decision-making structures are of young people. Only one space on the National Executive Committee is reserved for a young person representing the views and experiences of tens of thousands under-25s within the Labour party. We have led the way on getting young councillors elected and including young people in policy making through the National Policy Forum, but the party must always ensure it promotes youth empowerment.
The conversation about young people in decision-making and politics has been focused for too long almost exclusively on increasing turnout at elections. In a world where the politicians at local and national level have ceded some or all of their influence on service delivery to the third sector it is crucial that Labour has a more comprehensive approach to youth policy and how young people are included in decision-making if it means to be anything more than tokenistic.
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Sam Foulder-Hughes is a member of Progress. He tweets @Sam_FH
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