Last night I was delighted to be able to attend the leaving party of Prestwich Area Youth Manager, James Perkin.

James became Prestwich Youth service manager 2 years ago and along with the rest of the Prestwich team has done tremendous work in the area, developing youth projects, reinvigorating the Phoenix centre and engaging young people on the issues that matter to them.

At last night leaving party, the greatest testament to his work over the past two years was the tributes paid by the young people themselves, especially the members of the band formed from the live music project that has been created at the Phoenix centre. They performed a number of songs, some well known, some self penned – including a special composition “James’s Song” , written in his honour.

It was a great night, I said a few words, but the best words came from the young people themselves.

What struck me though, and I said this to those there, was how vulnerable our front line services are. Over reliant on 1 or 2 people in an area each day to effectively try and deliver a service. People if asked might think there were 100′s of youth workers, 100′s of police officers. Yet the reality is that we are reliant on a small handful of highly committed, dedicated public servants.

As such it brought home to me again last night how fragile and vulnerable the youth service currently is, with the Tory threats of “outsourcing” or privatising the service hanging over it.

What the Conservative administration failed to realise (or perhaps they planned it that way), was by announcing their proposals they have threatened the very existence of the youth service – before they can even outsource it.