Building stronger links for youth empowerment

Hello fellow MSYPs,

I strongly believe that the Scottish Youth Parliament has to help young people build links from council level to Westminster level.

The Scottish Youth Parliament over the past few years has managed to build up a strong relationship with the Scottish Parliament and the parties within it. This is an ongoing process which has to be improved on all the time and something that I am strongly committed to but in these difficult times we need to build up stronger links elsewhere.

In this blog article I would like to look the relationship between Aberdeenshire Youth Council and Aberdeenshire Council as an example of how councils and young people can work together successfully ensuring that young people have the chance to shape council policy. The Aberdeenshire Youth Council has places on the Aberdeenshire Council committees that have importance to young people. This means that when decisions and recommendations are being made at committee level young people are in attendance ensuring they have a meaningful input.

I think that all MSYPs and Youth Councils would benefit from this set up if it was set up in all 32 local authorities. It would also help implement SYP manifesto policies. For example, the Scottish Government have given local authorities the right to raise the age of buying alcohol in off sales if they wish. The SYP should and will continue to lobby the Scottish Government to reverse this policy but wouldn't it be good in the short term to lobby local councils asking them not to enforce their new right? This would help MSYPs and Youth Councillors across the country do just that.

I would like to work with MSYPs to write up an agreement, using the Aberdeen Youth Council set up as an example, that would ask local councils to allow their local youth councils and/or MSYPs to sit on committees that have importance to young people. Once the agreement has been written up we should use our strong relationship with Holyrood to ask the Scottish Government and other parties to endorse the document. If Aberdeenshire Council and other councils can do this I don't see why others wouldn't if we push hard enough. Together as a Youth Parliament we should try and achieve this.

Local issues are very important to me, but we also need a strong lobby over the UK Government if we are going to defend Scotland's young people from as many cuts as possible. That is why I believe that the SYP needs to rebuild it's relationship with the UK Youth Parliament (UKYP), which has a good relationship with the UK Government, to ensure that we have access to UK Ministers which would allow us to lobby them on youth issues. In my opinion it is very important that we join up with young people across the UK to create a stronger voice for young people against damaging cuts that young people face but to also encourage good policies that will help young people.

We don't have this kind of relationship at the moment but I see it as a top priority and something that I will push for strongly if you elect me as the SYP Chair. I attended a meeting in Leeds with UKYP where we discussed what benefit Scottish young people would get out of the SYP being involved with UKYP again. I am not going to say that they offer a perfect deal but what I can say is that they really want to work hard to reach an agreement and see Scotland become involved with UKYP again. I agree that we should be involved and confident that if elected as Chair the SYP will be re-involved with UKYP before the end of this year. It is a big challenge but one that I believe is achievable. The relationship between the SYP and UKYP has not been great for around 3 years now but UKYP is now being run by BYC who have a different approach towards Scotland and the other smaller Nations within the UK. That is why I believe now is the right time to become involved again.

I hope you will back up these plans by voting for me on Sunday. It is of great importance to me and something that I believe will help move the SYP onto the next level.

Vote Austin Sheridan for Chair & Trustee of the SYP

Austin Sheridan for Chair: Number 1

Austin Sheridan for Trustee: Number 1

If you have any questions or suggestions for my campaign for SYP Chair please email me at: austin.sheridan.msyp@sypmail.org.uk I would be happy to hear from you.

Austin.