There are approximately 5 mln of those. The objectives of Youth Service include helping to get more experience through outdoor pursuits, encouraging educational and work exchanges overseas and increasing participation in cultural activities. Youth service has a history of more than 100 years. It was preceeded by Boy Scouts, Girl Clubs and the Young Men’s Christial association, which comes in contact with more tham 750.000 people. There is a comprehensive system of youth clubs and ‘drop-in’ centres, which provide counselling and careers advice alongside with leasure activities; they are strategically located in the inner city areas, where the rate of unemployment is high. Most provide activities such as camping, mountain walking, canouing, sailing and skiing. They also arrange ‘expedition courses’ lasting for 8,12 or 20 days; many young people are usefully involved in various National Trust schemes (dry stone-walling, woodland and footpath construction or botanical surveying)

Many young people use some of their spare time to earn money by working in shops or garages at weekends, delivering newspapers, or doing jobs such as gardening, decorating or car washing for people in their neighbourhood..

A number of services support young people seeking special information or counselling: high street information shops – where subjects dealt with may include AIDS, health issues, sports , education, sex, job prospects, interview techniques, training courses, etc. A number of youth workers undertake special ‘detached’ work. They are based at some LEA but work from premises such as pubs, cafes and launerettes; they are better placed to meet and help young people with particular problems.

One can legally: at 16 leave school, ride a motorbike, buy cigarettes, get married (with parental consent); at 17 drive a car; at 18 buy alcohol, vote and get married.

Question: What is Relate Centre and what’s its function? Watch http://www.relate.org.uk/relationship-help/help-children-and-young-people/children-and-young-peoples-counselling and sum up.

Older People in Britain.

10 million people in the UK are over 65 years old. The latest projections are for 5½ million more elderly people in 20 years time and the number will have nearly doubled to around 19 million by 2050.

Within this total, the number of very old people grows even faster. There are currently three million people aged more than 80 years and this is projected to almost double by 2030 and reach eight million by 2050. While one-in-six of the UK population is currently aged 65 and over, by 2050 one in-four will be.

The pensioner population is expected to rise despite the increase in the women’s state pension age to 65 between 2010 and 2020 and the increase for both men and women from 65 to 68 between 2024 and 2046. In 2008 there were 3.2 people of working age for every person of pensionable age. This ratio is projected to fall to 2.8 by 2033.

Much of today’s public spending on benefits is focused on elderly people. 65% of Department for Work and Pensions benefit expenditure goes to those over working age, equivalent to £100 billion in 2010/11 or one-seventh of public expenditure. Continuing to provide state benefits and pensions at today’s average would mean additional spending of £10 billion a year for every additional one million people over working age.

Growing numbers of elderly people also have an impact on the NHS, where average spending for retired households is nearly double that for non-retired households. The Department of Health estimates that the average cost of providing hospital and community health services for a person aged 85 years or more is around three times greater than for a person aged 65 to 74 years.

State benefits and the NHS accounted for just under half of government expenditure in 2009/10. With much of this spending directed at elderly people, their growing number will present challenges for providers of these particular services as well as for the public finances as a whole.

Life expectancy at birth is an average of 74 for men and 79 for women. The main strategies as regards care for older people: