Ministers scrap youth bonus card

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A plan to reward teenagers with "good behaviour cards" to spend on sport and leisure activities has been abandoned.

Under the scheme, young people in England were to have had credits of up to £25 a month to spend as they chose.

The Youth Opportunity Cards were launched by Chancellor Gordon Brown last March, as part of a plan to keep teenagers off the streets.

But ministers say a pilot scheme hit technological problems and revealed the costs would outweigh the benefits.

They spent £2m piloting the scheme with 10 local authorities but found it would not be cost-effective.

There was a need to develop new technology for it, which meant it would have been twice as expensive as planned.

"Considerable risks"

The announcement that the plan was being dropped came from Children's Minister, Beverley Hughes.

"Our conclusions are that the costs would far outweigh the money being provided to young people, considerable risks and uncertainties remain and there is no off-the-shelf solution or one that can be developed with certainty at the present time," she said.

"Therefore we do not believe that going ahead with the card at this point in time would provide value for money."

However, she said she was committed to finding other ways for young people to be given a "real say" over what was provided for them.

Under the plan, 13 to 19-year-olds would have received credits of between £12 and £25 a month to spend on activities they might not otherwise have had the chance to do.

Only those who stayed out of trouble would have benefited.

"Gimmicks"

Shadow home secretary David Davis said: "This failed project which has cost the taxpayers millions of pounds without providing a single benefit is a striking example of this government's sheer incapability to deliver IT-based projects on time, on budget and in working order.

"This is just one reason why the government should ditch their costly ID cards scheme which would do nothing to improve our security and will probably make it worse."

Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Sarah Teather said: "This government project didn't even make it out of the starting blocks.

"The government need to spend time and money getting tried and tested practices right instead of wasting money on gimmicks that never get off the ground."