Is the DYS Meeting Needs of Majority Youth Population?

To make the Ministry of Youth and Sports more efficient with its limited budget, ministers Daly and Mahler might need to downsize staff, given that ninety-five percent of the annual budget goes to salaries. An initial assessment of the Department of Youth Services raised several questions about the effectiveness of their programs. Daly shared more insights into this matter.

 

Devin Daly, Minister of State, Ministry of Youth

“It is about a hundred and twenty something staff. But over the years there has been a lot of displacement of staff. What we have been understanding is that whenever as staff is maybe transferred or moved and that position is not filled then it displaces the staff below them. So, what we have been doing, in the past week and a half, Minister Mahler and the CEO, we have been meeting with the directors and CO to really understand what is the work that DYS does, because I think it was a grey area for the public too. So, we have been canvassing and finding out what is the data to support the work that you have been doing and having them assess themselves. Do you think this is working? Do you think this is touching the fourteen to twenty-nine age group which translates to two hundred and eighty, almost three hundred thousand out of our population? So, changes will come, and I know sometimes in our culture we can be hesitant to change. But we are not here to displace anybody who is here doing there work. And we are not in these departments everyday. So this exercise is being led by the directors.”

 

Paul Lopez

“So are we looking at, with consultations from the directors, to declare some posts redundant for greater efficiency?”

 

Devin Daly

“We are still going over every position. There will be some changes, but we are trying to work with the staff that has been there. Overall what we want is a booming youth department.”