To some extent there has been a long-standing concern in some traditions of youth work to keep young people off the street . However, Connexions goes well beyond this. The aim is to establish a national monitoring programme that tracks the activities of all young people. Updating this database is part of the core function of personal advisers. In the past, youth workers may, in some circumstances kept records on individual young people to inform agency practice.
Surveillance feeds into control.
The aim is to channel the behaviour of young people along certain lines, and fits in with other government policies around youth. Working to state-set targets. With the rise of the contract culture and the use of service-level agreements there has been a creeping imposition of state priorities and targets upon local groups and agencies. This is taken a step further in Connexions with the establishment of a range of targets for personal advisers and participating agencies to meet. Furthermore, if the experience of the careers companies is anything to go by, there is likely to be a great deal of phony practice, statistical manipulation and down-right lying in order that government income flows into the agency.