When young people have their say

Today (Friday) is "Takeover Day", a government scheme to give young people the chance to work with adults for the day and be involved in decision-making.

Generally, work-experience can be really useful. But the difference with Takeover Day is that young people get the opportunity to shadow professionals in different fields and be directly involved in decisions that they ordinarily wouldn't get the opportunity to.

The range of organisations taking part is very impressive, including public sector, private companies, and charities.

Last year, this included schools, councils, MPs of all parties, government departments, the Rugby Football Union, the British Red Cross, Great Ormond Street Hospital, and the VandA Museum in London.

This year, we are hosting a dozen local young people at Brighton and Hove City Council for the day, including Erin, who is shadowing the Penny Thompson, the chief executive, and Iona, an aspiring journalist, who is shadowing me.

Between them, they will get to meet the Chamber of Commerce, key managers from within the council to learn about how we're doing things more efficiently, catch up with Peter Field, Lord Lieutenant of East Sussex, get involved with our planning for the week ahead, and meet the staff who support us to find out more about the work they do.

Young people benefit from the opportunity to experience the professional workplace and make their voices heard. They can often offer a fresh perspective on the way things are usually done, as we see from the valuable input of city's Youth Council representatives on our council committees.

We need to challenge the sense that our younger generation is excluded from politics and democracy.

I hope that through schemes like this, we can help break down barriers between generations and encourage young people to get more involved in their communities.