Having at last completed the lengthy process of translating from policyspeak to media soundbite its long-awaited children's plan - the product of a year long review of youth policy - the government must now start stage three: putting all this into action. But once this happens, how exactly will the plan affect the lives of children in the UK?
The children's plan potentially represents the broadest policy agenda for children and young people we have ever seen. Covering everything from child consumerism to the detail of the school day, at first glance it apparently lacks nothing ... except perhaps that elusive goal: a winning narrative.
It is typical of Brown that in sustaining the impressive reach and complexity of his agenda for children and young people, he has forgotten to package it as a simple sell to the public, leaving us all without a clear message about how he views "childhood". One would be forgiven for losing oneself in the nuances of his offer and missing what it all means. Nonethless Brown's detractors will find little in the substance of the plan to criticise.
Here we have new measures to improve children's health services, while child obesity and alcoholism will be subject to review. The extent of the immersion of British children in consumerism (an issue more popular with the public than advertisers would like to admit) will also receive dedicated attention from a new review group, as will the transition from primary to secondary school, parental engagement in education and the content and nature of primary education overall. These ideas go with the grain of academic and think tank research and will be well received.
In addition, there will be more subsidised nursery places for younger children and investment in better-trained staff for them. Interestingly the government will provide new supervised play areas in disadvantaged areas and Helsinki style children's parks, while older children and teenagers will be given improved facilities for after school activities. If ippr's research is right, these initiatives will make a huge different to youth and teenage life in Britain.
One legitimate criticism of the plan regards the other typical-Brownism evident here: the tendency to pass over responsibility for the most complicated issues to independent review groups. Review groups certainly have their place, but it will be interesting to see whether the groups launched by the plan - on child consumerism, primary curriculum, child alcoholism etc - will culminate in a new policy or merely new information. And educationalists might argue that we have still not cracked the code on how to engage parents in children's education - email contact, the setting of shared goals and incentives for parents as set out in the plan may not quite cut it.
There are two further problems with the agenda. The section on schools does not say enough about excluded students: in a forthcoming report ippr will argue that provision for these children needs radical overhaul. The most tricky and unpleasant children still deserve a proper education and pupil referral units don't work. And on antisocial behaviour the government should go further in its plans to reform asbos. We would like to see the new plans - to ensure all children are properly assessed before receiving orders - supplemented by measures to scale back the tenure of orders and ensure children are diverted to programmes and activities that would meaningfully prevent against the behaviour happening again. But these are small scale criticisms of an overall impressive agenda.
Will this plan change life for Britain's young people? If the government makes good on all these offers it just might, but that remains to be seen.
· Julia Margo is an associate director at the Institute for Public Policy Research and author of Freedom's Orphans
