Meddling quango throws in the towel - Shock.

From The BBC:

A multi-million pound project to reduce pregnancies among youngsters deemed at risk has been abandoned after research showed it was not cutting conceptions. The £5.9m Young People's Development Programme (YPDP) offered support and advice to disadvantaged teenagers in 27 parts of England between 2004 and 2007. But teenagers who took part were actually more likely to fall pregnant than those in comparable groups.

Well, duh, of course it wasn't going to work. There's no point having a welfare system that subsidises young/single motherhood to the tune of billions and then trying to stem the tide by wasting a few million quid in the other direction.

But just feel the panic here, from the inevitable fakecharity spokesman:

Simon Blake, national director of sexual health services provider Brook, said it would be wrong "to dismiss all youth development programmes as ineffective as a result of these findings - achieving positive success in reducing teenage pregnancy amongst disadvantaged young people is an important and ongoing responsibility. We must take the learning from this programme to inform future, rigorously evaluated work in the UK."