Agenda item

The Chair introduced the item in which guest speakers Paul Schofield, Jonathan Hopkins and Abbee McLatchie were invited to speak to the Board.

The Chair invited Paul Schofield from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), to discuss the priorities of the new Minister, the youth investment fund, and the plans regarding statutory guidance.

Paul highlighted the following key points:

•           The Government announced a £500m package for Youth Investment Fund (YIF) in 2019. As a place-based programme, funds would be prioritised to meet the Levelling-up agenda, with majority of the country being covered.

•           It was important to engage with local authorities to understand how to connect youth service funding with other key priorities, i.e. keeping young people safe and building services they want and need.

•           In the coming weeks DCMS hoped to announce a small capital programme (approximately £10m) to provide equipment for youth services, i.e. IT and transport vehicles. Open to individual organisations in qualifying areas to bid for.

•           A larger fund in excess of over £350m would be delivered over the next few years for capital investment within the youth estate, both those owned by local authorities and Voluntary, Community & Social Enterprise (VCSE) Sector. Targeted for areas that have a high need.

•           DCMS are actively in discussions with large organisations such as Children in Need and National Lottery Communities Fund to secure a national body to arrange the funding to be delivered.

Following the discussion, the following comments were made:

•           The Chair commented that it was challenging to plan and build a sustainable model for youth provision over short funding pots, as over the years many services have closed and staff have left due to funding cuts. Paul agreed that over the last few years significant cuts had been made, prompting a central government response. Long-term engagement with national government and local authorities to engage on key issues would pull together a stronger comprehensive case for further investments within youth services.

•           Members agreed that local authorities should be in involved in working with DCMS to best spend the investment within their areas. As they would be able to provide bespoke and tailored services to their specific needs.

•           Members highlighted that the way in which youth funding was distributed was very problematic, as the National Citizen Service (NCS) took a disproportionate amount of funding given they only work with 16–17-year-olds, although recognised the change in the recent spending revenue. Local authorities needed both capital and revenue funding to use in partnership with other projects that could attract further funding.

•           Members raised that certain areas would receive larger capital funding under the Levelling-up agenda, but this would be unfair and leave many services without support and adequate funding. Paul stressed that the DCMS would not dictate where pots of investments would be allocated but would be keen to engage with local authorities to come forward with bids for what they would spend money the money on. 

•           Members expressed concern on how investments would affect more rural areas as funding was mainly geared towards supporting areas with far larger populations. Paul responded that the DCMS understood the diverse nature of delivery and was focused on including all areas of deprivation and need. Additionally, DCMS would be publishing data sets behind the decision making and priority areas they would choose.

The Chair invited Jonathan Hopkins and Abbee McLatchie from the National Youth Agency (NYA), who joined the meeting to give an update on the recent work undertaken by the NYA, including the census and the national youth work curriculum.

Jonathan briefly introduced the National Youth agency and highlighted key the following key points:

•           NYA offered guidance, support, advice, training, and staff development opportunities for youth workers and youth work organisations.

•           They were responsible for quality assurance and compliance for all Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC) recognised programmes in the country through the Education Training Standards committee.

•           The NYA augmented their role during COVID-19 to work with DCMS to provide formal national advice to the youth sector. Developing the youth work census to understand the amount and type of provision that is available for young people.

•           Areas of work moving forward included; Workforce development, youth work curriculum focusing on quality and practise and youth work census.

Abbee went on to emphasize the following key areas of work undertaking by the NYA which were:

•           Workforce development –

o          set against the context of huge cuts to the sector and loss of qualified youth workers. The vision for NYA sets out that all young people have sufficient and adequate access to good youth work provision. In order to achieve this, they operate on a model that looks at 10,000 youth workers, 20,000 qualified youth support workers and 40,000 skilled and equipped volunteers.

o          Most recently, they have welcomed additional bursary funding from DCMS which provided initial youth work training at level 2 and 3 for people across the country.

o          Two youth work apprenticeships have been approved with a Level 3 Youth Support Worker Apprentice and a Level 6 Professional qualifying apprenticeship.

o          Working with Department for Education (DfE) to support their alternative provision taskforces. As well as teaming up with the Commission on Young Lives, to recognise youth work has a key role to play in supporting vulnerable young people.

•           Youth work curriculum –

o          Sets out; what youth work is, what it does and how that can be mobilised.

o          Funding good quality youth work.

•                       Youth Work Census –

o          Aim is to ensure understand the availability of and access to youth services across the country.

o          Two-year programme of research, data, analysis and reporting.

o          Conduct a deep dive analysis to produce a report to identify trends and issues.

Following the discussion, the following comments were made:

•           Members commented that support and funding across the country was relatively patchy with significantly large areas receiving little to no support. Jonathan responded that the NYA would be doing a costal report in the summer to examine the steps along the way of what was being done. Abbee added that the youth work census was vital to understand and better connect different organisations in different areas.

•           Members mentioned that there would be a benefit to having a mixed model with universal provision. Jonathan replied that they were not looking to have a one size fits all model but wanted to ensure the quality and skills were in place as most volunteers within the sector did not have safeguarding skills. Additionally, the NYA were publishing a sector-led youth strategy with support from the Local Government Association (LGA) and DCMS. 

The Chair thanked Paul, Jonathan and Abbie for taking time to attend the Board meeting and discuss their stimulating presentations.

Direction:

Members of the Board noted the presentations by DCMS and NYA.