Services for young people

Memorandum submitted by the Department for Education

Government statement to the Education Select Committee

Inquiry into the provision of services beyond the school/college day

for young people, primarily those aged 13-25

1. Introduction

1.1. Aspiration and achievement are the most important things for ensuring young people grow up to realise their full potential. We want all young people to have a sense of purpose. We also want them to have healthy relationships with each other and their communities and therefore to have a sense of belonging and responsibility and to feel they have a respected place in our society.

1.2. The Government’s commitment to the participation of all 16-17 year olds in education and training, to raising the participation age to 18 by 2015, and to funding fully training for young people without a first full level 2 or 3 qualification up to the age of 24 will ensure that every young person has the chance to learn, achieve and progress. The Government is determined to close the gap in attainment and outcomes between the majority of young people who are achieving and progressing well towards adulthood, and a minority who are not.

1.3. The reforms in our Schools White Paper will give schools more freedoms to do what they know will work for their pupils, and our Fairness Premium will provide additional funding and support to address underachievement by disadvantaged children and young people. It is also essential that services for young people work with schools and colleges to intervene early to address effectively problematic behaviours such as risky sexual activity, substance misuse and youth crime. We are creating a stronger focus on effectively-targeted evidence-based interventions with children, young people and families through the Early Intervention Grant.

1.4. Young people’s personal and social development has a significant impact on their achievement – this includes social, communication and team working skills; the ability to learn from experience, control behaviours and make good choices; and the self-esteem, resilience and motivation to persist towards goals and overcome setbacks. These are qualities and skills employers value, and when young people acquire them early it supports their educational attainment and reduces the likelihood of risky behaviours and the harm that can result from them. Likewise, young people with poor physical or emotional health are at greater risk of lower levels of educational attainment and of failing to achieve their full potential.

1.5. For the majority of young people, these qualities are developed through family, schools and the community. But for some young people, typically those already at risk of under-achievement, extra support is needed for them and their families if they are to have the same opportunities for personal and social development as other young people. The Government is removing ring-fencing so that local authorities have maximum discretion in how to use public funds to support young people. The Government wants all young people to have the opportunity to be part of organised community-led activities, and as a focal point in their transition to adulthood our ambition is that National Citizen Service will give all 16 year olds a shared opportunity for personal and social development and community service and engagement.

1.6. The Department for Education is working with other Departments, with local authorities, with voluntary and private partners, and with young people’s organisations to develop a new framework for understanding the role that services should play for young people. In the context of the Government’s wider plans for public service reform, we believe the key principles for the future should be:

· A more positive place and active role for young people in society;

· A stronger focus for public funding on evidence-based targeted intervention with greater flexibility and responsibility for local areas to prioritise and allocate funding according to local need;

· A more contestable market for publicly-funded services with a greater role for voluntary and community organisations and a stronger focus on results; and

· A greater sense of responsibility in communities, including business communities, for the engagement and wellbeing of their young people.

1.7. The Government welcomes this inquiry as a means to explore these issues further. This statement responds directly to the eight questions raised by the Select Committee. It assumes throughout that ‘services for young people’ includes both ‘formal’ services funded by Government, local authorities and other public bodies, as well as the wide range of voluntary and community organisations, many run by dedicated and skilled volunteers, that provide young people with opportunities, activities and support often independent of public funding.

2. The relationship between universal and targeted services for young people

2.1. The Spending Review signalled a radical power shift between central and local government. We are reducing the number of centrally prescribed grants for services for young people and giving local authorities the flexibility to allocate resources and work with young people to design services around local needs.

2.2. While the nature and mix of provision is a matter for local discretion, we believe that all areas will benefit from a strong relationship between different types of services. In addition to signposting or referring young people from universal settings into targeted and specialist support, this will support moves back into less intensive provision.

Universal services

2.3. The Government is committed to the participation of all 16 and 17 year olds in education and training, to raising the participation age to 18 by 2015, and to funding fully training for young people without a first full level 2 or 3 qualification up to the age of 24. This will help to ensure that all young people have the qualities, skills and qualifications they need to succeed and that we have the skilled workforce we need to compete globally.

2.4. The recent Schools White Paper [1] makes clear that good schools play a vital role as promoters of health and wellbeing in the local community. They create an ethos focused on achievement for all, where additional support is offered early to those who need it, and where the right connections are made to health, social care and other professionals who can help pupils overcome whatever barriers to learning are in their way. Schools may draw on the expertise of local children’s services, the local NHS and Public Health England, but they will be the best judge of how to meet the needs of their pupils.

2.5. Schools remain an important source of extra-curricular positive activities for the majority of young people, particularly those from low-income families. For example, schools may wish to continue to use some of their funding to support extended services. Funding that has been provided for extended service through the DfE Standards Fund will in 2011-15 form part of the overall schools revenue baseline but it will be no longer earmarked for extended services. Mainstreaming this funding will give schools greater flexibility to use it as they think best to support their pupils.

2.6. Further Education Colleges, often working with local health services, police, and community groups, also provide a full programme of tutorial support and enrichment activities for those on full time courses typically including artistic, cultural, sporting and volunteering activities. Where colleges choose to extend tutorial and enrichment programmes to over 18 year olds, these are particularly valuable for young adults who may have experienced an interruption to their education and/or have been NEET for a period, ensuring that they get the full support they need to complete their transition to adulthood. 

2.7. As the primary universal service, in addition to supporting personal and social development, schools and colleges have a particular role to play in raising awareness of the risks of certain behaviours – for example carrying knives, consuming drugs or alcohol, risky sexual activity, or running away from home, and promoting the benefits of other behaviours – for example healthier life styles or participation in organised group activities.

2.8. Open access services such as youth clubs and youth centres can play an important role in providing young people with safe places for leisure as well as opportunities for personal and social development and involvement in the community. They are a non-stigmatising setting in which to identify young people who need more intensive or specialist support [2] . The Department for Education is committed to a number of significant capital projects funded through the myplace programme that will increase significantly the quality of local services outside of school or college for young people in some of the country’s most disadvantaged areas.

2.9. Evidence suggests that early identification remains a challenge for universal services and too often young people are identified only once they display higher levels of need [3] . Some research indicates that staff working in universal services need a better understanding of their role in promotion, prevention and early intervention; training to improve their skills; and a better knowledge of the systems for accessing specialist support [4] .

2.10. Local decision-makers will also want to be conscious of the opportunities for co-locating specialist provision within places that young people already access. While some research suggests that young people may feel that the co-location of recreational activities and problem-focused services are contradictory [5] , other evidence shows that co-location can lead to greater take up and effectiveness. This way of working is reflected in the Government’s ambition for a co-ordinated community approach to the physical and mental health needs of young people as an integral part of the creation of Public Health England [6] .

2.11. Through the Spending Review, in addition to DfE funding via the Early Intervention Grant, the Government has committed funding for a number of other services for young people outside of school or college, in particular:

· The National Citizen Service, funded by OCS, which over time will give all 16 year olds a challenging and rewarding personal and social development experience in which they can learn from others from different backgrounds, contribute actively to their communities, and celebrate their transition towards adulthood;

· Support, funded by DWP, for young people who are out of work, to help them to find a job. This includes access to job search support, employment-focused training opportunities and work experience, as well as help to find a volunteering placement. Young people will also be prioritised for access to the new Work Programme which offers tailored, personalised support to make the transition into sustainable employment; and

· General cultural and sporting provision supported by DCMS and its arms length bodies, much of which is available and accessible to young people.

Targeted services

2.12. Targeted and specialist services have an important and specific role to play in combating disadvantage and preventing and addressing negative outcomes such as non-participation in education, employment or training; involvement in crime or anti-social behaviour; poor mental health; poverty; substance misuse, obesity; or teenage pregnancy.

2.13. Early intervention is central to the Government’s commitment to unlock social mobility, tackle child poverty, and break the cycle of health inequalities by reducing the chance that disadvantages experienced by one generation are passed on to the next. Graham Allen’s review of early intervention is looking as ways to promote evidence-based approaches to intervening early in the lives and families of children and young people to address problems before they become entrenched and result in long term damage. This means both investing in the early years and continuing to intervene early if and when things go wrong in the teenage years since some negative behaviours or outcomes precipitate from later events and cannot be predicted by prior risk factors.

2.14. Evidence shows that there is significant overlap in the risk factors that drive negative outcome – for example 15% of young people aged 16-18 not in education, employment or training are teenage mothers. In total, around 7% of young people experience three or more risk factors [7] .

2.15. Effective targeted services are those that intervene early through an intensive wrap-around approach to address the underlying causes of multiple inter-related problematic behaviours. Evidence shows that key workers and lead professionals play a vital role in co-ordinating interventions, increasing young people’s access to a wide range of services, reducing the duplication of resources, and mitigating the risk that young people around the age of 18 fall into the gap between children’s and adult services [8] .

2.16. Young people, particularly those experiencing or at risk of significant negative outcomes, need positive role models. Social mixing can help young people develop positive peer relationships, and it is important that young people also develop good relationships with adults that they trust – including through mentoring arrangements with adults in the community.

2.17. As parents and families are the single most important influence in the lives of young people, family services and intervention are significant in preventing and addressing poor youth outcomes. This includes both helping parents support their teenagers (good parenting supports both attainment and wider personal and social development), and addressing parents’ own negative outcomes that impact on young people (evidence shows that children of parents who have drug and alcohol problems, poor mental health or are involved in offending or domestic violence are at a high risk of future problems) [9] .

2.18. A growing body of research has shown that family or parent training can result in measurable reductions in youth crime, antisocial and delinquent behaviour, child maltreatment, underachievement at school, and child and adolescent mental health problems [10] . It also shows that intensive family interventions and parenting programmes can reduce risk factors in families, improve outcomes for children and young people, and reduce the burden of cost these families place on local services and wider society [11] .

2.19. In recent years, too much central prescription and too many centrally controlled funding streams have limited the efficiency, creativity and innovation with which local areas can respond to the needs of these most vulnerable young people. The Government is giving local authorities greater responsibility and flexibility by reducing significantly the number of ring fenced grants. In particular, all of the Department for Education’s funding for early intervention is being consolidated within a single non-ring fenced grant to local authorities – the Early Intervention Grant. This grant will provide funding for a range of services including services young people. See Section 7 for further details.

3. How services for young people can meet the Government’s priorities for volunteering, including the role of National Citizen Service

3.1. A Big Society is one in which all individuals and organisations think about the contribution they can make – including through volunteering.

3.2. The Government wants to see more adults volunteering to work with young people in their communities as role models and trusted mentors, and is committed to breaking down barriers to volunteering and other forms of social action.

3.3. The Government recently announced its Work Together initiative to signpost and encourage unemployed people to take up volunteering while they look for work; and a Giving Green Paper will shortly set out proposals for further boosting volunteering.

3.4. Volunteering by young people helps to build up trust and understanding between the generations in the community and gives young people the opportunity to develop qualities and skills that will prepare them for life and work – this is particularly true for those young people who have left education and are yet to find employment. Young people’s positive behaviour, whether through formal volunteering or otherwise, also has an important impact on the behaviour of their peers.

3.5. A specific and significant way in which the Government wants young people to continue to volunteer is in roles that help shape public policy and improve the quality of services for young people – this is discussed further in Section 4.

3.6. Services for young people outside of school or college play a significant role in motivating young people and helping them find opportunities for their active citizenship. Organised group activities provide young people with the structure from within which to organise volunteering opportunities that benefit the wider community and with opportunities to take responsibility and leadership – which can lead to ongoing voluntary work. For example 26% of Cadets plan to stay in the cadets as an adult volunteer [12] .

3.7. National Citizen Service (NCS) will bring 16 year olds from different backgrounds together in a residential and home-based programme of activity and voluntary service. The Government has committed to work with a range of providers to enable over 10,000 young people in England to take part in NCS pilots in 2011, expanding to 30,000 places in 2012. The Government hopes that many adults and older young people will take the opportunity to volunteer as mentors and support staff for NCS programmes. We also anticipate that schools will wish to play a positive role in supporting young people to take up National Citizen Service.

3.8. In addition, from April 2011, the Government will:

· Ensure around 5,000 Community Organisers are trained over the lifetime of this Parliament to act as a catalyst for more social action, supporting all parts of the community and all age groups, including young volunteers;

· Review CRB checks and vetting and barring to remove some of the barriers to volunteering, both for young volunteers and for individuals and organisations working with young volunteers;

· Provide funding for Volunteering Social Action Infrastructure (previously v involved) – locally-based teams to encourage people to engage in social action; and

· Provide funding for Volunteering Match Fund (v-match) – which encourages the private sector to fund volunteering projects, with a match funding incentive.

4. Which young people access services, what they want from those services and their role in shaping provision

Which young people access services

4.1. There are a wide range of different services for young people, and the fact that it is often the same young people who experience multiple issues means that it often the same young people who access different services. The Government’s commitment to reducing radically the number ring fenced grants and centrally controlled programmes will give local areas the responsibility and flexibility they need to design and deliver more efficient and effective services.

4.2. Evidence shows that young people who undertake more personal and social development activities engage in fewer risky behaviours and have higher attainment, while participation in unstructured socialising activities is associated with greater exposure to risky behaviours. The young people most likely to engage in such unstructured social activities are white young people, those with negative school attitudes, and those living in less cohesive families [13] . Those who would benefit most from participation are therefore often the least likely to participate.

4.3. Open access provision, as discussed in Section 2 can extend the opportunity of participation to any young person, but a more pro-active targeted outreach based approach may be necessary to engage the most vulnerable young people [14] . It can be a challenge to identify and target effectively those who would most benefit from specialist provision. Too often young people only access services at crisis point or are only identified and engaged once they display higher levels of need.

4.4. The trends and patterns in young people’s access to services is driven to a large degree by the real and perceived barriers that young people face in accessing those services. Barriers can be physical – e.g. transport, cost, or availability including opening times; or attitudinal or motivational – e.g. the motivation to prioritise the time or money to access the service, the perceived quality of service, concern over the participation or not of others in the service, or issues of territorialism.

4.5. Evidence suggests that:

· transport and availability are often a particular barrier for young people in rural areas; [15]

· cost is naturally more likely to be a barrier for low income families; [16]

· a lack of time is a particular barrier for young carers, including those from large or disadvantaged families who are expected to help care for younger siblings; [17]

· a lack of suitable activities can often be an issue for young people with SEN whilst a lack of suitable facilities and/or appropriately trained staff can be a barrier for young people with physical disabilities; [18] and

· attitudinal barriers are likely to be strongest amongst young people lacking in confidence and with low aspirations. [19]

What young people want from services

4.6. The centralised and prescriptive approach of recent years has not changed the fact that young people still want more and better places to spend their leisure time and get involved in worthwhile organised group activities. Young people too often do not like what is provided for them, and don’t think it is made available at the right times. They want high quality services that afford them the same respect as individuals as the adult services or commercial provision they see around them.

4.7. Evidence of which the government is aware suggests that:

· Young people want to feel a sense of ownership [20] . This is an important factor in overcoming attitudinal barriers to access, enabling young people to engage with others on equal terms, and in the shared learning experience gained through organised group activities. Research [21] shows that out of school services are therefore important, particularly for older young people, who often do not join school clubs – preferring instead groups unconnected to schools that offer a greater perceived level of ‘authenticity in the adult world’. Neutral venues also help to avoid territorialism and certain activities becoming associated with certain subcultures, thereby enabling all young people to develop a sense of ownership.

· Young people want easy access to advice and support from within places they already go. For example, around 30% of secondary schools and 75% of FE colleges provide a health advice service on-site which as well as enabling young people to address any health or relationship concerns that they have early, it also means that they do not have to take time out from school or college to attend medical appointments at their GP practice or at a community clinic. Nevertheless, a significant minority of pupils think their school should provide extra support on smoking (26%), drugs (22%), drinking (21%) and sexual health/teenage pregnancy (19%) [22] .

· Young people want and need continuity between the age of 13 and 25. Transition from youth to adult services is therefore a key issue for young people. Research has shown that young people are broadly consistent in their needs to between the ages of 16 and their early 20s. Yet provision of a range of services, including mental health and criminal justice, particularly for vulnerable young people, stop abruptly after the age of 18. It is important for services to be provided based on needs rather than age, and for youth and adult services to join up the provision that they offer. For example, by reducing the numbers of assessments that young people undergo, and ensuring that information from assessments is shared between youth and adult services are shared wherever possible.

· Young people have clear views about what effective services look like. The key characteristics are:

A holistic approach – seeing young people as individuals and addressing their needs in an integrated way not treating specific needs in isolation;

Accessibility – age appropriate services located in convenient places, with single points of entry and good information and advice available via a range of media;

Availability – at times that suit young people, when the need first arises not when things reach crisis point and with follow up after the initial contact;

Trust – the opportunity to build a trusting and ongoing confidential relationship with an adult who is aware of the issues young people face, knows how to listen and communicate with them, and how to deal with issues sensitively; and

Involvement – valuing young people for the insight and experience they bring and giving them responsibility and influence in decisions that affect them.

Young people’s role in shaping provision

4.8. Giving young people influence in local decision-making about services is vital. Young people want services that listen and respond to their views. Greater ownership leads to greater participation – improving provision and making it more attractive and accessible to young people.

4.9. There has been real progress in recent years in giving young people greater influence over provision. At both local and national level young people have taken up roles as members of boards, forums and parliaments, and as grant givers, youth mayors, young advisors and young inspectors. However, too often those young people most in need of services are not involved in shaping it, and youth empowerment has been limited to giving young people control over centrally prescribed funding streams such as the Youth Opportunity and Capital Funds, rather than involving them as a partner in mainstream funding decisions.

4.10. The Government is committed to ensuring that all citizens, including young people, have the power to influence how their communities develop and grow. This means local areas giving young people genuine and wide ranging influence, including where appropriate through full participatory budgeting to give young people a direct say in how part of a funding is spent.

4.11. This cannot be achieved through central prescription – we are giving local areas greater flexibility and supporting them through our commitment to greater transparency in information about how decisions are made and money is spent by public services; to new rights for communities to challenge to take over the running of local services or the ownership of assets that matter to them (see Section 8); to creating the right conditions for dynamic social enterprises to flourish; and to the removal of red tape that gets in the way of good ideas and rapid progress. Local HealthWatch, part of the NHS reforms, provides a new opportunity for young people to be actively involved in shaping the commissioning of services in their area.

4.12. We will also support local areas by identifying and promoting good practice. For example, the Government supports the You're Welcome quality criteria for young people friendly health services' which are recommended by 81% of commissioners, and are designed to make health services young people friendly. The criteria have led to the involvement of young people in the planning, design, evaluation and review of services. Young people’s involvement in this way is important to mitigate the particular risk that young people fall into the gap between children’s and adult health services with neither always meeting young people’s needs in areas such as confidentiality, privacy and communication.

5.
The relative roles of the voluntary, community, statutory and private sectors in providing services for young people

The role of the voluntary and community sector

5.1. The people and communities of our country have a long and deep commitment to social action and young people. Starting with the development of the Scouts, it was pioneers in this country that revolutionised the way in which communities around the world still provide opportunities for their young people today.

5.2. A large and diverse range of voluntary and community organisations continue to work, often independently of public funding, to provide opportunities, activities and support to young people. Rooted in their communities these organisations are often well placed to understand local needs, gain young people’s trust, ensure young people’s voices are heard in decision making, draw on the good will of local volunteers, and leverage in funding from individuals, businesses and social funders.

5.3. Voluntary and community organisations provide a significant proportion of services to young people, including a significant contribution to the provision of a rich and varied menu of before and after-school activities. They often create less of a distinction than many state funded services between young people and young adults and are well placed to support young people as they transition to adulthood.

5.4. The voluntary and community sector receives money directly from Government and its arms length bodies, from local authorities and from services commissioned by schools. But a lack of contestability and understanding of the sector in local commissioning and organisations’ lack of scale or capacity to participate in competitive commissioning processes where they exist, has meant that the voluntary and community sector has too often had to rely on access to only small peripheral pots of grant funding that have not provided funders with sufficient reassurance of the effectiveness or impact of the services delivered.

5.5. Recent experience shows that effective capacity building support can enable voluntary and community organisations to play a more significant role in local services for young people [1] . The benefit of such support can include:

· improved governance structures and practices;

· improved business planning, financial planning and financial reporting;

· improved marketing and public relations, including with funders; and

· improved commissioning readiness, including the recruitment of specialist business development staff, and improved data collection to evidence outcomes achieved.

5.6. The Government is committed to opening up local markets to enable the voluntary and community sector to become more involved in delivering key services for young people. Our reforms, detailed further in Section 8, will ensure that local authorities commission more services from the sector and that we move increasingly towards a situation in which, subject to their statutory duties, local authorities and other public agencies develop contestable markets for all their services for young people.

5.7. Voluntary and community organisations also need better access to capital to invest in their long term growth. The Government has ambitious plans to establish a Big Society Bank to help social enterprises, charities and voluntary organisations to access more resources and to play a bigger role in creating the Big Society. The bank will be funded using all available money from dormant accounts in England and will work with social investment intermediaries to grow the social investment market, encouraging mainstream investors to invest in social change, and broadening the finance options open to the voluntary and community sector.

5.8. We will include among the bank’s high level objectives a mandate to give a priority to supporting the development of community-led, social enterprise initiatives to improve opportunities for young people. However as an independent, wholesale organisation, the bank will be free to make its own investment decisions based on the quality of opportunities presented by the market.

5.9. The Government is also working with partners in the voluntary, community and social enterprise sectors to promote the wider use of innovative ways of increasing social and community investment, including the issue of community shares by community enterprises, the piloting of social impact bonds to attract social investment in preventative interventions, and the expansion of community ownership of physical assets which can be used to generate income and underpin debt finance.

5.10. The Government announced recently a £100m Transition Fund, to help those voluntary and community sector organisations that have experienced significant reductions in their income as a result of spending cuts. The BIG Lottery Fund has been selected to run the Fund and details of the application criteria will be announced in due course.

5.11. The Department for Education has also recently published a ‘National prospectus’ setting out its plans for awarding grant funding directly to the voluntary and community sector for activities with children, young people, parents and families which have national significance. This includes both the possibility of additional grant funding for business transformation work to help organisations move towards financial self sufficiency, and a strategic partner programme to drive transformational change across the sector. DfE expects to appoint a strategic partner focused on young people’s services that will help to build the capacity of youth sector voluntary and community organisations so that they are more innovative and entrepreneurial and are better placed to meet the emerging demands of commissioners.

The role of the statutory sector

5.12. In the Big Society, the role of the state in services for young people should be to stimulate rather than limit social action by individuals, communities, and the voluntary and private sectors. As strategic commissioners, public bodies should facilitate the development of contestable markets, the growth of cross-sector partnerships, and the involvement of a wide range of bodies in needs analysis and commissioning.

5.13. State funding for young people will be most closely associated with supporting those most vulnerable to negative outcomes – increasingly through preventative and early interventions. Greater levels of volunteering and co-funding will mean that public funding goes further. A smaller state will mean minimal central prescription; communities enabled to define priorities and make funding decisions; and young people able to influence all decisions that affect them.

The role of the private sector

5.14. The commercial leisure industry provides a diverse and significant range of activities and opportunities to young people outside of school. The private sector also has a commercial interest in bidding for and delivering public funded services for young people. The Government welcomes this interest and expects greater contestability to provide an increasing opportunity and role for the private sector in these markets.

5.15. A number of private sector organisations and philanthropic individuals are also already taking significant social action to support young people. At both national and local level an increasing number of private funders and businesses recognise the opportunity and need to invest in young people to engage them positively in their communities, and to help them develop the skills and qualities they need for their education, their future employment, and their overall transition to adult life. The Government is aware of a number of excellent partnerships between the private and voluntary sectors in which the private sector contribute not only financial resources but visionary leadership, management discipline and expertise, and in a number of cases access to significant numbers of volunteers through their workforces.

5.16. The Government warmly welcomes this approach and is keen to ensure that greater collaboration across the public, private and voluntary sectors leads to the better coordination of resources and greater overall impact on young people’s outcomes.

6. The training and workforce development needs of the sector

6.1. The youth sector is made up of a large number of voluntary, community, statutory and private sector organisations staffed by a wide range of professionals and volunteers with very diverse backgrounds and skills. Estimates [2] suggest that the youth workforce as a whole comprises approximately 6 million people, of which approximately 5.2 million are volunteers. The Government recognises the significant contribution of volunteers, and, as set out in Section 3, wants to see even more adults volunteering to work with young people as part of our vision for a Big Society.

6.2. The young people’s workforce needs a distinct set of skills and knowledge to engage young people, to facilitate their personal and social development, and to deliver effective interventions. Recent work [3] highlighted that while the specialised skills and knowledge required differ widely depending on the particular role of the individual, the common skills needed by all professionals working with young people include:

· Effective communication and engagement with children, young people and families;

· An understanding of child and young person development;

· The ability to support transitions between services or at different life stages;

· Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the child or young person;

· Multi-agency and integrated working to provide services that meet the needs of children, young people, and their parents or carers; and

· Information sharing between services.

6.3. The Government believes that the development and recruitment of both professionals and volunteers is best addressed by professionals themselves and their employers. We intend to reduce central intervention where we believe it is more appropriate to fund and determine activity locally. The Government also believes that the NDPB model is not the most efficient and accountable way of delivering the functions that need to be led at national level, and has decided to withdraw NDPB status from CWDC, withdraw DfE funding from the organisation, and bring key ongoing functions into the Department.

6.4. The current programme of development for the young people’s workforce provides the environment and infrastructure for the workforce to develop and work together effectively. It is for the sector and employers to build on the outcomes of the programme and to manage their own workforce development programme to meet local needs.

6.5. The Department for Education has recently published its intention to appoint a strategic partner in the voluntary and community youth sector. A key function will be for them to support front line professionals in voluntary and community organisations to develop the knowledge, skills and confidence that they need to identify and support effectively young people at risk of poor outcomes, such as teenage pregnancy, youth crime, substance misuse and poor emotional health & well-being.

6.6. The Government will be working with National Citizen Service pilot providers and other stakeholders to identify and tackle specific workforce development challenges for the implementation of NCS. We will seek to encourage private sector volunteering and the utilisation of NCS alumni in future years to act as staff and mentors on NCS schemes.

6.7. The Department of Health commissioned the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health to develop the Adolescent Health E-learning Project which provides high quality online training modules to support the workforce to deliver better health outcomes for young people by improving access to preventative healthcare. The training ensures that clinical staff (doctors, nurses and other health professionals) and non-clinical staff (e.g. youth workers) have the latest information and skills to work with young people and respect confidentiality.

7. The impact of public sector spending cuts on funding and commissioning of services, including how available resources can best be maximised, and whether payment by results is desirable and achievable

Future public spending on services for young people

7.1. The Spending Review confirmed that over the next four years there will be a reduction in Government funding for services for young people. To help local authorities balance their priorities, the Spending Review also announced a radical power shift between central and local government that will ensure local communities have a greater say in the issues that affect them. The Government is giving local authorities greater responsibility and flexibility by reducing radically the number of ring fenced grants and ending a range of centrally directed programmes.

7.2. The Department for Education is applying this approach fully to its funding for services for young people – to address the situation of recent years in which a large number of centrally prescribed programmes have caused services to become highly fragmented. We are abolishing specific services and programmes for young people, including Connexions and the Positive Activities for Young People programme, and bringing all DfE funding for targeted support for vulnerable young people together, as part of the non-ring fenced Early Intervention Grant which will be worth around £2bn by the end of the spending review period. This will give local authorities working closely with health, police and other partners the flexibility they need to respond to the needs of young people.

The impact of future public spending on the funding and commissioning of services

7.3. The Government recognises that it takes strong leadership to choose to invest in early intervention at a time when all budgets are under pressure. The creation of the Early Intervention Grant will support local leaders to make that choice and prioritise local resources towards much needed services for young people, children and families.

7.4. While the creation of an all-age careers service means that local authorities will no longer be expected to provide careers guidance, they will still be responsible for providing support for young people aged 13-19, and up to age 25 if they have learning difficulties or disabilities, to encourage and enable them to participate in education or training. The Government will not require local authorities to use the Connexions brand.

7.5. While the voluntary sector cannot be immune from reductions in public expenditure, the Spending Review announced that Government (through OCS) will direct at least £470 million over the spending review period to support capacity building in the sector, including an endowment fund to assist local voluntary and community organisations. As part of this, the Government will provide funds to pilot the National Citizen Service and establish a Transition Fund of £100 million to provide short term support for voluntary sector organisations providing public services. In addition, the Department for Education has recently published details of a new grant fund for voluntary sector organisations working with children, young people and families; and in time, the sector will also be able to access funding from intermediaries funded by the Big Society Bank, which will bring in private sector funding in addition to receiving all funding available to England from dormant accounts.

Maximising the impact of available resources

7.6. To maximise the impact of funding we want to stimulate a fundamental shift in the role of local authorities in services for young people to enable a radical re-engineering of provision so more is delivered by voluntary and community organisations, greater private sector involvement leads to greater leverage for public funding, and local authorities themselves become strategic commissioners rather than default providers of services with a greater emphasis on value for money and the effectiveness and impact of funded services.

7.7. The Early Intervention Grant will incentivise more effective targeting of resources on those young people that most need support. It will also create a stronger incentive to address issues before they escalate – and in so doing ensure that available resources are used for maximum impact. Failing to invest in early intervention risks storing up significant costs for the public purse in the future. For example, research suggests that the average additional public finance cost to the Exchequer per young person not in education, employment or training (NEET) at age 16-18 is around £56,000 over their lifetime, compared to an average young person who is not NEET [4] . The Independent Commission on youth crime and anti-social behaviour also estimated that £94m could be saved annually by intervening early with just one in ten young offenders.

7.8. The identification, dissemination and adoption of effective practice are central to maximising the impact of available resources. To support the Early Intervention Grant we will create a stronger focus on identifying effective and cost-effective evidence-based interventions.

7.9. The Department for Education is already working with the Local Government Group Place Based Productivity Programme to identify existing good practice to help Local Authorities to make good commissioning decisions throughout their Children’s Services. The independent review of Early Intervention led by Graham Allen will consider models of best practice around early intervention and how such models could best be disseminated and supported as well as how early intervention could be supported through innovative funding models, including non-Government funding. The Review will report by end January 2011 on the first area and provide an interim report on the second. A final report on funding models will be produced by May 2011.

Payment by results

7.10. The Department for Education is committed to introducing an element of Payment by Results (PBR) to the Early Intervention Grant. The Department for Education is considering approaches for a consistent PBR mechanism which can be applied across the whole to encourage Local Authorities to focus on what works best in their area. DfE is considering carefully what kind of financial incentive model might be appropriate to increase the focus on desired outcomes and working with other government departments to align approaches for example with the Department of Health proposed Health Premium. Further announcements will be made in due course.

7.11. New funding arrangements for youth justice services will also incentivise local authorities to find innovative ways to reduce the number of young people who commit crime, particularly by those who may end up in custody.

7.12. The Government is also taking a keen interest in the development of Social Impact Bonds and exploring with stakeholders areas of policy in which they may be appropriate. It is clear however, that they offer most benefit in circumstances in which outcomes are clearly measurable and attributable.

8. How local government structures and statutory frameworks impact on service provision

8.1. The Spending Review was underpinned by a radical programme of public service reform that will change the way services are delivered by redistributing power away from central government and enabling sustainable, long term improvements. The Government cannot tackle the challenges ahead on its own. Increasing the diversity of provision will help share that responsibility across society, and drive innovation and efficiency by increasing competition and consumer choice. The Government expects these reforms to have a significant impact on way in which services for young people are provided.

8.2. The Government is in the process of reviewing all statutory duties and frameworks to remove unnecessary burdens on local authorities and ensure they have the responsibility and flexibility to respond appropriately to local needs.

The future of children’s trusts

8.3. The Government is committed to partnership working to improve the lives of children, young people and families, and expects local authorities to continue to lead partnership arrangements which make sense for local people and services.

8.4. However, we also believe that it is not the role of central government to prescribe or monitor how local areas do this. We believe that local professionals, working together with families, should decide what works best in meeting children’s needs. We are therefore removing unnecessary legislation and the needless obligations that have been imposed on local authorities and their partners that hamper creativity and stifle innovation.

8.5. From 31 October 2010, Statutory Children’s Trust guidance was withdrawn and Children and Young People’s Plan regulations, which were unnecessarily prescriptive, were revoked. This means that Children’s Trust Boards are no longer required to produce a Children and Young People’s Plan.

8.6. The forthcoming Education Bill will (subject to Parliamentary approval) remove the duty on schools, non-maintained special schools, Academies and FE colleges to co-operate through Children’s Trusts. This will mean that schools and colleges that want to will be able to co-operate with local partners because they decide that this will support their focus on raising standards.

8.7. To provide even greater freedom and more local flexibility, the Coalition Government intends, subject to Parliamentary approval, to remove the requirement for local areas to have a Children’s Trust Board and for Job Centre Plus to be a ‘relevant partner’ under a formal ‘duty to co-operate’.

The Localism Bill

8.8. The Localism Bill is a key means of taking forward the Government’s plans for localism in order to help create the Big Society. The Bill is seeking to decentralise power to councils and neighbourhoods and to maintain the role of the voluntary and community sector at a time when public spending is being cut. Subject to parliamentary approval, the Bill will:

· introduce new powers to give communities the 'right to challenge' to take over local services;

· give communities new powers to help them save local facilities threatened with closure by giving them the initiative to identify assets of community value and time to bid for them on the open market if they come up for sale; and

· introduce local referendums which will give the local electorate the power to influence local decision making processes – elected local representatives’ ability to request, on behalf of young people in their local area, that a council holds a local referendum, will give young people a voice on any local issue important to them.

The Public Service Reform White Paper

8.9. The Government will look to set proportions of specific services that should be delivered by non-state provi ders including voluntary groups and for public service workers to form cooperatives. We will consider carefully how these measures should apply to services for young people. We are consult ing on these and other reforms through the Commissioning Green Paper [1] , and will publish a White Paper early next year to tackle barriers and enable chang e.

The Public Health White Paper

8.10. The Public Health White Paper proposes a radical vision for public health, shifting power to local government and local communities to improve the health and well being of their population, supported by a new integrated public health service – Public Health England . Directors of Public Health, located in local authorities, will be the strategic leaders for public health and health inequalities with a ring fenced public health budget. Public Health England is expected to contribute the information, advice and support to help strengthen young people’s ability to take control of their lives , boost their self-esteem, and make informed and healthy choices. This will include issues such as alcohol and drugs, teenage pregnancy/sexual health and mental health.

8.11. Local Authorities, including Directors of Public Health, and GP consortia, will each have an equal and explicit obligation to prepare a Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) through the arrangements made by the proposed Health and Wellbeing Board. The Health and Wellbeing Board will be able to establish a shared local view about the needs of the community and to support joint commissioning of NHS, social care and public health services to meet the needs of the whole local population effectively. In the context of the JSNA, public health funding, alongside the Early Intervention Grant will allow areas to develop a local approach that responds to the needs, age and vulnerability of young people.

9.
How the value and effectiveness of services should be assessed

9.1. The Government is ending the era of top-down performance management and giving new powers to local authorities to work for their communities, accountable to local people rather than central Government.

9.2. The Government has put local areas fully in control of their Local Area Agreements, enabling local authorities and their partners to amend or drop any of the current 4,700 LAA targets without needing Ministerial agreement. Where they choose to keep the targets, central Government will have no role in monitoring them. Local authorities will not be required to prepare an LAA from April 2011, once the current agreements expire. The Government has also announced the replacement of the National Indicator Set with a single, comprehensive, transparent and slimmed down list of all the data local authorities will be expected to provide to central Government.

9.3. It will therefore be for local areas to determine how to assess the value and effectiveness of services for young people – to inform their own decisions on whether their funding is being spent on the right things in the right way and increasingly so that their funding payments to service providers can be linked more directly to performance and results.

9.4. The Government will support local areas in these decisions through our commitment to promoting greater transparency to create stronger local accountability, and through identifying and promoting effective practice which will offer local areas benchmarks against which they can compare their performance. Organisations including Ofsted and the Centre for Excellence and Outcomes provide valuable lessons and benchmarks to local areas through their own work to identify good practice.

9.5. As transparency increases, it is enabling citizens, including young people, to create new ways to hold public bodies to account for their decisions and performance. As this dialogue grows, the Government would expect local areas to involve young people directly in assessing and inspecting the quality of youth provision.

December 2010

References