Services for young people

Memorandum submitted by Barnardo’s, Catch22, Groundwork, Fairbridge, The Foyer Federation, Princes Trust and Rathbone

Introduction:

The national voluntary youth organisations supporting this submission deliver personal development and social support programmes targeted at disadvantaged young people, many of whom are considered NEET (not in education, employment or training) with the aim to move them forward in their lives into education, employment or training.

We are making this joint submission to demonstrate our commonality in approach and perspective. The issues we raise are those we see as key to ensuring policies on targeted youth services are best able to deliver for young people.

Executive Summary

We have seven key recommendations:

1. NEETs – The NEET term is negative and also too generic to drive value for money. There are a rapidly growing number of young people who are unemployed for over twelve months. We recommend considering segmenting this group based on need.

2. A government working group, including membership across departments and other stakeholders such as the voluntary and community sector is set up to meet the needs of this group.

3. This group of young people may become expensive. The working group or forum will ensure departmental policies do not contradict one another, and budgets can be pooled where appropriate.

4. The voluntary sector who are working with the harder to reach group need to have payment by results contracts that recognise the broader spectrum of the development needs for the most disengaged. We would recommend an appropriate staged-payment model whereby voluntary sector organisations do not experience cash flow problems.

5. The National Citizen Service – the NCS should reflect the number of positive options the voluntary sector are already doing and should be viewed as part of a wider package of delivery options for young people.

6. Needs to be a greater recognition of how larger national charities build capacity of the local voluntary sector, driving economies of scale for example by sharing back room costs such as payroll, HR, policy and fundraising functions

7. A common standardised assessment system for the voluntary sector, a central part of which social return on investment. These assessment practices should safeguard quality and protect effective organisations with strong outcomes.

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

1.1 Targeted provision delivered by voluntary youth organisations plays a sizeable and fundamental role in promoting social mobility, delivering the Big Society and supporting economic growth. We believe it is sensible in times of fiscal austerity and social challenge that national and local policy focuses on those most disengaged –or at risk of disengagement-from mainstream society. Particularly as the UK sees the second highest increase in young people classed as NEET among G7 countries - now at 13 percent.

1.2 We regularly work alongside schools, prisons, Youth Offending Teams, colleges, employers and others to promote a joined-up approach. Working with universal or statutory service providers is fundamental in ensuring the best possible transitions for young people across services. We support those who have disengaged –or are at risk of- disengaging from formal or universal services.

1.3 Targeted personal development programmes deliver cross-cutting outcomes. Therefore multiple targets can be effectively met, for example:

a. Work & Pensions: Helping young people off benefits and into employment

b. Education: re-engaging young people in education and learning or preventing those at risk from being excluded

c. Business, Innovation & Skills: helping young people develop a range of skills, including enterprise skills

d. Communities and Local Government: empowering young people to get involved in their local neighbourhood

e. Justice: reducing re-offending, preventative justice and in-prison delivery

f. Home Office: helping to prevent and tackle the causes of anti-social behaviour and promote social cohesion

g. Cabinet Office: encouraging socially excluded young people to volunteer

h. Culture, Media & Sport: Using sport and media to engage and inspire young people, tackle negative stereotypes and promote healthily living

i. Health: improving young people’s physical, emotional and sexual health and well-being

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

2.1 This submission is supported by a number of organisations who are either part-delivering National Citizen Service (NCS) pilots, or who deliver work very similar to that of the NCS approach. As the NCS is scaled up, we recommend government realise the added value that experienced and effective organisations offer by being engaged. The NCS reflects a number of the positive things the voluntary and community sector are already doing. It should be viewed as part of a wider package of delivery options for young people. For example, NCS is characterised by its universality in order to ensure social mixing. This does not negate the need for targeted and bespoke provision, which should continue to be fully backed by government.

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

3.1 Our work reaches individuals and communities that universal services cannot or do not engage. Disadvantaged young people are at greatest risk of low/no self-confidence, engaging in criminal activity, becoming homeless, suffering from depression, school exclusion or becoming drug or alcohol dependant [1] .

3.2 Our tried and tested programmes are designed to deliver where there is greatest need. There are a number of factors that contribute to ensuring sustained outcomes:

a. Users participate of their own volition

b. We are targeted and can therefore offer personalised learning

c. We offer young people a trusted, positive adult relationship (often for the first time)

d. A holistic combination of one to one personal support, information advice and guidance, education and skills development and vocational opportunities

e. We persist with young people even where they present challenging behaviour or seem to fail at first.

3.3 The needs of young people do not exist in isolation. Many are challenged by difficult home lives or living in economically depressed communities. Our approach recognises the interconnectedness of health, skills, housing, family, community, education and job prospects. We would like to see policy and resources incentivise holistic, person-centred services.

3.4 Our outcomes measures are configured to recognise both soft employability skills and harder measures of success such as sustained progress to a positive destination. Disadvantaged young people often take longer to achieve against both these measures and voluntary sector organisations are equipped to allow the extra time needed to enable them to succeed. In turn funding requirements should have a degree of flexibility to allow longer term interventions to take place.

3.5 Our outcomes offer clear value for money across government. As well as our client groups facing poorer life chances, they are more likely to be a long-term cost to the public purse – both in expenditure and in loss of potential contribution. Focusing on the sustained NEET cohort makes clear financial sense in these difficult times.

3.6 However the generic NEET term does not facilitate cost efficient targeting on those furthest from the labour market (sustained NEETs) as it homogenises over one million individuals requiring very different interventions. We would therefore recommend the Committee consider a segmentation of the NEET cohort as highlighted by the Audit Commission’s ‘Against the Odds’ report [2] , which was supported by research from York University [3] . (see appendix.)

3.7 We recommend the Committee considers a government working group, containing stakeholders from across the voluntary and community sector, to concentrate on the needs of this sustained NEET group. We recommend membership from across government including the Departments for Education, Health, Work and Pensions, Justice, Cabinet Office and Number 10 amongst others. Young people suffer disproportionately during times of economic depression and this growing group of vulnerable individuals could be left outside the job market for the long term. This forum would enable us to monitor and respond to the situation while maintaining a productive dialogue with government.

3.8 National voluntary youth organisations combine practice, participation and research methods which enable young people’s voices to be heard in shaping both the services they use and the policy that affects their futures. Not only does this result in personalised, effective service provision but improves their self-esteem and confidence in ways which confer skills for employment. For example, the Catch22 Community Youth Volunteering Programme aims to inspire a new generation of volunteers aged 16 to 25 in England. They help young people to gain experience in youth work through voluntary placements. Additionally organisations including the Princes Trust and Fairbridge run innovative Young Ambassador Programmes (YAP) where young people traditionally excluded from having a voice are empowered to be heard and exercise their rights. The Fairbridge YAP is sponsored by News International and is an exemplar of what can be achieved with successful partnerships.

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

4.1 The voluntary sector is often a bridge between public and private sectors. We succeed in our work through strong partnerships both nationally and at a very local level. We rely on the support of dedicated staff and thousands of volunteers. As we see the work of bodies such as Local Enterprise Partnerships take effect, it is clear that collaborative working across sectors will be extremely important in delivering sustained outcomes for young people. This is something we very much support.

5. The training and workforce development needs of the sector

5.1 Below are a number of training areas we recognise as crucial to ensuring a competitive sector:

a. Support for the voluntary and community sector to become more commissioning-ready – including outcome focused bid writing and relationship building skills with the private sector.

b. Many disadvantaged young people are failed by public and universal services because professionals are not able to work with challenging behaviour. Bodies such as Fairbridge and Barnardo's are well experienced and able to deliver robust and practical training to professionals to develop competency in this area.

c. Effective monitoring and evaluation. While there is much good practice already in the sector, greater support to organisations would enable them to not only improve their services but better demonstrate their outcomes and return on investment.

d. Demonstrating Social Return on Investment (see question 8)

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

Cuts:

6.1 The scale of the public sector financial deficit is an issue we all agree needs to be tackled. The current spending cuts are set to have a serious impact not only on us as agencies, but those individuals we exist to support. By their nature voluntary youth services are very lean organisations therefore reduction or removal of funding has an immediate and significant impact.

6.2 Research by Barnardo’s [4] showed that providing targeted services to young people at risk of school exclusion cost an average of £5696 per young person, per year, to keep them engaged with education. This avoids the high, short term expense of school exclusion, and most importantly prevents the considerable lifetime costs to the individual and society of a disrupted education. Research for The Prince’s Trust [5] shows that the lifetime cost to an individual of not having educational qualifications is £45,000 and the cost to a generation is £22bn. With JSA costing £22million pounds a week Prince’s Trust estimate lost productivity to be at least the same again.

Maximising resources:

6.3 In the spirit of the Big Society and joined up Government, we recommend that Government invests wisely and does not overlook tried and tested youth programmes. There is much efficiency to be realised and one way of doing this is by pooling departmental budgets. As paragraph 3.3 states, a young person’s needs are not isolated from one another and paragraph 1.3(a-i) outlines the holistic nature of our approach. At present, no single department has the budgetary incentive to properly invest in preventative and holistic services that deliver multi-faceted outcomes. If there were more joined up policy and budgets across departments, we would also mitigate any unintentional contradictions. For example, legal aid support is being considered for reduction at the same time as aiming to keep more young people out of custody.

6.4 We recommend a focus on early interventionist and preventative approaches. While we welcome government’s positive expressions on this area, the UK still has to go further in paying for preventative services. The voluntary youth sector are experienced in this approach, however we remain unclear as to the real impact of short-term budget constraints on supporting longer-term initiatives.

6.5 The Voluntary and community sector has two distinct advantages over the public and private sectors in its ability to leverage additional resources into the delivery of services for young people:

a. Volunteers - bring so much more additional resource to our services, through their passion, dedication, and professional skills

b. Voluntary Income – All our organisations receive income sourced through donations, Trusts and voluntary income. This allows the sector to pilot new services for which there are limited funds. Voluntary funds are also used to enhance the services provided under statutory contracts and to improve outcomes.

Commissioning:

6.6 We welcome the Cabinet Office’s commitment to ensuring that commissioning is relevant and accessible to the voluntary and community sector.

6.7 Commissioning should foster strong competition. Payment-by-results contracts must pay a portion of delivery costs as they are incurred to ensure that risk is proportionate to benefit. Financial and social return on investment will be greater if payment-by-results contracts recognise the broader spectrum of development needs for the most disengaged. Often it is early, smaller step outcomes that enable personal and social development. We recommend that an appropriate staged-payment model whereby voluntary organisations do not experience cash flow problems. Stakeholders can help identify what appropriate and valid results look like for marginalised client groups.

6.8 Regardless of the Big Society, many Government contracts have been centralised and hold a minimum size requirement, thus meaning that the vast majority of the voluntary and community sector are excluded from bidding. For example, some specialist voluntary providers are being excluded from bidding for the Work Programme because bidders are required to service all customer groups. For some youth charities, this falls outside of their aims and objectives, meaning that their specialism excludes them from the process.

6.9 Ensuring a thriving voluntary youth sector within commissioning will mitigate any risk of over-dependence on single monopoly providers. We would note the Merlin Standard, [1] which promotes excellence within supply chains, and recommend consideration of what enforceable penalties are relevant for prime contractors who manage their partners unfairly. The Merlin Standard should also be adopted in other government departments that procure Prime Contracted services. We recommend a limit on management fees to ensure enough funding reaches those who deliver frontline services

6.10 The ‘Black box’ approach within commissioning must drive value for money. Specifications must outline who is targeted (e.g. sustained NEETs) and reward providers who intensively support those most costly to society in order to avoid incentivising profit-making providers to target the easiest/cheapest to reach.

6.11 Effective commissioning understands that voluntary organisations require stability and a base level of commitment from statutory funds in order to maximise private revenue potential (for example match funding). Framework agreements make it harder for the voluntary sector to lever private sector funding as they do not demonstrate a firm financial commitment – only approved provider status. This creates a tension for charities that have to strategically utilise what are often extremely limited resources in order to raise income.

6.12 We support the government’s aim to reduce expensive bureaucracy. Streamlining commissioning will drive down costs and ensure funding is going to frontline services. We believe that intelligent national funding can enhance, and not contradict an agenda of localism (para 6.14). Government should encourage local authorities to roll out Total Place philosophy by pooling/synchronising funds through a whole-authority approach.

6.13 As many voluntary youth organisations can only compete for subcontracted opportunities, an equitable prime/sub relationship is paramount. Bidding and networking to a large and relatively young market of private sector prime providers is highly time consuming, expensive and does not offer guaranteed income.

6.1 4 Supporting the infrastructure of national voluntary youth org anisations is central to enhanc ing localism. There needs to be greater recognition of how national voluntary services have strong connection s with local voluntary sector. Larger charities have a record of building capacity locally by involving local organisations in delivery. We believe that the ‘social branch’ model many national voluntary organisations adopt is not only consistent with government priorities, but enhances the Big Society offer. We drive economies of scale through shared back room costs such as payroll, HR, policy and fundraising functions. For these functions to be set in every local centre would be extremely costly and increase not only bureaucracy for charities, but also increase risk to charities, government, donors and users alike.

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

8.1 With diminishing resources and a competition based approach to contracting services, an effective inspection and assessment regime is important for youth services. Evaluation processes must be inclusive and involve the voluntary and community sector in its design and delivery. One idea perhaps worth exploring is applying the Big Society mentality to evaluation and assessment. This would mean more than just a public sector official or set of criteria determining what success looks like, rather a wider involvement of voluntary organisations, local communities, frontline staff and crucially young people themselves.

8.2 Government freely admits that the shape and scale of our sector is set for radical shifting in coming times. We recommend the Committee consider imminently how assessment practices will safeguard quality and protect effective organisations with strong outcomes. At present there is no common system across all service deliverers that inspects the quality of a service and in turn exposes where excellence exists. The voluntary and community sector must be robustly viewed alongside statutory and private providers in order for commissioners and others to identify good practice. Two examples of where such a system works well is in Scotland (where HMIE are able to inspect voluntary sector organisations and increase their accountability in a constructive manner) and also in the NHS (where there are clear NICE standards to which any prospective supplier must comply.)

8.3 We recommend a standardised approach to evaluating social return on investment should be central to any assessment model. In order to have a vibrant and competitive market, with balanced market share across sectors, account must be taken of the long term economic impact that the voluntary and community youth sector delivers.

December 2010

[2]