Services for young people

Memorandum submitted by Changemakers

1 Introducing Changemakers

1.1 Changemakers unlocks the leadership potential of young people. Whilst there are over 10 million 18-30 year olds in the UK, they are woefully under-represented in positions of power and influence. We think that many of our country’s biggest social and economic challenges could be overcome if we effectively harnessed the leadership potential of young people. We plant young people in real situations with real problems to learn, as well as lead, and in the process develop a new generation of leaders.

1.2 Our ambition is to create a world in which more young people have the confidence to lead in business, public life and society at large, and everyone understands we need them to.

1.3   Changemakers has a unique perspective on youth services, combining on the ground experience of working in local areas across the UK with strategic involvement and policy engagement at national level. This means we are well placed to respond to this inquiry in to the provision of youth services.

1.4 We are interested in this i nquiry because we have a vested interest in the services offered to young people. We would like to contribute our views to ensure that improvements can be made in relation to these services.

1.5 In our response we aim to set out some of the problems and challenges of the current model of youth service provision and support a debate around how to develop a more flexible, user centred approach to the delivery of youth services which engages a wider range of providers. In particular we focus on ways in which voluntary sector organisations can be encouraged and supported to develop services which simultaneously respond to user demands and provide better value for money for the public purse.

1.6 This paper will outline Changemakers’ views on the issues raised as part of the Select Committee’s Inquiry into the provision of services for young people.

2 The relationship between universal and targeted services for young people

2.1 In general, much of what is currently provided by local authorities for young people is targeted at the disadvantaged or hard to reach. We would be interested in further research on the take up of universal services and in particular the level of take up across social groups. We believe that in many areas even universal youth provision is in the most part accessed by those for whom there is no other option. The impact of this is that more informal opportunities for social mixing are being eroded or disappearing altogether. In this way the same segregation which frequently occurs in the education system is being reinforced out of school and a critical part of children and young people’s social development- getting to know people from different backgrounds – simply isn’t happening.

2.2 A six week summer programme for 16 year olds, as planned by NCS, can certainly help to create a greater element of social mix in young people’s lives. However, we need to identify ongoing opportunities for this to happen, and before young people reach the age of 16. We believe that new ways of delivering youth services such as our proposals in section 4 below would help to support greater integration between different social groups which would promote improved community relations.

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

3.1 Changemakers has worked successfully with young volunteers over many years to support them to engage constructively in their communities. Through supporting young people to design and deliver services for other young people in their community not only are we able to give them a chance to develop personally, gaining confidence, leadership skills and ultimately making themselves more employable, but also they are providing much needed provision for their peers. By supporting organisations which operate in this way, the Government can both support and encourage volunteering and develop a wider range of youth provision focused on local needs.

3.2 For example, in Birmingham a young person taking part in a Changemakers programme designed and delivered a project to create a girls cricket club. She had noticed that girls in the local area, who were predominantly Muslim, wanted to play cricket but felt uncomfortable about joining the existing cricket club which was targeted at boys. Her project attracted 25 girls over six sessions last summer and most participants reported a greater sense of self confidence as a result of taking part. HhOWShe has made plans for this project to be sustained by a local organisation to either set up the club again this Easter or to provide more cricket coaches to local schools.

3.3 Particularly at a time of reductions in public spending, supporting young people to design and deliver services for their peers is a highly cost effective approach, and ensures that limited resources are targeted most effectively.

3.4 We feel strongly that in order to maximise the value of the NCS programme for individuals and for local communities, there should be a strong element which seeks to encourage and support and train young people to enable them to provide services for their peers in their community. Changemakers would like to see the NCS have a strong focus on giving young people the skills and confidence to design and deliver their own services.

3.5 We would like to see more thought given to the ‘post NCS’ experience for young people who wish to volunteer in their community. Given that much of the current infrastructure is likely to be reduced and remodelled (for example, the vinvolved programme and local Volunteer Centres) it is important that young people who have been through the NCS programme have an outlet and support for the excitement and enthusiasm for community involvement their experience will have created.

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

4.1 As mentioned in section 2 above, nearly all young people access services. However, the vast majority of these services are outside the traditional statutory provision, being provided in informal voluntary settings or by private operators. Wherever services are provided, Changemakers believes it is important that young people are truly involved in shaping provision.

4.2 There is no lack of demand from young people for services which meet their needs. However, at the moment it seems that local youth services are either unwilling to listen to these needs, or are unable to respond in a meaningful way. Changemakers believes that young people’s involvement in shaping the services which affect them is crucial, and we have many years’ experience of enabling this to happen in a diverse range of places across the country.

4.3 Through one of Changemakers’ programme one young person designed and delivered a one day development programme for sixteen to eighteen year olds in West London with the aim to inspire and engage them to aspire higher. She had noticed a need for this kind of event to provide information on careers and talk through the necessary skills within the local community. She organised two workshops, the first on information about different careers and the second session focusing on the skills required, e.g. public speaking and networking. Following these workshops, the participants were directed to a range of volunteering opportunities. The whole project called Inspire me; Inspire you aims to equip young people from different backgrounds with the confidence and skills to fulfil their potentials and make informed choices about their activities so that they are better equipped for further education or employment.

4.4 Put simply, a far greater proportion of youth service budgets should be controlled by young people. There is absolutely no reason why young people can’t be trained to be highly effective commissioners, and all the evidence suggests that the decisions they make result in better utilised, more effective and more efficient services. This approach is particularly useful for the design and delivery of larger scale services, which rely on a degree of central planning and determination.

4.5 In analysing why youth-led commissioning hasn’t become more widespread, we believe the issue of incentives is crucial. Central government has attempted to persuade local authorities to adopt this approach through, for example, Youth Opportunity Fund and Youth Capital Fund. However, it has been difficult to persuade local authorities to adopt these principles more widely across the full range of their youth provision, and the end of ring fencing of these budgets means these approaches may no longer be supported. In addition, we have found it difficult to move local authorities’ thinking beyond a narrow definition of youth service provision to engage young people more broadly in how spending decisions in their local area are made.

4.6 We propose, therefore, that central government should provide a genuine financial incentive for local authorities to adopt youth led commissioning. This could be achieved through the establishment of a central government ‘match fund’ which would be allocated to local initiatives which followed the youth led commissioning approach.

4.7 Organisations such as Changemakers could be commissioned by central government at relatively low cost to provide the necessary capacity building to enable local authorities to move to commissioning services in a more youth led way. This approach would also ensure that the commitment in ‘Aiming High’ that, by 2018, 25% of youth expenditure should be controlled by young people themselves, would be achieved, or substantially exceeded.

4.8 We are interested in engaging with the Government’s participatory budgeting agenda and will be exploring ways we can work with the Participatory Budgeting Unit in the near future. We believe that young people have a real role to play in making sure that they influence the decision making on the spending and priorities for a defined public budget.

4.9 Changemakers has over a decade’s experience of supporting young people to commission services in a wide range of settings. We have recently commenced delivery of a £5m Lottery funded contract which will create a new cadre of youth commissioners in a number of local authorities across England. The objectives of the project are to ensure that young people can have a say in the services they want and have a meaningful role in how provision is shaped. Currently we have five local authorities participating in this scheme, which include Islington, Hertfordshire, Birmingham, Newcastle and Darlington.

4.10 For example the Young Commissioner working with Hertfordshire County Council has focused on the sexual health services provided by the local authority for young people. Katrina has consulted with their peers in the local area to find out which services they use, which they don’t use and why, including asking about their fears about confidentiality. Following this consultation with service users Katrina will feed this information back to relevant employees within the Council to ensure that when they next commission services they meet the needs of the people using them. As a result the Council has truly involved service users in shaping provision but at the same time, they have not wasted scarce resources on services which aren’t going to be used or which are ineffective. The Young Commissioner has been given an important insight into how to decision making in her local area and it is hoped use this to maintain an interest and engagement beyond the project.

4.11 We have consistently found that young people are very adept at recognising the needs of their peers and designing innovative services which are popular with young people. We feel strongly that involving young people in designing and delivering their services benefits individuals, local communities and wider society, and would like to see youth led commissioning supported and encouraged throughout the UK.

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

5.1 Whilst the general trend within local delivery of public services has been towards a commissioning model, with a diverse range of providers from the private and voluntary sectors delivering alongside state run services, local youth provision has largely avoided moves in this direction.

5.2 There has been very substantial resistance to marketisation of youth services compared to other local services, for example health and social care, environment and waste and leisure, where voluntary and private sector providers have been able to secure a substantial market share. One voluntary sector Chief Executive of a health and social care organisation, who recently started operating in the youth sector, commented on how surprised he was at the difficulty of gaining a foothold in the local market, even with substantial seedcorn investment from the DfE. He believes that the youth sector is "twenty years behind" health and social care in this regard.

5.3 Many successful and popular voluntary sector programmes could be developed and expanded if we were given greater opportunities to access funding from existing statutory budgets. Changemakers would also argue that, whilst the voluntary sector shouldn’t be seen as a ‘cheap option’, we can deliver many existing services more cheaply and efficiently than the statutory sector, and our ability to innovate and respond to the needs of our stakeholders cannot be matched by public sector agencies.

5.4 Changemakers believes that the introduction of personalisation in the youth sector could open up the market and allow the voluntary sector to play a much greater role in the delivery of services, drive up quality of provision and drive down cost.

5.5 We propose that consideration be given to how to allocate a proportion of youth service expenditure directly to young people, perhaps through the introduction of a personal ‘activities account’ or statutory entitlement for every young person. Funds could be spent on any approved youth activity and be subject to an element of means testing, with young people from disadvantaged backgrounds getting more government support. Accounts could be topped up by parents and carers, much like a child trust fund. Young people could earn credits through achieving particular personal goals, or making a positive difference in their community.

5.6 In London we are exploring ways in which the Oyster card could be used as a mechanism for accessing youth services with the card being charged by parents, statutory agencies and young people themselves.

5.7 We believe that this concept would quickly make youth provision more responsive to the needs of young people since they would simply ‘vote with their feet’ for less popular provision. It would open up the market to a wide range or organisation who do not currently consider themselves to be youth organisations per se, and encourage them to improve the quality and expand the quantity of their current activity, driven by market demand, It would also fairly remunerate those organisations, who are already providing a substantial proportion of overall youth provision but currently receive no statutory funding for this.

5.8 Intermediary organisations, such as Changemakers, could be contracted to build the capacity of providers who wish to participate in the scheme to work with young people. We have already delivered this capacity building approach very effectively to volunteering organisations who had not traditionally worked with young people through funding we have received from v to develop the local volunteering infrastructure in 15 local authority areas across England.

5.9 The local authority’s role would then be to become the ‘honest broker’ – helping young people and their families to navigate the market (in much the same way as is happening with personalisation of social care for the elderly and disabled), as well as fulfilling a quality assurance and safeguarding remit, and deciding which organisations and activities should be on the ‘approved’ list. This could also retain a delivery function where this was deemed appropriate or necessary.

5.10 Undoubtedly it will be argued that young people are ‘incapable’ of making sensible purchasing decisions for services in this way. However, the same argument was made about elderly and disabled people in relation to personal care, and this has proved unfounded.

6 The training and workforce development needs of the sector

6.1 Changemakers is highly sceptical about the workforce development agenda.

6.2 A very substantial amount of money and resources has been invested in this area over recent years. The agenda assumes that ‘professionalisation’ of the youth workforce is an important and desirable outcome. Our view is that ‘professional’ youth work is an essentially protectionist concept, peddled largely by sector bodies and the youth work unions, which ignores the fact that 95% of youth provision is provided by volunteers.

6.3 Changemakers does not believe that a professional qualification is necessary to be effective in working with young people. Indeed many of the best ‘youth workers’ we know would not describe themselves as such. This includes most of our own workforce.

6.4 The real workforce development need in the sector is to encourage more adult volunteers to get involved in delivering activities for young people. The uniformed youth organisations have some 50,000 young people on their waiting lists because they do not have enough group leaders. Many people are put off from getting involved because of fears around the safeguarding agenda and the bureaucracy and intrusion this process can sometimes entail. A simplification of this process would therefore be welcome.

6.5 Clearly a largely voluntary workforce needs to be supported, trained and developed to ensure provision is safe, effective and of high quality. We would prefer to see energy and resources being directed towards this objective, rather than into the so-called ‘professional’ side of the workforce.

6.6 In addition Changemakers believe that there is a need to develop the skills of those commissioning youth services to enable them to embrace youth led commissioning and participatory budgeting.

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 achieveable

7.1 As discussed in sections 3, 4 and 5, above, Changemakers believes that the application of personalisation in youth service provision, an increase in user-led commissioning and a transition towards community led service delivery are ways in which we can ensure that we maximise the resources available.

7.2 Changemakers has often experienced micromanaged statutory contracts which require us to deliver in ways which we know to be suboptimal. For example, one recent contract we delivered required us to create a set number of staff posts to a set format, even though we knew that we did not require such a high level of staff resource to deliver the contract effectively.

7.3 We would welcome a review of the way in which local authorities commission services from the voluntary sector. In particular we would like to see a much greater focus on outcomes and social return on investment which we believe would not only create higher quality services, but could also save money. We would certainly be willing to negotiate lower fees in return for greater freedom in how we deliver, whilst still ensuring that we are accountable and delivering positive impact.

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

8.1 Despite the long standing commitment of central government to greater involvement of the voluntary sector in the delivery of youth services, the reality on the ground is often very different.

8.2 Many local authorities are still stuck in the mindset of believing that they must deliver most or all of their services in house. This creates a sense that commissioning of services is a ‘closed shop’ into which it is often difficult to break.

8.3 We believe there is still a long way to go in terms of changing this culture. Greater education and support for local commissioners, some of which is already happening, would help to improve things.

9 How the value and effectiveness of services should be assessed

9.1 Changemakers would like to see a fundamental shift in the role of local authorities so that they have a much stronger quality assurance and safeguarding remit. We believe that if we were to develop the concept of personalisation for youth services, young people would be able to exercise real choice and unpopular or ineffective services would not survive.

9.2 We would see a key role of the local authority to maintain an ‘approved’ list of providers who meet a range of key criteria which are determined locally in collaboration with young people and elected councillors.

9.3 Where there are any concerns about lack of provision in any areas or for any specific groups of young people, we would want to see the local authority supported by organisations such as Changemakers working with those young people to involve them in the shaping of provision to ensure that their needs are met and that their views are truly listened to. A strategic programme to support local authorities to develop and nurture young people as effective young commissioners would ensure that services meet the needs of young people.

December 2010