Services for young people

Memorandum submitted by the Bradford Expedition Leaders Association

1. If there was one strategy that would improve young people’s health, encourage positive behaviour, raise academic achievement, encourage aspiration and motivation, and promote community cohesion, you might think that government would encourage it; but you’d be wrong. Outdoor Education remains inaccessible to large numbers of young people and few youth services have the capacity or ability to provide it.

2. Outdoor Education has been a victim of the tension between targeted and universal services. Since targeted services have received funding at the expense of universal services, Outdoor Education has been offered to young offenders and those who have been excluded from school, whereas vast numbers of honest, hard-working young people get no opportunity.

3. The idea that Outdoor Education can be included in the 8-week National Citizen Service scheme simply underlines the lack of opportunity for other age groups and at other times of the year. If Outdoor Experience is worth having – and it is – it should not be limited to a token gesture at the end of Year 11.

4. Thousands of young people want to have opportunities to get out of urban areas, and thousands more would enjoy the experience if they were introduced to it in the right way. There have been incessant consultations but it seems that no-one actually cares what young people want. As the Audit Commission reported (January 2009), young people want activities that are "accessible and responsive".

5. The majority of current providers are in the private sector, where they can make profits from selling outdoor experience to affluent young people and/or those who are lucky enough to have supportive schools. Voluntary sector providers such as Guides, Scouts and Duke of Edinburgh’s groups can exist if, in similar fashion, they target the affluent young people who can bear the costs.

6. Very few voluntary sector providers are able to offer comprehensive provision to disadvantaged young people because the funding to cover equipment, transport and leader training simply does not get through. The Lottery has had no specific round for Outdoor Education and the PE and Sport in Schools contained only a token 5% for Outdoor Education that, almost without exception, went to refurbish local authority residential centres. The grossly mis-named "Youth Opportunity Fund" seems to have by-passed the majority of young people as they know nothing about it.

7. Training needs in Outdoor Education appear to have been given the lowest possible priority. The government introduced requirements for Outdoor Leader qualifications in the Adventure Activity Licensing Regulations. The chances of anyone, especially in the voluntary sector, being able to gain these qualifications have been minimised by:

- the Skills Funding Agency not funding them;

- the costs having escalated because of extra tutor qualification requirements, which seem to have originated from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority;

- the failure of the Department for Education to give any real support to its "Manifesto for Learning Outside the Classroom";

- the claim by the Children’s Workforce Development Council that Outdoor Learning was "not in our footprint";

- the lack of any real consideration of how candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds are to have the specialist clothing and equipment necessary for outdoor training.

8. One good effect of the public spending cuts could be the cutting out of the small army of funding administrators who seem to be employed to manufacture reasons why applicants cannot be supported. This is a waste of time and resources. If the most disadvantaged young people are to be supported, there needs to be a complete shift in attitude: instead of erecting barriers to funding support, fund managers should support applicants to develop to the point at which they can be successful. This would avoid the cycle of despair in which new groups cannot expand and develop (sometimes because they have no "track record") whilst those groups that have been funded before and already have paid staff seem to have an advantage.

9. If payment by results is introduced, it should start with the senior civil servants and council officials who have been responsible for funds, like the Youth Opportunity Fund, that have so conspicuously failed to tackle disadvantage.

10. Government structures and frameworks have been unhelpful in allowing the neglect of Outdoor Education. The bizarre situation in which several government departments can voice support for Outdoor Experience but than have it undermined by a Skills Funding Agency that will not fund leader training courses is unacceptable. Joined up government it is not.

11. The weakest structure is current youth services, which cater for only about 25% of young people. Most youth projects/clubs involve small numbers of young people and even smaller numbers of staff. Without the critical mass that exists in, say, schools, youth projects are not able to cover staff absence (so frequently close for illness or vacancies) and unable to offer a wide range of activities and services. A complete re-design of youth services could see youth activities offered on the basis of larger units, preferably by linking with a school or cluster of schools. This would also allow universal monitoring of take-up, both of Outdoor Education and of other services.

12. Value and effectiveness should be evaluated in the long term rather than the short term.

The value and effectiveness of Outdoor Experience is already well documented in terms of:

- Health (better physical and mental wellbeing)

- Higher academic achievement

- Increased motivation and aspiration

- Promotion of positive behaviours

- Encouragement of community cohesion, especially between urban and rural dwellers

- Development of leadership and entrepreneurial skills

These outcomes could make massive savings on the current costs of ill health, educational under-achievement, anti-social behaviour, civil strife and dysfunctional communities.

13. Value and effectiveness are not accurately measured by "iceberg research", whereby only the peaks (those young people who do benefit from provision) are counted, and others are excluded. For example, the last Ofsted report on Outdoor Education looked only at schools provision, so there was no balanced picture informed by other providers.

December 2010