Services for young people

Memorandum submitted by the National Youth Agency

The relationship between universal and targeted services for young people

1. The relationship between targeted and universal provision in complex. T argeted services can be defined as those which are exclusively available to a particular group of young people who share a common need or who are seen as facing particular challenges or involved in particular risk taking activities.

2. Universal provision is defined as open access provision available to any young person who chooses to engage. However both these definitions over simplify the complexity of young people’s lives and the way in which provision has been developed. So for example an open access provision in an area of multi deprivation will have been established to target young people with particular needs and will often engage with young people who would otherwise require access to targeted provision.

3. Another key concept in terms of shaping the offer is those interventions that are preventative. Universal provision engages some young people the system has not identified as at risk but who are actually facing challenges in their lives. These young people will often self refer in to an unstigmatised universal offer and, in so doing, mitigate the need for more specialist interventions later on. Universal provision can also play a key role in bridging between targeted and specialist services like care or youth offending and provide a part of the transition pathway to coping more independently. Similarly universal provision can play a key role in integration e.g. open access youth provision that proactively engages disabled and able bodied young people.

4. Parents and willing volunteers are well placed to instigate and support universal provision for many young people and the increased commitment in communities to engaging young people in social and activity based clubs and groups is very desirable for a whole range of reasons However young people with complex and or particular needs are often the ones who’s behaviour or particular needs means they are excluded from such provision and many of these young people do require the intervention of trained professional staff committed to building relationships with highly distrustful young people and skilled in creating learning curriculum that will enable the young person to develop the levels of social and emotional resilience they require.

5. There is little doubt that youth work like every other public service could make efficiency gains. Local authorities face significant and particular challenges in the delivery of their offer to young people. They are being forced to take tough decisions about the services they will provide in the future and in becoming more efficient and effective. It is tempting to assume that by simply sepa rating the universal activity based offer to young people and supporting communities to deliver this , it will be possible to exclusively target resources and the time and skills of professional staff to the young people who need it most. However without an understanding of the relationship between the targeted and the universal, the needs of young people and their patterns of service use and the critical interface betw een prevention and universality this is likely to create real and costly problems in the future.

How services for young people can meet the Government’s priorities for volunteering, including the role of the National Citizens Service;

6. Youth work is essential to meet the coalition government’s aspirations for young people. We know the contribution that youth work makes to young people - for many it’s the pivotal moment that sets them on the path to success. Youth work is ‘at the heat’ of enabling young people to play an active role in society. Youth work helps young people understand their role in communities and builds social capital. It encourages voluntary action, strengthens society, creates bridges between interest groups, and reduces destructive behaviours.

7. The Nation al Citizen Service (NCS), a key element of the Big Society, its ambitions to provide a universal right of passage, an opportunity for social mixing and high quality social and personal development is laudable. It is consistent with the core purpose of youth work, where youth services help young people learn about themselves, others and society, through non-formal educational activities building social and personal development. However for many young people, particularly the most disadvantaged the critical elements will be the pathways that support them in to NCS and the support and provision which is available to them afterwards. Yo u th services have a key role to play in relation, not only to delivery but also access and follow on .

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

8. Engaging young people themselves in making realistic decisions about the priorities for local service delivery is essential. It is clear that provision is improved if decision-makers involve young people in the decision making process. Ofsted inspections consistently show that that the highest performing youth services prioritise involving young people in decision-making, planning and evaluating services. However, some need help to engage young people particularly those that are hardest to reach.

9. As local authorities re-evaluate their priorities and role, they are reflecting on how they want to be engaged in service provision. Some councils will choose to continue to be involved in direct delivery whilst others will see themselves as enablers and commissioners, out sourcing delivery to mutuals, the voluntary and community sectors, social enterprises and sometimes, the private sector. Understanding what constitutes effective commissioning, knowing how to build local capacity to engage in procurement processes, building quality and cost effectiveness, ensuring effective contract management and measuring returns on investment and the levering of resources from a wide range of sources, will all be key to councils in the delivery of their youth offer.

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

10. The Big Society represents an opportunity for the VCS. However a major concern is that the government’s commitment to deficit reduction will undermine the very networks and groups that are most needed locally. The VCS is ideally placed to provide services for young people. Many adults and young people already volunteer in their spare time in roles such as sports coaches, drama group organisers, and scout and guide leaders – providing a huge range of activities for young people to develop skills and confidence. There are also many examples of young people taking the initiative and developing activities for themselves and their peers. Their active participation promotes a sense of belonging and commitment to their community and provides opportunities to develop many life skills, including how to be an active citizen.

11. But if communities are to flourish, more adults need, firstly, to be helped to identify where volunteering opportunities exist or can be developed and secondly, supported to be a volunteer and trained in essential skills and information such as safeguarding. By encouraging and supporting adults to volunteer, a greater range of activities can be provided. This has the added bonus of giving young people the chance to grow up with a positive experience of adults who value and support their development and provide them with good role models.

12. Community organisations bring a wide range of activities and benefits to local people. To be effective they often require well-managed, well-maintained premises from which to conduct their work. There is potential for community organisations to realise real gains for local communities by taking on the management and ownership of local assets. Well-managed transfer of ownership or management of community assets can be a win-win scenario for local councils and local communities. The NYA would like to see local authorities explore potential opportunities for asset transfer as part of a strategic approach to providing services and opportunities for children and young people.

13. At the heart of ensuring that all local bodies can play their role is a robust and open commissioning process. This allows a voluntary sector organisation, employee mutual or indeed social enterprise to participate. In some instances, particularly for smaller organisations, small grants are better and more efficient requiring less bureaucracy and a greater focus on delivery. Local authorities, with their in depth understanding of local needs are best placed to understand what is really needed and to commission services and support to meet these needs.

14. Moving forward there will be a key role for the private sector. Whether this is in the form of supporting infrastructure or indeed providing back room services for the VCS will be dependent on a variety of issues. It should be noted that O2’s involvement in the youth sector has been a huge success. It’s ‘Think Big Youth Programme’, led by the NYA has now grown to form a coalition of 35 national partners since its launch in March, making it the broadest coalition of youth charities in the UK. The project has received the support of the government and was designed with advice from Paul Oginsky, youth policy adviser to the Prime Minister.

The training and workforce development needs of the sector;

15. Youth work is a key component in delivering the Government’s ambition for Big Society. Youth work is an unusual workforce in that it encompasses many thousands of volunteers through to highly qualified professionals. NYA is concerned that, whatever the type of provider or the type of workforce they deploy, they deliver high quality that really reflects and meets young people’s needs. We believe that the overriding feature of quality youth work in the capacity and capability of the staff be they fulltime professionals, trained part timers or volunteers, who deliver it.

16. Qualified Youth Workers are community based professionals playing a key role in providing services for young people. Youth work is recognised as a vital and pivotal professional area within the young people’s workforce and seen as a key priority, with strong reach into those communities of young people not in education, employment and training and others considered hard to reach.

17. Traditionally qualifying programmes in youth work, all of which are endorsed by the NYA’s Education and Training Standards body, have attracted a wide range of non traditional entrants many of whom come through a youth work engagement themselves or whose own life experience enables them to have real empathy and understanding. There are real concerns that proposed changes in the funding of Higher Education, whereby additional funding to institutions to deliver youth work programmes will be removed, will disproportionately disadvantages youth work and youth workers already disadvantaged in the young people’s workforce education, training and qualification arena. Further more the delicencing of LLUK the sector skills council for youth work and the removal of youth work funding from CWDC raises real concerns about the priority and funding of workforce development in the sector. We believe that what is needed is to:

18. Secure the professional identity of youth work through the implementation of appropriate and sustainable mechanisms and supported by a Code of Ethics

19. Ensure continued financial and structural support for existing routes for vocational training and initial professional training within youth work, enhanced by the development of new pathways (for example, apprenticeships leading to professional qualifications ) as part of a labour market plan

20. Develop a strategy for initial and continuing development throughout the workforce which is fully resourced, proactively managed and monitored

21. Develop a specific youth work workforce plan/strategy based on labour market information and future trends which ensures that there are sufficient and appropriately skilled youth workers to meet the needs of young people

22. Resource and secure the mechanisms for the collection of data to inform labour market planning, building on existing and valued practices.

23. Much of this could be led by the profession and the sector itself supported by government and the local authority employer/commissioner base.

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;

24. Proposed severe local authority cuts in conjunction with the knock on impact to provision in the VCS will bring about devastation to the current landscape of provision and opportunities available to huge numbers of young people who most need intervention and support. We believe the withdrawal of funding by either central or local government for youth work would have detrimental social and economic impacts for decades to come.

25. A recent survey ccompleted by more than 130 youth charities and 38 heads of youth services, reveal ed 95 per cent of the heads of youth services confirmed that their budget has already reduced, while 82 per cent of charities are being forced to cut youth projects because of funding shortages. Budgets for young people's services are expected to be hit further next year by cuts of up to 20 per cent, according to more than 80 per cent of local authority respondents. More than a third of charities expect reductions of between 10 and 20 per cent next year, with one in five considering closing down completely.

26. Even before the recent comprehensive spending review there h as been a huge disparity in spending on young people in local authorities . T he NYA’s own research found that the figures ranged from £56 per young person annually to £247. Such variation is at least partly the outcome of local decisions about priorities and levels of need. However, if early intervention services for young people, whose needs are not met by mainstream or specialist services in isolation, are not provided, the associated costs of later support are typically much higher.

27. There is a wealth of evidence to suggest that the financial consequences from not intervening early and targeting support is huge. In terms of anti-social behaviour alone for example , a young person in the criminal justice system costs the taxpayer over £200,000 by the age of 16, but one who is given support to stay out costs less than £50,000. Detached, stre et based youth work that reaches the most disadvantaged young people is incredibly cost effective. A pro ject providing a full range of services and in contact with 125 young people a week, would cost £75,000 a year, or £16 for each contact. Research concluded that for disadvantaged neighbourhoods, ‘a systematic street-based youth service would cost a small fraction of the amount spent on other services targeted at this group’. Other comparative costings include: £1,300 per person for an electronically monitored curfew order, and around £35,000 per year to keep a young person in a young offender institution .

28. However, w e acknowledge that current financial constraints mean that funding of universal services may not be a priority, and that in turn communities are well placed to support a universal offer for their young people. However, targeted services which include a youth work offer are essential as they provide vulnerable young people with assistance from a range of sources and give them the chance to build positive futures. Funding is necessary to support targeted and preventive youth work interventions as volunteers and unqualified staff often do not have the skills or capacity to engage with young people with complex and multiple issues and behaviours.

29. We recognise a number of ways in which efficiencies could be achieved. These include a move away from buildings-based provision, with high administrative cos ts , to more targeted and detached work engaging with young people in their own environment. Politically this may be a difficult since many are wedded to the notion of places that provide alternatives to young people on the streets. One solution may be to explore supporting communities and young people themselves to take on buildings as social enterprises using their capital value to raise revenue, and seeking support in managing and developing them effectively with the support and expertise of local business. NYA is working with the Social Investment Business to explore not only the transfer of assets to communities but also capitalisation of those assets and how business can support them to be economically viable.

30. Stronger partnership working also leads to more effective services for young people. The creation of integrated youth support and development services has required youth services to work in partnership , and they are now an integral part of multi-agency approaches to delivering targeted services. Research carried out by CfBT Education Trust and the NYA into Integrated Youth Support Services found that the development of an IYSS had seen major improvements in access to information, advice and guidance, access to leisure time activities, improved targeted youth support services and improvements in young people’s personal and social development.

31. We note from the recent announcement from children’s minister Sarah Teather that a portion of the Early Intervention Grant will be used to reward positive performance. The NYA believes that p ayment by results is possible but in its crudest form this type of funding methodology may have the perverse impact of forcing smaller community and voluntary organisations out of business since they may not be able to afford to bankroll provision. Payment by results may work if in part it were supported by some form of social impact bonds and an agreement by a range of government departments and funders that cost savings achieved over a period from high end specialist services would be shared with the providers of youth work services to secure social investment. An example of this might be that a policing authority or the Ministry of Justice agree that cost savings would be passed on to a youth work organisation if their interventions resulted in drops in demand for funding associated with anti-social behaviour and young people’s costly engagement in the criminal justice system.

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

32. The existing level of statutory protection has given service provision some level of protection. However, going forward this is unlikely to be the case. It is vital that any structural changes are done so to improve service provision rather then as an efficiency saving exercise and that all decisions remain under review.

33. At the local level, the primary focus for local authorities must be on assessing local need and capacity. They must have sufficient flexibility to be able to adjust to situations on the ground. Indeed recent case studies produced by the NYA and the Local Government Association illustrate how organisations and councils can work together to provide services. They highlight how the best councils demonstrate a willingness to innovate and to work with local partners in rethinking their local offer for young people.

34. Every community wants to ensure th e best for its young people. The most effective communities create the right environment for the m to play a positive part in community life and this includes having places to go and things to do. Local government support for communities to build their skills and confidence, in order that they in turn can provide opportunities for young people will be essential if the government’s Big Society ambitions are to be met.

35. For those young people however, whose needs are so complex and urgent that they require i nterventions by skilled professionals. The key issue is not who employs these individuals it can be local authorities, the V CS or indeed the private sector , simply that they are deployed in the right settings with the right young people. They need to be supported to deliver high quality services in often challenging environments. They need professional support, supervision and access to continuing professional development. They also need to be stitched in to the broader youth offer, sharing data and information and making sure young people get the support they need.

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

37. Value and effectiveness relate to quality and as the delivery mechanisms for youth services become more diverse and fragmented maintaining quality will become more challenging. Quality services for young people do not just happen. They rely on a skilled workforce, an efficient performance management system, robust processes and checks, sufficient resources and decision making processes, built around young people. The NYA’s package of quality assurance tools including the Quality Mark is a nationally recognised and validated process for assessing the quality of services which organisations and local authorities provide for young people, funded by the Local Government Association. Organisations such as Connexions, private sector providers, local authorities and large and small community and voluntary sector organisations have already gained national recognition by achieving our Quality Mark.

38. The Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People's Services provides a range of support to improve delivery of children's services, and ultimately outcomes for children and young people. C4EO validates examples of excellence in local practice, alongside research and data about ‘what works’ providing a single centre of evidence, making it accessible to users in a ‘low cost-high impact’ environment.

39. Adopting a Social Return on Investment methodology in order to ascertain the value of a service would also be worth exploring. There is an urgent need to develop a set of robust metrics which identify the costs savings in high end high cost services when effective youth work interventions are made in relation to a whole range of youth issues. The development of such metrics, already partially developed in by a range of bodies would enable the investment of private sector finance as well as a more robust case to be made for ongoing public funding. NYA is working with the Social Investment Business to develop such approaches.

December 2010