Youth Fund to be launched

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A strategic youth fund is planned for launch this summer under the control of the New Opportunities Fund. NOF is awaiting policy directions for the fund, pending DCMS consultations with other government departments. A figure of £200m is being talked about, although neither DCMS nor NOF will confirm this officially.

The idea of a Youth Fund surfaced as part of the review of lottery funding and seems to hold a great attraction for the Culture Secretary. News of the fund’s establishment comes in the wake of the recent consolidation of ‘diversionary’ youth programmes into a single England-wide funding pot, which will be operated through the regional Government Offices, with Connexions playing a lead coordinator role. The consolidated pot (temporarily called ‘Positive Activities for Young People’) takes in existing activity programmes such as Summer Splash and AYP, from NOF, Connexions, Community Cohesion Unit, the Youth Justice Board and others, and will have a budget this summer of £25m, mainly funded by NOF and Connexions. The much larger youth fund will, once up and running, contribute to this diversionary activities programme, but NOF’s hope is that DCMS policy directions will also be flexible enough to enable it to do some bigger strategic work. However, several government departments have a keen interest in tapping the fund, which leaves a delicate balancing act for the DCMS in trying to draw up suitable policy directions. 

Charles Hendry MP, the Conservative spokesman on young people, has called for a greater proportion of the Connexions agency’s £429m annual budget to be channelled to voluntary sector organisations. Hendry says that statistics from the DfES show that £4.5m, or 1% of the budget, goes to voluntary sector groups working with young people, a figure that should, he says be ‘significantly’ increased.