November 2005
Youth Matters
This month saw the end of the consultation on 'Youth Matters,' the Green Paper which looked at how young people in England access services, contribute to their communities and are provided with support.
If implemented, the proposals contained in the Green Paper will give local authorities and Children's Trusts much greater responsibility for young people while the Connexions Service will face a radical change to the way it works.
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The proposals that were set out in the Green Paper aimed to address four key challenges:
how to engage more young people in positive activities and empower them to share the services they receive
how to encourage more young people to volunteer and become involved in their communities
how to provide better Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) to young people to help them make informed choices about their lives
how to provide better and more personalised intensive support for each young person who has serious problems or gets into trouble
Engaging young people
The proposals to address the first challenge of engaging young people in positive activities include opportunity cards, opportunity funds, offering access to sport and other activities, providing better facilities, recreational, cultural and sporting opportunities, participation in volunteering and planning, and measures to support involvement in sport for older teenagers and those not in school.
Local Authorities will receive support to develop and pilot 'opportunity cards' which will offer discounts on a range of activities and places to go, giving young people buying power which can be topped up by parents or young people themselves to spend on sport or other constructive activities. The Government plans to offer additional top ups on the cards of disadvantaged young people and withhold the privilege of having a card from young people who engage in unacceptable or anti-social behaviour. The piloting of the cards is expected to begin in eight Local Authorities in April and will last for two years.
Local Authorities will have an 'opportunity fund' to be spent at the discretion of young people on projects that they most desire (eg. a youth café). There will be no national framework or criteria, giving flexibility at a local level. The money would be on needs which may be decided by a local Youth Council or similar representative organisation.
The government is expected to introduce a statutory duty on Local Authorities to use existing resources to develop an annual offer of activities to young people including:
access to 2 hours per week of sporting activity
access to 2 hours per week of other constructive activities in clubs, youth groups or classes
opportunities to contribute to their communities through volunteering
a wide range of other recreational, cultural, sporting and enriching experiences
a range of safe and enjoyable places in which to spend time.
Young people will also have more opportunities to be involved in planning and delivering local services and be given a chance to express their views during local inspections.
Capital funding of £40million will be provided over two years (2006-2008) to upgrade youth facilities, with a particular focus on deprived neighbourhoods. Government funding will support a network of youth sport development managers to support older teenagers and those not in schools.
Volunteering
To address the second challenge of increasing the number of young people involved in volunteering there will be an increase in the number of opportunities available, including the extension of the Young Volunteer Challenge and peer mentoring programmes, especially in schools and colleges. Those who contribute to their community may be rewarded through their opportunity cards.
Providing better IAG
The third challenge of providing better IAG is based around having a clear minimum expectation of the service that each young person and their parents should receive including:
at age 11 - 12: introduction to what is on offer within secondary school
at age 13 - 14: support in considering post-14 choices and a personal session with an adviser if they or their parents need or want it. This will complement plans for a local 14 - 19 learning prospectus
better support through the teenage years to think through post-16 options, personal, social and health issues and career choices
an ICT service for access to national and local information, including a navigable website, online advisers and a helpline.
These proposals will be outlined in a set of quality standards on which the Government will consult. Responsibility for commissioning IAG and the funding that goes with it will be devolved from the Connexions Service to Local Authorities, working through Children's Trusts, schools and colleges. Local Authorities will be responsible for commissioning IAG for young people not attending school or college.
Targeted support for young people at risk
The final challenge to meet is that of providing an integrated targeted support service to young people at-risk. The aim is to ensure every young person who needs intensive support has a nominated lead professional, whom they know and trust, as a single point of contact to make sure support is given in a co-ordinated, convenient and integrated way. Targeted funding streams will be merged (eg. Connexions, teenage pregnancy, behaviour and attendance programmes) but Youth Offending Teams will be maintained.
It has been suggested that it will be important during any transition to preserve the innovative methods Connexions has developed to engage young people and involve them in shaping service delivery.
Rocket Science has expertise in a range of youth issues including developing structures to support young people in decision-making processes, provision of information and advice for young people, conferences for health professionals engaged in youth issues and projects involving young people themselves. If you want to hear more about our work please contact Debbie Adams.
Batting for funding?
When the London Development Agency (LDA) wanted to launch its new fund for local economic development projects, it turned to us for help. An on-line bid assessment tool (the BAT), designed by Rocket Science, is now being used to score the 800 applications received.
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The £40m Opportunities Fund was launched in early October, with two prospectuses produced by Rocket Science. One describes activities that the LDA will co-finance with ESF - the other, a range of projects that will be supported solely by the Agency's new fund.
Rocket Science's BAT tool is being used to maximise the efficiency of what can be a resource-intensive, bid-assessment process. It calculates scores, allows weightings to be introduced and includes a 'traffic light' system for guiding scorers and categorising the bids.
The BAT generates a concise assessment report which is tailored to the client's needs but which typically includes scores, comments and graphs that provide a snapshot of each application.
The data can be used to provide instant feedback to each applicant (either electronically or in paper form). It can also be fed into a central database to generate detailed comparative reports of applications, based on different criteria.
The BAT has been used by a wide range of organisations, from the Learning & Skills Councils to Communities Scotland, to assess applications for grant or investment funding. It is designed to ensure a fair and transparent application process.
As it evolves, the BAT will develop into a capacity building tool for future applicants. Watch this space!
For further information contact: John Griffiths.
Rolling out the RAT
The Local Community Sector Taskforce is intending to roll out the RAT (Readiness Assessment Tool) through regional roadshows, as part of its strategy to minimise the impact of the ending of SRB and EU funding on voluntary and community sector organisations. Assess your own readiness. Read on.
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The RAT was developed by Rocket Science in association with the LDA and Government Office for London, for grant-funded projects to use in project management. It was specifically designed to help projects to plan their succession or exit strategies from grant funding. It can be downloaded from the Government Office for London website at
http://www.gos.gov.uk/gol/European_funding/?a=42496
The LDA has made use of the RAT a requirement of those agencies contracted to provide capacity-building support to projects under the latest and last round of ESF funding.
The RAT has been well received by a variety of projects, strategic organisations and government departments. For example, James Plaskitt MP, Minister at the Department of Work and Pensions, told delegates about it in his speech at the UK Presidency ESF Conference in Manchester in October 2005.
The Waterloo Project Board SRB Partnership was encouraged by the potential of the Readiness Assessment Tool to help its constituent projects hone their succession planning. The Board has started to use the tool to assess its own strengths and weaknesses, creating a challenging agenda for itself over the months to March 2007, when its SRB funding ceases.
The RAT was featured in a recent edition of the External Funding Bulletin and is also profiled in the next edition of ESF News.
For further information contact Ruth Evans or, for details on any Rocket Science product, contact John Griffiths
New faces
We are delighted to welcome Andrew Carter and Alistair Grimes to Rocket Science as Directors. They will be based in London and Edinburgh respectively. Fiona Laver joins us as Business Manager and consultants Shelley Gray and Farrah Meherali will also be taking up posts in the next few weeks.
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At the same time, we are sad to have bidden farewell to Tine Kleif, one of our very first consultants, who has headed back home to Denmark after making a huge contribution to our work. Catherine Reid, our former Business Manager, has also left to have her first child.
We're listening
Some of you told us you would prefer less more often, so this is the first of our snappier but more frequent e-newsletters.
This time's teaser
His name graces a day, a town, a university and an open. Who's 'he'?
Answers in an email.
Congratulations to Jane Connor of London Bourough of Newham and Newham PCT who knew that it was the G8 summit that was first held in Rambouillet in 1975 and that Cherie Blair chose a commemorative tartan for the summit this year.