His ambition is to get 500,000 more young people taking part in non-paid activities during the next three years. It may seem like a tall order, but Hope has got help in the form of volunteering charity v.
Hope believes the opportunities open to young people need to be wide ranging and meet children's needs: "v is doing that very well, giving money to local areas and to youth organisations who engage with young people in a variety of ways."
One of the strategies he believes will encourage young people to get involved is to make sure the opportunities on offer meet their interests. "Lots of young people like the environment, and there's lots to do in art and drama because it can be a great way of expressing yourself and getting other people involved."
Hope, who was appointed minister for the third sector in the Cabinet Office in June 2007, is keen on the Boom project, which gets young people to record videos in their community that are then shown on MTV. There is also a marketing campaign encouraging young people to take part, he adds.
"For me it's about getting young people contributing, not only to help their own community but to develop their own skills," he says. "It's all about building stronger communities. If young people get the volunteering bug early, then later in life, they may come back to volunteering."
Another youth-based string to Hope's bow is the work on using unclaimed assets to fund the development of youth centres. He says it is still unclear how much money will be made available through the plans, outlined by the government in May 2007, which will see the money from accounts that have not been used for 15 years spent on improving youth centres.
Hope expects the money will start to filter through in 2009 and says it will top up the £190m the government has already allocated to the myplace project, which also aims to improve youth facilities.
Alongside this work, Hope is involved in the work of the Social Exclusion Taskforce and its Families at Risk Review. Through the taskforce he is looking at four vulnerable groups - care leavers, ex-offenders, people with learning difficulties and those with mental health problems - to help them get a home or a job.
"The four groups very often have complex challenges in their lives and what helps people through these complexities is if they get training and a job, if they get accommodation, it helps them," he says.
Hope says there has been plenty of success in getting care leavers into independent living, but admits there are still a large number who are not in employment, education or training or in stable accommodation and stresses that young people who are making the transition from living in care to living independently need someone on their side to help them through.
The Families at Risk Review outlined the need for 15 family pathfinder projects to help public services think of the whole family when they are supporting one family member.
"That's what we're trying to do, to build stronger families. Particularly those in areas where a family may have drug addiction problems," Hope says. "How can we make sure that the children's needs are not overlooked and that public services there to help deal with the adult are there to count the needs of children - so if something goes wrong what is going to happen to the children is thought about as well."
BACKGROUND - PHIL HOPE
- Hope became MP for Corby and East Northamptonshire in 1997 and was appointed as minister for the third sector in June 2007
- Between May 2005 and June 2007 he was skills minister in the Department for Education and Skills, responsible for promoting adult skills, apprenticeships and community learning
- He is a member of the all-party parliamentary groups on parenting, children and race equality and of the National Advisory Group on Personal, Social and Health Education
- Hope was previously a secondary school teacher, youth policy adviser at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and head of Young Volunteer Resources Unit at the National Youth Bureau.
