Call for social investment to fund youth services

The National Youth Agency’s (NYA) Vision for Youth Work in England to 2020 outlines a proposal for the use of social impact bonds to support the delivery of youth services.

Under the plan, “social investors” would invest in the delivery of services up front and then be repaid by the government when a set of agreed outcomes have been achieved.

In order to do this, the report recommends that the government establish a budget equivalent to 10 per cent of the cost of youth unemployment as the “payment mechanism” used to repay social investors.

The proposal has been put forward as part of efforts to make the NYA’s “vision” for all young people to be able to access youth services in their local communities by 2020.

To achieve this, the report recommends that local authorities take greater ownership of youth services and provide a comprehensive offer for all young people.

It also suggests that the government develops a framework for inspecting the scope, quality and impact of local authority youth provision to ensure that sufficient and appropriate services are being provided.

The report comes just weeks after a Cabinet Office survey of local authority youth services found that councils are neglecting their legal duties when making decisions about which youth services to fund.

The survey also revealed that youth service spend has slumped by 22 per cent in just two years, prompting former children’s minister Tim Loughton to call on the Cabinet Office to promote good youth work as part of efforts to protect youth services from further budget cuts.

Fiona Blacke, chief executive of NYA, also said the government often claims to value youth work but are yet to demonstrate their commitment.

She said: “We want to challenge the government and other political parties to take practical steps to recognise the value of high-quality youth work.

“Government must establish mechanisms to facilitate social investment.

“This will encourage investment of funds in youth services, which can then be repaid when outcomes delivering cost savings to the state are achieved. Front-loading services early on will cut costs in the long term.”