This latest statement comes in contrast to comments made by junior children's minister Tim Loughton last week at a National Council for Voluntary Youth Services Conference.
Loughton had said: "I was absolutely clear that the primary focus of the Big Society Bank should be youth and that is going to be its primary objective."
But a spokesman for the Cabinet Office said: "It will be independent. We are clear about that, so government will not have the power to decided how it spends its money."
Instead there would only be a "mandate" on the bank to focus on funding youth projects, but this was as far as the government would go in terms of directing how the bank spends money, the spokesman added.
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