The National Youth Agency: Access - Eight per cent increase in local authority spending on services

On average local authorities spent 84 per head on their 13 to 19youth population, an increase of 4 per head on the previousyear.

Other key findings from the annual National Youth Agency audit, whichcollects information on expenditure, workforce and outcomes from 140local authority youth services, include: the average share of spendingon youth services from education budgets dropped again; spending inaddition to total local authority youth spending (without income)amounted to 152m, 41 per cent of the 371m mainstream youthservice expenditure; approximately 34m was given in grant aid andthrough contract arrangements to the voluntary and community sector; afurther total of 5.4m was provided as grant in kind to thevoluntary and community sector; the average (median) authority contacted28 per cent of its 13 to 19 youth population, half a per cent more thanthe rate in the previous year; there were a total of 9,918 full-timeequivalent (FTE) staff employed in the responding services in 2006/07.This compares with 10,225 FTE staff employed in the responding servicesin 2005/06; 63 authorities met or exceeded the 60 per cent benchmark forparticipants gaining a recorded outcome (46 per cent of 138 respondents)compared to 49 (35 per cent of 142) authorities in 2005/06; and 39authorities met or exceeded the 30 per cent benchmark for participantsgaining an accredited outcome (28 per cent of 138 respondents) comparedto 26 (18 per cent of 142) authorities in 2005/06.