Wendy Flint, NYA development officer on accreditation, said: "The NYA has received a number of queries relating to the new youth work performance indicators. It should be noted that there has been a recent amendment to the recorded outcomes indicator, and the description and formula currently on the ODPM web site do conform to previous advice and the percentage of young people aged 13 to 19 gaining a recorded outcome does now relate to the equivalent percentage participating in youth work. The benchmark is for 60 per cent of participants to gain a recorded outcome.
"But the description and formula for the accredited outcomes indicator currently relate the percentage of young people aged 13 to 19 gaining an accredited outcome to the percentage of young people in the local authority area. This is not correct. It should relate to the percentage of young people aged 13 to 19 gaining an accredited outcome to the percentage participating in youth work. The benchmark is for 30 per cent of participants to gain an accredited outcome."
While the best value performance indicators are in place for 2005-06, current advice on the Audit Commission web site says that local authorities do not have to set targets for 221a and 221b within the 05-06 Best Value Performance Plan. This means that services should have regard for the targets but aren't obliged to have them as their own and can use this opportunity to baseline their performance for future years.
But the indicators themselves are statutory measures of performance against which authorities will be measured. The targets contained within them are based on the letter and planning guidance from the Education Minister in December 2003 and benchmarking is already undertaken by local authorities and reported to The NYA and DfES via the annual audit process: "We would encourage authorities to continue working towards meeting the four benchmarks of contact, participation, recorded outcomes and accredited outcomes."
The description and formula on the web site and issued to local authorities will be updated in due course. Any queries can be raised with Wendy Flint on 0116 242 7430 or via email at wendyf@nya.org.uk.
