Youth Opportunity Fund: How we spent it in... West Sussex

Being one of the larger county authorities posed some issues for West Sussex when responding to the challenge of the youth opportunity fund (YOF) and capital fund.

With some 65,000 young people and a combined budget of £725,534, there was a need to work hard at ensuring bureaucracy didn't take over. Senior manager with responsibility for YOF Jane Melvin explains: "We did a consultation and young people told us they wanted the money to be distributed locally." West Sussex was already planning to organise its children and young people's service around 24 local areas, so followed this practice with the YOF infrastructure.

Who is on the panel? In the early days of the fund a county panel was established to get the first summer programme grants out. This group of 10, including three young people with disabilities and two from minority ethnic groups, was recruited from youth volunteering agency Outset, Connexions Intensive Support Service and the county's Young People's Cabinet.

This group continues to meet to look at county-wide applications and local bids where there might be a conflict of interest on the local panel. Subsequently 24 local youth forums were created, each with dedicated support from a youth worker. These forums make decisions on funds allocated to them and on the frequency of their meetings and what structure they take. In total, 222 young people have been involved.

The challenges: In order to reduce the potential for duplication of effort and bureaucracy, the financial administration of the grants is done centrally. "Bids come into the office, we send them out to the relevant panel who make a decision, this comes back to us and we send the cheques," explains Melvin.

This leaves the youth forums and their youth worker co-ordinators to focus on the grant making. Early entrants to the forums were able to attend YouthBank training in the principles of grant making, but this hasn't always been possible. Challenges reported back from the forums included difficulties in finding a suitable time and place to meet for young people in rural areas, and the need to make panels more inclusive and representative of their areas.

What young people say: County forum member Lianne, 18, says: "Things were difficult initially as none of has had ever done this before, but as soon we'd done some team building exercises we started to work as a team. There were some heated discussions, but mostly we wrote down the pros and cons and the decisions followed fairly easily.

"I definitely felt the young people were in control. With the county forum the adults didn't interfere - they stayed out of the way and let us get on with it." Fellow county panel member Connor, 16, agrees: "We led the discussions and we made the decisions. I think the message has got through to young people what it's all about - we've had no stupid bids in anyway."

The future: "At first we had to concentrate on getting the money spent," acknowledges Melvin. "Now we are getting better at evaluation. We want to encourage panels to visit projects." Forum members Connor and Lianne are confident they've got their processes right and that the training provided by young people from the county forum have helped the youth forums get things right from the start. "We want to see more people brought into the county forum," says Connor. "A lot are from the Worthing area so we're looking to make it more representative of the whole county."

WHERE THE MONEY WENT

GAP EXTRA - This project helped young volunteers to run a children's activity club over the summer. A grant of £480 helped them gain valuable experience prior to a visit to Hungary where they plan to work with children in Gypsy communities. Local children were able to have fun with sports and arts activities, learn about healthy eating and acquire new skills in cooking, IT and photography. "We will be applying to the fund again," says a group spokesperson. "It has enabled us to have many more resources than we could normally collect and has also provided us with materials for use in future youth work, such as digital cameras."

THE CARETAKER - A production of Harold Pinter's play was mounted at Havant Arts Centre by Jackson and Hill Productions, a community production company founded by two young men near Emsworth. Two hundred young people were involved as cast crew and audience. Young people organised all aspects of the production including design, publicity, rehearsals, construction and performance. A grant of £500 enabled the purchase of key set items such as a 1960s Electrolux vacuum cleaner, a coal scuttle, iron bedsteads, and a latex mould for making plaster casts of the Buddha. Ticket sales covered the venue hire and the project broke even.

BOGNOR REGIS YOUTH WING - A Youth Capital Fund grant of £2,830.80 helped young people in Bognor Regis to select and buy furniture and kitchen equipment for their youth wing. A group of eight young people, including members with dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, took responsibility for finding catalogues and brochures, comparing prices, visiting shops and making purchases. The best bit was "seeing the building develop into our space" according to a report by the group. The worst aspect was dealing with shop assistants who didn't seem to take them seriously.