Deprived areas missing out on levelling up funding due to youth work spending differences, report finds

The findings have emerged in a report into the state of youth work in the Yorkshire and Humber region.

• Analysis: Youth policy review sets priorities but falls short on funding

• Analysis: Levelling up - the key proposals for children and young people

This found that six of the most deprived council areas in England are in the region.

But not all have qualified for funding through the £368m Youth Investment Fund due to local variations of how spending on youth work is calculated.

Instead, the government is targeting “pockets of deprivation” involving council wards in “areas of greater wealth”, according to the report by the area’s Youth Work Unit (YWU) and academics at the University of Hull.

Areas to miss out on funding in the region include Leeds, Bradford, Kirklees, Calderdale, York and most of North Yorkshire.

The report details how data on youth work spending is used by the government to allocate the funding. This is gathered through information sent annually to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

Through this method it is “difficult to understand how criteria for youth work spend is interpreted by individual local authorities”, according to the report. While some councils include this in all spending on children and youth people, others provide data focused only on youth work, the report found. 

“Consequently, this can distort a regional assessment and baseline of actual youth work activity,” the report adds.

The lack of levelling up funding is part of “historic disinvestment in youth work” in the region that is leaving young people unable to access help, according to YWU trustees interviewed by researchers.

They are calling on the government for “greater join up between policy areas” across England to support youth work and decisions around the allocation of funding. This includes better “engagement” with directors of children’s services, regional mayors and other local authority children’s services leaders, they say.

The current funding and policy system for youth work is leading to an “exodus of professional and skilled youth work staff”, YWU trustees warn.

The report highlights the need for investment in training and development in the youth workforce “to build capacity and reverse the incremental reduction of professionally qualified youth workers”.

However, it warns that there is currently "no local, regional, or national picture of what constitutes the youth workforce, their qualifications, where they are located, what they do, how they are funded and supported”.