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ITEM EX14

EXECUTIVE – 18 MARCH 2003

TRANSFORMING YOUTH WORK 2003-2006 OXFORDSHIRE YOUTH SERVICE PLAN

Report by Acting Chief Education Officer

1. During 2002, the DfES/Connexions published their plans for reforming Youth Services under the banner ‘Transforming Youth Work’. The plans were set out in two documents, respectively subtitled "Developing Youth Work for Young People" and "Resourcing Excellent Youth Services". This report summarises the main themes of the two documents and recommends a Youth Work Plan for Oxfordshire for the coming years.

Developing Youth Work for Young People (DYWYP)

2. DYWYP describes a Youth Service focused on young people’s personal, social and educational development and on ensuring their inclusion and engagement in society. The Service is expected to do this through offering quality support, intervention and prevention and providing pathways for the views of young people to be heard and acted upon. DYWYP goes on to specify that youth work must include-

- action to develop participative and democratic models

- positive responses to sexual/racial harassment and bullying

- advocacy on behalf of young people

- interventions to help young people address difficulties

• multi-disciplinary work
• work with Connexions and 11-13 year olds through Children’s Fund Partnership

3. DYWYP promised a common planning framework for youth services across the country with a system of more robust inspection with follow up. It called for the Youth Service to have a positive strategic involvement in Local Strategic Partnerships, the Children and Young People Strategic Planning Framework and Children’s Fund Partnerships
4. The document stressed that local authorities were not to use Connexions Funding to cut youth work budgets and introduced the concept of a ‘Youth Service Pledge’ (Appendix 1),(download as .doc file) aimed at producing a minimum standard for Youth Services throughout the country.
5. Youth Services were all invited to apply for financial support from a Transforming Youth Work Development Fund. Oxfordshire submitted a plan for this funding (Appendix 2) (download as .doc file) and was successful in being awarded the maximum sum available to the county. One band of this funding was for one year only; a second strand was for two years. Nationally, the one-year funding has not been extended for April 2003 onwards although there are indications that the rest of the funding will be made available for a third year.
6. Youth Services were required to produce and consult on a full Transforming Youth Work Plan, to cover the period April 2003 - March 2006, including their proposals for use of the Transforming Youth Work Development Fund 2003/4. This had to be submitted to GOSE in draft form by 31 January 2003, with the final document agreed by the end of March 2003.

‘Resourcing Excellent Youth Services’ (REYS)

7. REYS contains clear national standards for local authorities to follow with regard to the provision and funding of their Youth Services. It sets out the values, standards, ways of working and performance measures that effective Youth Services must demonstrate. It makes clear statements about the age range and priority groups that Youth Services should be working with (13 to 19 year olds who are at risk of offending, truanting, pregnancy or taking drugs) and about key matters such as: the curriculum for Youth Work, workforce and professional development and monitoring and inspection. The document emphasises that the work of the Youth Service must be set firmly within the context of the Local Authority’s community leadership role. The Youth Service must demonstrate that it works in partnership with other major areas of provision, in particular services for children, community safety and Connexions.
8. For first time ever REYS sets out the detailed standards that will be used to assess whether a local authority is providing an ‘adequate’ Youth Service (Appendix 3) (download as .doc file) . The notion of ‘adequacy’ has featured in legislation affecting the Youth Service since 1944 without being defined. The features of an adequate youth service are set out in 22 separate ‘Youth Standards’, covering such aspects as:

• location of and access to youth provision;
• involvement of young people in democratic processes;
• promoting young people’s achievement;
• financial resourcing of the service, and
• arrangements for partnership working.

9. Standard 22 requires local authorities to secure the establishment of an authority-wide scrutiny group for young people’s issues. It is not inconceivable that a number of these standards will soon appear as BVPIs and that they will be used to assess the effectiveness of the Council’s work overall.
10. Financially, the establishment of a new Youth and Community Sub-block within the Council’s grant allocation underpins the REYS documents for Education. In 2003/04, Oxfordshire’s Youth and Community Sub-block will amount to £4.831m. This compares to planned total spending in the Sub-block next year up to £4.334m, i.e. £0.497m short of the overall allocation. Although there is no requirement for them to do so next year, local authorities may in future be required to ‘passport’ the full level of funding into spending on those services which lie within the Sub-block. This would be consistent with what is already required for schools.
11. REYS includes an explicit reminder that the Secretary of State has reserve powers of direction if a local authority fails in its duty to provide an adequate and effective Youth Service. The ultimate sanction could be a transfer of operational responsibility to another provider This would be likely to follow a poor external inspection report backed up by weak performance indicators.

The Oxfordshire Transforming Youth Work Plan 2003-2006

12. A draft Oxfordshire Transforming Youth Work Plan was drawn up in line with DYWYP and was submitted to GOSE by the 31 January deadline. In preparing the draft Plan public briefing sessions took place in each of the district council areas and the draft Plan was e-mailed to partners and those who attended the briefing sessions, for their comments. Young people were consulted on the draft and their comments and those of staff and other adults were incorporated. The published Executive Summary of the Plan is given in Appendix 4. (download as .doc file) Full copies of the Plan are available in the Members’ Resources Centre and from the Head of Youth Service.
13. The Plan sets out the local context and the structure of the Youth Service in Oxfordshire. It shows ways in which the Service contributes to key Government national Youth Service objectives, the corporate objectives of Oxfordshire County Council, the objectives of the Education Department and the aims and objectives of the Oxfordshire Youth Service itself. It emphasises the involvement of young people, its partnership work and its community cohesion work on equality and diversity.
14. The Plan sets out key curricular and operational priorities. The Curricular Developmental Priorities are - being sensitive to the global situation, and thus working to increase community cohesion:

1. to support the increasing numbers of unaccompanied refugees and asylum seekers with focused work in Oxford and Bicester;
2. to provide additional support and opportunities to young people within the Asian communities of Oxford and Banbury, and to challenge racism within the communities;
3. to increase the awareness of and involvement of young people with disabilities in all relevant youth work provision;
4. to address the needs of homeless young people, particularly in Oxford city;
5. to increase the capacity of the Youth Counselling Service and the Youth Mentoring Service to reduce their waiting lists.

15. The operational priorities set out in the Plan are: -

1. to establish a programme of management training for Youth Service middle managers;
2. to establish a clear and functioning model for active consultation with young people through out the county;
3. to improve administrative support to the service to enable it to meet the standards of data collection, analysis, monitoring and evaluation required of the County Council, Transforming Youth Work, Connexions and other external funding partners.

16. The Plan also includes the 2003/4 submission against the Transforming Youth Work Development Fund (Appendix 5) (download as .doc file) and a first analysis of where Oxfordshire stands in relation to the Standards for Youth Work (Appendix 3)(download as .doc file) . This analysis shows that Oxfordshire currently meets most of the standards, despite resourci.ng levels in the Youth Service in Oxfordshire being low in comparison with those in most local authorities and also in comparison with the national expectation set out in the County’s new Youth and Community Sub-block allocation. Further investment would be required to allow the service to employ the numbers of staff to deliver at the level required by the standards. Three key areas which would require investment in order to bring Oxfordshire to the required standards are:

• opening centres for 24 hours per week;
• increasing the number of young people receiving national accepted accreditation to 60%;
• extending consultation processes with young people which impact on the policies and practice of OCC.

17. The Executive is RECOMMENDED, subject to any comments received from the Social & Health Care Scrutiny Committee (which is due to consider this report at its meeting on 13 March) to:

1. endorse the Oxfordshire Transforming Youth Work Plan 2003-2006;
2. note the need to consider, in the context of the budget for future years, the level of financial resources to be allocated to the Youth Service to enable the Service to work towards meeting the national standards for Youth Services recommended by the National Youth Agency and Department for Education & Skills.

ROY SMITH
Acting Chief Education Officer

Background Papers: Nil

Contact Officer: Monica Hanaway, Head of Youth Service (01865 815690)

March 2003

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