MD2265 Young Londoners Fund
Executive summary
This MD seeks approval for delivery of the Young Londoners Fund. The Mayor’s new Young Londoners Fund will help children and young people fulfil their potential, particularly those who are at risk of getting caught up in crime. The Fund will support a range of education, sport, cultural and other activities for children and young people. £45m will be committed over a three-year period from 2018:
• £30 million will make up a new fund for projects driven by local community needs; and
• £15 million will be invested to scale up existing projects funded from City Hall that are already supporting young Londoners.
Decision
That the Mayor approves:
1) The Young Londoners Fund and associated expenditure of £45m spread over the financial years from 2018-19 to 2020-21 subject to the inclusion of appropriate break clauses in all funding agreements, and in all contracts awarded;
2) Receipt of additional funding from other funders of youth activities should it be forthcoming;
3) Allocation of £6.78m from the Young Londoners Fund to provide funding to the following Greater London Authority projects: Sport Unites, Stepping Stones, HeadStart Action, Young London Inspired, Mental Health First Aid in Schools, and Impact for Youth projects;
4) Allocation of £3.615m from the Young Londoners Fund to the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime to provide additional funding to the Knife Crime Community Seeds, London Gang Exit, and Major Trauma Centre and A&E Youth Work projects, and to support communications to help prevent knife crime; and
5) Transfer of £0.7m from the Youth Innovation Fund to the Young Londoners Fund ‘Impact for Youth’ project.
Part 1: Non-confidential facts and advice
1.1 The Mayor’s new Young Londoners Fund will help children and young people fulfil their potential, particularly those who are at risk of getting caught up in crime. The fund will support a range of education, sport, cultural and other activities for young people aged 10 to 21 . £45m will be committed over a three-year period from 2018.
• £30 million will make up a new fund for projects driven by local community needs; and
• £15 million will be invested to scale up existing projects funded from City Hall that are already supporting young Londoners.
1.2 ln this document information is provided on the proposed first tranche of City Hall projects to be scaled up. The Mayor is asked to approve the list set out in paragraph 2.3.
1.3 Delivery and commissioning of activity will vary across each City Hall scale up project. Activity will be commissioned following procurement guidelines.
1.4 The community fund (the £30m of the Young Londoners Fund for projects driven by local community needs) will be subject to a bidding process. We are planning a two-stage application process to the main community fund with an expression of interest stage followed by a full grant funding application. The first opportunity for organisations to apply for funding is likely to be in Spring-Summer 2018. We are planning that there will be two more opportunities to apply for funding, one in January 2019 and one in January 2020.
1.5 We will allocate budget for a small number of ‘development grants’ to help organisations who have proposals with potential develop their ideas before applying to the Young Londoners Fund (YLF).
1.6 Management and administration of the fund is included in the overall fund budget.
1.7 We will seek additional non-GLA funding, which we will submit for approval at a later date once funding sources are identified and values confirmed.
1.8 The table below sets out any previous approvals for activity in this MD that have had previous funding. The value of any current approvals is included or we have indicated that it is a historical approval. Approval values below include additional match funding.
|
MD/DD /PCD reference |
Approval amount |
|
|
Sport Unites |
MD2244 |
£5.8m |
|
Knife Crime Community Seeds |
PCD 225 |
£625k |
|
London Gang Exit |
PCD 211 |
£1m |
|
Stepping Stones |
MD1547 |
£500k (historical) |
|
HeadStart Action |
DD2174, ADD2171 |
£75k |
|
Young London Inspired |
MD2171 |
£1.7m |
|
Major Trauma Centre and A&E Youth Work |
DMPCD 2016 44 |
£1.13m |
|
Mental Health First Aid |
MD2115 |
£780k (on mental health) |
|
Impact for Youth |
DD2112 / MD1537 |
£150k / £3.5m |
The Young Londoners Fund (community fund)
2.1 The fund’s objective is to provide aspirational and positive activities to empower young people. This will help them to make positive choices and reach their potential.
2.2 We expect that across the fund, bidders will propose a wide range of activity to meet our objective and criteria. These will differ according to how wide their target group is and how focussed their intervention is. Proposals to the fund will include a clear evaluation framework that defines their theory of change and target outcomes, together with how these will be monitored and evaluated.
GLA and MOPAC Scale Up Projects
2.3 Details of the GLA and MOPAC programmes and projects being approved through this MD for immediate delivery are set out below.
|
Project |
YLF funding |
Expected outcomes |
|
Sport Unites Expand proposed new programme to include a specific youth strand to cover: (1) Community Grants: small grants programme to grassroots organisations using sport to improve social integration; (2) Impact Partnerships: expansion of sport- specific partnership programmes with other funders. |
£1m in 2018-19, £1m in 2019-20, £1m in 2020-21
|
Increased social integration and community cohesion focusing on the needs and circumstances of young Londoners
|
|
Knife Crime Community Seeds Funding for small voluntary and community projects to tackle knife crime in communities disproportionately affected by knife crime. |
£1.15m in 2018-19
|
Better understanding of the impact of grass roots services on accessing and supporting young people affected by knife crime |
|
London Gang Exit Support service that helps young Londoners to exit gangs – both those involved in youth violence and those who are exploited by them. |
£500k in 2018-19, £500k in 2019-20 |
Reductions in offending and victimisation |
|
Major Trauma Centre and A&E Youth Work All four London Major Trauma Centres provide specialist youth services for victims of crime, serious violence and sexual exploitation provided by youth charity Redthread. This proposal extends the programme to further key A & E departments. |
£640k in 2018-19 and £640k in 2019-20
|
Young people take up additional support as a result of signposting
|
|
Knife crime communications To support the Mayor’s anti-knife crime campaigning activities |
£185k in 2018-19 |
Increasing use by schools of the new toolkit to support knife crime prevention |
|
Stepping Stones Expansion of programme to support vulnerable students moving from primary to secondary school. It was piloted in three schools in Tottenham, Hackney and Waltham Forest, with the recent pilot showing it has made a positive difference to academic attainment, behaviour and attendance. |
£250k in 2018-19, £375k in 2019-20, £130k in 2020-21
|
Improved attainment, attendance and behaviour |
|
Project |
YLF funding |
Expected outcomes |
|
HeadStart Action Expansion of social action pilot projects linking young people to business via employability workshops and work experience |
£200k in 2018-19 & in next 2 years depending on success of pilots |
Improved skills, character and employability
|
|
Young London Inspired Team London’s volunteering projects for young people affected by mental health issues - such as those within the criminal justice system or young refugees or asylum seekers |
Up to £500k in 2018-19
|
Improved wellbeing and emotional resilience |
|
Mental health first aid in schools This project will fund youth mental health first aid training (for teachers and other professionals working with young people) and increase the number of trained Youth Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) Instructors in schools. MHFA teaches people how to spot mental health concerns in young people and guide them towards the support they need. |
£375k in 2018-19 £375k in 2019-20 £375k in 2020-21 |
Increased awareness of mental health and wellbeing amongst young people and school staff
|
|
Impact for Youth Capacity building to help local organisations generate and deliver grassroots proposals for the YLF with leadership development for youth organisations, engagement of young people in co-production of proposals etc. This will include additional resource to the GLA’s Peer Outreach Team. £700k funding will also be re-profiled from the Youth Innovation Fund to create a £1.5m Impact for Youth budget. |
£200k in 2018-19; £300k in each of 2019-20 and 2020-21
|
Good range of quality YLF projects |
4.1 Key risks and issues
|
Risk |
Impact |
Likelihood |
Mitigation |
|
Insufficient or too many bids are received for the main YLF fund |
Medium |
Medium |
Support will be put in place to help bidders; fund prospectus to be clear on criteria; flexibility to move budget between years and application gateways |
|
Grant application timescales slip |
Medium |
Medium |
Plans for City Hall scale up activity are well progressed; sufficient resources will be allocated to develop fund prospectus and review of proposals |
|
Difficulties at measuring impact at Fund level |
High |
Medium |
Preparatory work to establish evaluation frameworks, support to project deliverers to understand how to measure their impact, common tools for data collection |
|
Confusion for project applicants over the main fund and the scale up activities |
Medium |
High |
Likely to take triage application approach where organisations directed to application process most suitable for their proposed project – e.g. sports proposal directed to Sport Unites |
4.2 Links to Mayoral strategies and priorities
4.2.1 The Young Londoners Fund will enable the GLA to support the delivery of objectives set out in his new vision for young Londoners ‘City for All Young Londoners’ to be published later in the spring.
4.2.2 The Young Londoners Fund will have a major focus on improving the safety of young Londoners, co-operate with schools and help local communities improve young people’s resilience, aspiration and ambition and develop new preventative solutions to tackling violence and knife crime. The YLF will therefore play a role in delivery of the Mayor’s Thrive London programme and his Knife Crime Prevention Strategy.
4.3 Impact assessments and consultations
4.3.1 The draft “City for All Young Londoners” has been subject to extensive engagement with a range of children and young people’s service providers through a series of five Roundtables hosted in City Hall in November 2017. We have also consulted with young people directly through the Peer Outreach Team and the Young Londoner’s Participation Network (of several hundred youth service providers in London).
4.3.2 Evaluation costs will be sourced from the overall fund budget.
5.1 Approval is being sought for expenditure of up to £45m on the delivery of the Young Londoners Fund with costs to be committed over three financial years in 2018-19 (£8m), 2019-20 (£16m) and 2020-21 (£21m). The table below provides for an indicative expenditure budget over the three financial years (and as described in the main body of this report)
5.2 Of the above expenditure, £6.78m of funding will be allocated to the following Greater London Authority projects: Sport Unites, Stepping Stones, HeadStart Action, Young London Inspired, Impact for Youth projects and Mental Health First Aid in Schools over three financial years: 2018-19 (£2.525m), 2019-20 (£2.25m) and 2020-21 (£2.005m). See table below for breakdown.
5.3 A further, £3.615m of grant funding will be allocated to the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime over two financial years in 2018-19 (£2.475m), and 2019-20 (£1.14m) to provide additional funding to the Knife Crime Community Seeds, London Gang Exit and Major Trauma Centre and A&E Youth Work projects and to support communications to help prevent knife crime. See table below for breakdown.
5.4 Approval is also requested for the budget transfer of £0.7m over three financial years from the ‘Youth Innovation Fund’ programme (as approved by MD1537) to provide additional funding for the ‘Impact for Youth’ project over three financials years in 2018-19 (£0.15m), 2019-20 (£0.3m) and 2020-21 (£0.25m).
5.5 The table below provides annual profiles for the first three years of the fund. Annual profiles will be updated when projects have been selected at each gateway stage and funding re-profiled into future years as appropriate.
5.6 All grant awards, will be subject to satisfactory due diligence of the successful organisation, and will be governed by way of a funding agreement, with all payments made on successful completion of agreed milestones.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
18-19 |
19-20 |
20-21 |
Total |
|
|
£000 |
£000 |
£000 |
£000 |
|
City Hall scale up projects |
|
|
|
|
|
Sport Unites |
1,000 |
1,000 |
1,000 |
3,000 |
|
Knife Crime Community Seeds |
1,150 |
0 |
0 |
1,150 |
|
London Gang Exit |
500 |
500 |
0 |
1,000 |
|
Stepping Stones |
250 |
375 |
130 |
755 |
|
HeadStart Active |
200 |
200 |
200 |
600 |
|
Young London Inspired |
500 |
0 |
0 |
500 |
|
Major Trauma Centre and A&E Youth Work |
640 |
640 |
0 |
1,280 |
|
Mental health first aid in schools. |
375 |
375 |
375 |
1,125 |
|
Impact for Youth |
200 |
300 |
300 |
800 |
|
Knife crime communications |
185 |
0 |
0 |
185 |
|
Additional activity |
0 |
2,300 |
2,305 |
4,605 |
|
YLF Community Fund |
3,000 |
10,000 |
17,000 |
30,000 |
|
Total |
8,000 |
15,690 |
21,310 |
45,000 |
6.1 The foregoing sections of this report indicate that the proposals in respect of which the Mayor’s approval is sought concern the exercise of the GLA’s general powers, and may be considered to fall within the GLA’s powers to do such things as are facilitative of or conducive to the fulfilment of its principal purposes, namely, promoting economic development and wealth creation, social development, and the improvement of the environment, all in Greater London.
6.2 Education is relevant to economic and social development and wealth creation, and the GLA’s funding of the Stepping Stones programme and the Mental Health First Aid in Schools project described in this MD fall within the scope of the Mayor’s powers.
6.3 Section 31(3)(b) of the Greater London Authority Act 1999 (the “Act”) prohibits the GLA from incurring expenditure in providing any educational services which could be provided by a borough council or other public body. However, the Mayor is not prevented from incurring expenditure in co-operating with, facilitating or co-ordinating the activities of a borough council or other public body. The Stepping Stones programme, and Mental Health First Aid in Schools project do not constitute the provision of an education service by the GLA but instead aim to create and provide resources to schools in London to assist with effectively supporting the transition from primary to secondary school for vulnerable students, and spot mental health concerns in young people and guide them towards the support they need. The role of the GLA in respect of schools is a co-operative and facilitative one and is, therefore, permitted under the Act.
6.4 In taking the decisions requested, the Mayor must have due regards to the Public Sector Equality Duty; namely the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010, and to advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic (race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion) and foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it (section 149 of the Equality Act 2010). To this end, the Mayor should have particular regarding to section 3 (above) of this report.
6.5 The foregoing sections of this report indicate that contributions of funds to bidders amount to the provision of grant funding and not payment for works or services. Officers have indicated that they intend to carry out a competitive process to ensure that the funding is distributed fairly, transparently, in accordance with the GLA’s equalities duties and in a manner which affords value for money in accordance with the Contracts and Funding Code. Officers must ensure that an appropriate funding agreement is put in place between and executed by the GLA and the recipient before any commitment to fund it made.
6.6 Transfers of funding between the GLA and MOPAC are governed by Section 120 of the Act. The Act provides that transfers from the GLA to a functional body (such as MOPAC) require mayoral approval and the only limitation that may be placed upon the use of such transferred funds is that the capital funding may be used only for capital expenditure.
|
Activity |
Timeline |
|
Community Fund |
|
|
Prospectus launched – application gateway 1 |
May 2018 |
|
Delivery start date and end date – tranche 1 |
Jan 19 – Dec 21 |
|
Prospectus launched – application gateway 2 |
Jan 2019 |
|
Prospectus launched – application gateway 2 |
Jan 2020 |
|
City Hall scale up projects delivery period |
Apr 18 – Mar 21 |
3.1 Under s149 of the Equality Act 2010 (the Equality Act), as a public authority the Mayor must have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation, and any conduct that is prohibited by or under the Equality Act; and to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.
3.2 London’s over two million children and young people aged 0-19 face an unequal start in life and the population is growing. London has the highest rate of child poverty in England (after housing costs are taken into account) and rates are expected to increase in coming years. Poorer children are more likely to underachieve at school, be unemployed and have lower incomes. Poverty is significantly worse in Black-Caribbean, Bangladeshi and Pakistani families, and more than 50 per cent of families with a disabled child live at the margins of poverty.
3.3 Young Londoners have lost tens of millions of pounds in funding for youth services since 2011. Informal, non-statutory services have an important preventative role to play. Getting good support to young people in their teenage years is vital – especially to support the most disadvantaged young people. Youth services are vital to young people who have been left behind or marginalised. They enable them to reach their potential and play a valuable role in helping them avoid being sucked into crime. MOPAC’s data on knife crime demonstrates that BAME young people are over-represented as both victims and perpetrators and are overwhelmingly male with many and complex vulnerabilities.