PCD 1759 Your Choice

Since April 2022, the London Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) have received funding from the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) for the delivery of the Your Choice programme. Your Choice provides high intensity CBT-informed interventions to young people who have been assessed as medium to high risk of contextual harms within a Local Authority context.   

Since August 2023, Your Choice has been evaluated as part of a randomised control trial (RCT). An RCT is a gold-standard evaluation that assesses the effects of an intervention by randomly assigning participants to distinct groups (‘control’ or ‘treatment’ groups). The RCT will enable the VRU to strengthen our understanding of the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions for children and young people at risk of harm. 31 local authorities are participating in this final phase of the programme with the aim of supporting 1200-1500 children and young people across London.  

This decision seeks permission to vary a grant agreement held with London Councils for the ongoing programme management, clinical oversight, and quality assurance of the Your Choice programme until the end of the study. The variation will also enable London Councils to deliver training to ‘control’ practitioners following the conclusion of the study.  

The cost of the variation is £79,066. The variation is part funded by the Youth Endowment Fund (£39,066) and part funding via VRU core budget (£40,000).  

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:    

1. Approve a variation of the grant agreement held between the VRU and London Councils to extend the duration by 7 months. The extension will bring the new end date to 31st October 2025. 

2. Approve a variation to the grant held between the VRU and London Councils, The cost of the variation is £79,066 and brings the total value of the grant to £1,200,768.19. This variation will cover financial year 25/26 and is to be funded from the VRU core Mayoral budget.  

PART I - NON-CONFIDENTIAL FACTS AND ADVICE TO THE DMPC 

1. Introduction and background  

1. The Your Choice programme provides training to local authority youth practitioners (e.g. social workers, youth justice workers, teachers) in a range of CBT tools and techniques, enabling them to work intensively with young people towards goals that hold meaning and value to them and support positive behavioural activation. 

2. The programme is aimed at young people (11-17) who have been assessed by multi-agency panels as medium/ high risk of harm. The programme was developed in recognition that those most in need of therapeutic support are unlikely to access it within clinical settings. Therefore, Your Choices shifts how we offer therapeutic support, so it is accessible within the community, through a broader context of support and behavioural change and delivered by practitioners that young people already have an established and trusted relationship with.  

3. In August 2023, the Youth Endowment Fund announced that the programme had met the conditions to progress into a full randomised control trial. 31 London boroughs are participating in this phase and over 900 children and young people have already been recruited into the study. The study has a target of recruiting between 1200-1500 young people by the end of December 2024. 

4. Since April 2022, the VRU have funded The London Innovation and Improvement Alliance (LIIA) (hosted by London Councils) to provide project management and a dedicated data team to support the evaluation of the programme. LIIA are critical in ensuring Local Authorities are participating in the programme and adhering to the complex requirements of the RCT whilst upholding ethical standards. LIIA have also designed the Your Choice model and training resources and provide clinical oversight and a support network to the 296 practitioners participating in the Efficacy phase. 

2. Issues for consideration 

1. Local Authorities are required to recruit young people into the study until 31st December 2024. All data and information relating to young people and practitioners must be submitted to the evaluation team by 30th April 2025 to be considered within the evidence base.  

2. The VRU currently have a grant agreement with London Councils until March 2025. This decision will extend the grant agreement by 7 months to November 2025. This extension will ensure that all boroughs are supported until the end of April 2025 to finalise their contributions to the RCT. London Councils will play a critical role in quality assuring the data into the study.  

3. The extension will also ensure control teams, whose contribution to the study has been integral, will be afforded the opportunity to be trained in the Your Choice methodology and supported to embed the programme over a 6 month period 1st May 2025- 1st November 2026. This opportunity will significantly increase the number of trained Your Choice practitioners across London, supporting a lasting legacy of the intervention within local authorities. 

3. Financial Comments  

1. The grant agreement for London Councils has been agreed via PCD 1149, PCD 1407, PCD 1473 and PCD 1602.  

2. The total value of the London Councils grants including this variation will be;  

22/23: £258,607 

23/24: £389,326.51 

24/25: £473,768.68 

25/26: £79,066 (uplift) 

Total: £1,200,768.19 

3. This uplift will be funded in part by the grant received by the Youth Endowment Fund (£39,066) and by core VRU budget (£40,000). 

4. Legal Comments  

1. Under MOPAC’s Scheme of Delegation, the variation of a contract with a total value that exceeds £500,000 is reserved to the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime. This includes the responsibility for signing the contractual agreements. 

2. Officers must ensure that the arrangements comply with the Financial Regulations and Contract Regulations.  

3. Officers can confirm that the DMPC has the legal authority to agree this decision.  

5. Commercial Issues  

1. As this is a grant and not a contract the Public Contract Regulations 2015 does not apply.  

6. GDPR and Data Privacy  

1. As this is an extension to an existing programme, there are no changes to GDPR implications 

7. Equality Comments  

1. MOPAC is required to comply with the public sector equality duty set out in section 149(1) of the Equality Act 2010. This requires MOPAC to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations by reference to people with protected characteristics. The protected characteristics are age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. 

8. Background/supporting papers 

1. The outcome of the pilot phase of the Your Choice  programme is available here;  YEF-Your-Choice-Protocol-FINAL.pdf (youthendowmentfund.org.uk)