HC Deb 23 April 1990 vol 171 cc16-8W
Mr. Bowis

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science (1) if he will list, for the previous and current year, the youth organisations for which his Department provides funding, indicating the amount in each case allocated for project funding and the amount allocated for core funding;

(2) how he intends to ensure that there is a national forum for the interchange of views of young people;

(3) what discussions he has had with the British Youth Council on its 1990–91 funding applications;

(4) what plans he has to ensure that youth bodies receive core as well as project funding in the light of the report on the efficiency scrutiny of Government funding of the voluntary sector;

(5) what he intends should be the basis for representations from participating youth bodies on his proposed national youth agency;

(6) what discussions he has had or will have with youth organisations on the report on the efficiency scrutiny of Government funding of the voluntary sector;

(7) what discussions he had with the British Youth Council concerning his proposals for a national youth agency prior to his announcement on 5 April;

(8) how many representative youth organisations are currently funded by his Department;

(9) what provision he will make in his proposed national youth agency for participating youth bodies to retain their respective identities.

Mr. Alan Howarth

The Department provides funding to a number of youth service bodies for the completion of specific programmes of work which are recognised as contributing to the effective and efficient implementation of ministerial objectives to improve the quality of youth service work on a national basis through, for example, the development of curriculum and training materials.

In the 1989–90 financial year this funding takes into account the level of expenditure by the bodies on staffing and administration which the Department considers appropriate for them efficiently to complete the agreed programmes of work.

£
British Youth Council (BYC) 30,000
Council for Education and Training in Youth and Community Work (CETYCW) 278,094
National Association of Young People's Counselling and Advisory Services (NAYPCAS) 53,000
National Council for Voluntary Youth Services (NCVYS) 127,893
National Youth Bureau (NYB) 557,210

For the 1990–91 financial year, offers of programme funding of £46,265 have been made to NAYPCAS, and of £571,140 to NYB.

The level of programme funding which might be offered this year to CETYCW and NCVYS is under discussion with the bodies. BYC applied for funding for 1990–91 as a national voluntary youth organisation (NVYO), but discussion is necessary before the level of any programme funding under this scheme can be determined.

To determine the organisation of such funding in future, we commissioned an independent report, which took account of the views of the bodies concerned. In the light of this and of the Home Office efficiency scrutiny of Government funding of the voluntary sector, which also draws on the views of voluntary bodies, we have determined to focus future programme funding for support of youth service work at national level on a single national youth agency, rather than on the existing four youth service bodies or an amalgam of them. The agency will be managed by an executive committee, whose composition will be discussed with the main interests involved in and with experience of the functions the agency is to undertake. It is from these interests that the committee members will be drawn, rather than nominated as representatives of particular bodies or organisations.

BYC, NAYPCAS and NCVYS, which also have representative functions, which we would expect their members to finance may, if they decide to continue, compete for funding from the Department, under the NVYO scheme, for agreed programmes of support work which the national youth agency is not being funded to pursue.

The NVYO funding scheme is to be reviewed this year, in consultation with the organisations concerned, in the light of the efficiency scrutiny review, to ensure that the available public moneys are disbursed and applied as efficiently and effectively as possible through programmes of work in pursuit of ministerial objectives.