Innovation and growth

Voluntary and community organisations can be particularly adept at reaching young people who are reluctant to engage with statutory agencies. The financial climate means that many are, however, having to work hard and develop innovative approaches to maintain their activities and services for young people.

The Government wants to see innovative and enterprising voluntary and community organisations. This means them demonstrating what difference they make for young people and attracting income from a wider range of sources so that they are less dependent on state funding.

The Government:

  • has given community groups the right to bid to take over the running of local council services through the Localism Act;
  • is helping young people's services to find ways of measuring what difference they make. To support this, they are funding the Centre for the Analysis of Youth Transitions to develop standards for evidence and Catalyst to develop an outcomes framework;
  • is making it easier for charities to get access to the capital they need to grow by helping them understand and access social investment. This includes specific high-level objectives for the Big Society Bank to support the development of community-led social enterprise initiatives which improve opportunities for young people.

Support from business

Businesses and other employers are key members of the community. Like many in the charity sector, an increasing number of them understand the benefits to them and their employees of developing partnerships at the corporate level to support young people – who may be their current or future customers or employees.

The Government will provide funding of £320,000 - over the period to March 2013 - to a consortium led by Business in the Community to broker the engagement of more businesses with charities to support work with young people.

Other funding

To identify new ways of helping disadvantaged young people to succeed, 18 voluntary organisations are benefiting from a share of £31.4m from the Department for Education over the two years 2011-13. They are pioneering and evaluating innovative approaches to early help, such as targeted support to help young people to stay and succeed in learning who would otherwise drop out of school, college or training.

In addition, alongside providers in the private and social enterprise sector, voluntary and community sector organisations will also have a key role in delivering new intensive support to engage some of the most vulnerable 16 to 17-year-olds in education and training. This follows the recent announcement of a new performance-based scheme - worth £126m in England over the next three years - as part of the Youth Contract.