A review of funding for youth work in Wales – Lynne Neagle, Cabinet Secretary for Education
Youth work is a vital part of the education family in Wales. Youth work can help young people to build relationships with peers and trusted adults, to gain confidence, participate in social activities and provide the support they need to develop their voice, influence and place in society. Youth work is delivered by both local authorities and a wide range of voluntary organisations, and provision is extremely varied depending on the needs of young people from all backgrounds.
Of course, these services need resources to be able to deliver for young people, both in terms of staffing and funding. One of the recommendations of the Interim Youth Work Board was to carry out a review of the funding available to the youth work sector. This work was undertaken in collaboration with three higher education institutions across Wales – Wrexham University, University of Wales Trinity St David and Cardiff Metropolitan University.
The work has been conducted in three phases. Phases one and two sought to establish what funding was available to the sector, how that funding is spent and how decisions about funding are made. The report from phase 2 provides us with rich information and evidence of the complex nature of funding for youth work across Wales.
I would like to thank everyone who took the time to engage with this work, including the Youth Work Funding Review Steering Group, stakeholders from a wide variety of organisations as well as young people.
Phase 3 of this review had intended to undertake a cost benefit analysis to help demonstrate the impact of youth work. Unfortunately, due to lack of up-to-date and robust evidence from a Wales-specific perspective, it has not been possible to deliver this phase of the review in the form originally envisaged. Instead, an update on the work, providing details of the challenges faced, areas where further research could help to address some of those evidence gaps, and highlighting some of the valuable qualitative information we received from the sector and young people in particular, is planned for publication in the weeks ahead.
It remains the case that phases one and two of the review provide useful and far-reaching recommendations which I am eager to explore and support.
I have set out my response to these recommendations on the Welsh Governemt website here; https://www.gov.wales/written-statement-review-funding-youth-work-wales