Archived decisions

Contact: Colin Poynter, Youth Service Manager, Tel: 01962 846246,

email: [email protected]

1. Report Summary

1.1 The aim of this report is to provide information about The Award Project, the opportunities for, and implications of keeping it operational beyond September 2004.

1.2 The Award Project supports Corporate Strategy aim 1, maximising life opportunities and aim 4 building strong and safe communities, as well as contributing to the Cabinet priority for Youth and Crime.

2. Current Situation

2.1 The Award Project was established through a partnership with Wessex Youth Offending Team (YOT) Hampshire County Youth Service and the Duke of Edinburgh's Award South East Region. The project is managed on a day to day basis by Wessex YOT and the work is monitored by a steering group of representatives from the partner agencies.

2.2 The project employs five youth workers and an administrator. The project co-ordinator is on secondment from the county youth service until 31 August 2004. The other staff are on fixed-term contracts which are due to end on 30 September 2004

2.3 Funding is available to operate the project until 30 September 2004. These funds are held for the project by the Duke of Edinburgh's Award South East Region. The current funding was secured from three sources: a grant from a major charity secured through the Duke of Edinburgh's Award, a previous years under-spend in the Wessex YOT budget and from the Transforming Youth Work Development fund.

3. Project Operation

3.1 The project currently works with young people in receipt of a final warning from the Police, or who are at risk of offending, and who live within the districts of Fareham, Gosport, Havant, New Forest and Eastleigh. Youth workers support the young people to participate in the Duke of Edinburgh's Award with the aims of:

3.1.1 Preventing re-offending

3.1.2 Raising confidence & self esteem

3.1.3 Developing communication skills

3.1.4 Supporting the development and maintenance of relationships with family, friends, etc

3.1.5 Integrating members into mainstream youth projects and provision

3.2 During the last year 205 referrals were made to the project, of whom 104 young people attended taster days and 51 enrolled in the Duke of Edinburgh's Award.

3.3 Of the 51 who enrolled in the Award only 4 have since re-offended giving a recidivism rate of just over 8%. This rate of re-offending is considerably lower than the rate for all young people given final warnings in the Wessex YOT area.

3.4 The project costs are £2,000 per young person enrolled in the Award. To put this in perspective, the county youth service spends, on average £200 on each young person with whom it engages. However, the NACRO report Wasted Lives (1998) estimates the average response cost in dealing with the behaviour of a young offender is approximately £52,000 (made up of prosecution, incarceration and supervision costs as well as family intervention and care). Therefore, if the Award Project is the key factor in preventing only three of the young people with whom it works from re-offending, the cost benefit to the state is greater than the cost of running the whole project for one year.

3.5 The project will cost between £120,000 and £140,000 per year to operate in its current form beyond September 2004. Neither the Youth Service or Wessex YOT have the financial capacity to fund the project. The cost of the project is broadly equivalent to the deployable budget for one county youth service district.

3.6 The activities of the Award Project support Aim 1 (Maximising Life Opportunities) and Aim 4 (Building Strong and Safe Communities).

4. Future Possibilities

4.1 Option 1: funding is secured from other sources in order to run the project in its current form beyond September 2004. Securing mainstream funding for the project would enable a long-term development of the existing work, possibly extending to other areas of the county. An investigation into the possibility of the Hampton Trust being employed to seek funding from external sources is currently underway.

4.2 Option 2: only a fraction of the necessary funding is secured and the level of staffing and scale of operation is adjusted accordingly. It may be possible to use one source of funding to acquire matched funding from another funding stream.

4.3 Option 3: only a small amount of funding can be secured for this type of work and this is picked up by youth workers within each of the Youth Service districts. It might be possible to provide additional hours for those staff currently running DofE Open Award Centres, enabling them to hold a small caseload of young people referred by YOT staff.

4.4 Option 4: no further funding is secured and youth workers in Youth Service districts pick up the work within existing capacity. This route would not allow for staff to hold a caseload of young people referred but would enable them to access DofE Open award Centres where appropriate.

5. Implications

5.1 Option 1 maintains the status quo with the project continuing to operate as it does now with a possibility of further development. Wessex YOT would continue to be able to provide both accommodation and line-management for the project.

5.2 Option 2,3 and 4 require that some or all of the posts within the project are deleted. Some or all of the staff would then be subject to the usual HCC redeployment procedures. Given the length of time required for this process, it will be necessary to commence negotiations with unions and staff in May and June 2004..

6. Recommendation

6.1 That the panel note the current funding position of the Award Project and should funding not be secured the possibilities of integrating the work into mainstream provision should be explored.

Section 100D - Local Government Act 1972 - Background Papers

1. The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

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1. Published works

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.