Report of the Strategic Director (Neighbourhoods)

The report provides an update on Manchester’s Youth & Play offer and gives an overview of the activities that have been available across the city, throughout the school holiday periods. This encompasses the offer from wider partners and stakeholders, including the Holiday Activities and Food programme (HAF) funded by the DfE and targeted at children and young people who are eligible for Free School Meals.

The Committee received a report of the Strategic Director (Neighbourhoods) which provided an update on Manchester’s Youth and Play offer and gave an overview of the activities that had been available across the city throughout the school holiday periods. This encompassed the offer from wider partners and stakeholders, including the Holiday Activities and Food programme (HAF) funded by the Department for Education (DfE) and targeted at children and young people who were eligible for Free School Meals.

The main points and themes within the report included:

• Youth and Play commissioning;
• Youth Hubs;
• Youth participation and democracy;
• Staffing;
• Extra investment; and
• Holiday activity provision.

Some of the key points and themes that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:

• To welcome the additional funding that the Council was investing in youth provision and the positive framework for moving forwards, noting the challenges facing young people in the city, including deprivation and gangs exploiting young people;
• Concern about young people getting drawn into anti-social behaviour or criminal activity and the importance of youth provision;
• That it would be useful to have more data, including the different proportions of children and young people in different wards and levels of deprivation, which would indicate where more focus was needed;
• That the new model should give opportunities to smaller, grassroots organisations who were doing positive work in wards, as it was felt that previously larger organisations who knew how to write grant applications well had been disproportionately awarded funding;
• The importance of both broadening the number of children and young people with access to support and activities and also providing targeted outreach work to engage with young people in difficulty;
• Territorial issues which deterred young people from accessing youth provision;
• Issues with the commissioning process, including short-term funding and organisations having to come up with new ideas to get funding when what they were already doing was good and should be sustained; and
• The value of providing activities with food to help families who were struggling financially, particularly during the school holidays.

The Lead Member for Race emphasised the importance of fairness and equality in relation to the provision of youth and play services.  He asked what factors were taken into account in distributing resources, highlighting the number of children and young people from black, Asian and ethnic minority (BAME) communities in the city and that many deprived families with parents in work were not eligible for the HAF programme.

The Strategic Director (Neighbourhoods) reported that, after bringing the activity previously undertaken by Young Manchester back in-house, the Council had decided to continue the existing commissioning arrangements for 12 months while a detailed needs analysis was carried out.  He advised that this work would provide the data that the Member had asked for, as at present the most recent data available was from 2018 and did not provide all the detail that both the Member and his service wanted.  He advised that it was anticipated that the needs analysis would be completed by the end of the summer and that he intended to bring this information to the Committee.  He acknowledged Members’ comments about the challenges facing young people in the city, while highlighting the additional funding being invested in youth provision and the positive partnership work with Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and the Community Safety Partnership.  He recognised the comments made by the Lead Member for Race and that there were areas which needed to be strengthened, including the need for more BAME-led organisations to be commissioned to provide youth services, and stated that this was a high priority for the service.  He advised that, while the existing commissioning arrangements had remained in place this year, there was funding available for some pilot projects and that next year there would be significant opportunity for improvement.  A Member commented that BAME-led organisations and organisations which worked with a diverse community were often asked to contribute to consultations and conversations which took up a lot of their time but resulted in very little so it was important that this engagement was carried through into actions.

In response to a Member’s question about localisation, the Head of Youth, Play and Participation emphasised the importance of place-based and ward-based work and stated that he would welcome the opportunity to do a walk round wards with Ward Councillors to gain a greater understanding of their wards and their needs.  He also encouraged Ward Councillors to let him and his team know about groups in their ward who were doing great work but had missed out on getting funding so that they could support these small, grassroots organisations and help them to get to a position where they could successfully secure funding.  In response to Members’ comments, the Strategic Director (Neighbourhoods) advised that it was important to get the right balance between universal youth services and targeted provision and between centre-based provision and detached work and that, with the funding that had been secured, and through locality-level discussions, his service could identify where targeted intervention was needed, including work with GMP and the Community Safety Partnership to address anti-social behaviour. 

In response to a Member’s comments about the importance of young people influencing decision-making, the Executive Member for Early Years, Children and Young People advised that local young people would have a say in how money was spent in their area.  He acknowledged Members’ comments about issues with the commissioning process and outlined how the Council was addressing this, now that it had been brought back in-house.  The Strategic Director (Neighbourhoods) advised that the revised commissioning approach would be brought to a future meeting.

In response to a Member’s comments about the importance of having a stronger network across schools and a lead contact person in schools so that information was effectively communicated, the Head of Youth, Play and Participation informed the Committee that work was taking place to ensure there was a strong youth voice programme across schools and that an update on this would be included in a future report.  The Chair suggested that a school representative could be included on the area panels.

The Chair emphasised the importance of play for younger children and of play equipment in parks.  The Executive Member for Early Years, Children and Young People highlighted events taking place for National Play Day on 3 August.  The Strategic Director (Neighbourhoods) supported the Chair’s comments on play equipment in parks, advising that this would not just be the responsibility of the Youth and Play Fund and that consideration needed to be given to how the Council allocated its funding and opportunities for funding from other sources, such as Sport England.  In response to a question from the Chair, he advised that there had been a higher number of providers applying for HAF funding this year compared to last year and that there was not expected to be an underspend this year. 

Decision

To receive a further report later in the year.

[Councillor Alijah declared a personal interest as the Chair of the Hideaway youth project.]

[Councillor Abdullatif declared a personal interest in relation to her work on youth empowerment for the national organisation, the Anne Frank Trust.]