Our policy update for February 2019

28 February 2019

Welcome to this month’s update on the policy context for London Youth members. You can find previous policy updates here.

Our policy work

Consultations

We have completed a draft submission to the House of Commons Women & Equalities Committee’s Mental Health of Men and Boys Inquiry, which closes on Monday 18^th March. You can see our draft response in the link below. Members who would like to co-sign or comment on our draft response should contact Samuel Howell before Monday 11^th March.

Networks

The latest meeting of our Tackling Youth Violence Network focused on the public health approach to countering youth violence and heard from Vicky Foxcroft MP, who spoke as the Chair of the Youth Violence Commission. Jake Ferguson, Hackney CVS, gave an update on the London Violence Reduction Unit and Mervyn Kaye, Youth First, gave the context of youth violence in Lewisham.

This month, the Employability Network investigated the theme of supporting young people of colour into the world of work with excellent sessions delivered by Indra Nauth, Black Training & Enterprise Group (BTEG), and Eni Timi-Biu, East London Business Alliance (ELBA).

Our Policy Advisory Group

Our newly established Policy Advisory Group is the best way for our members to be at the heart of the policy and media work that we do to represent you and the youth sector in London. Please consider joining this email group so we can get in touch about opportunities to engage on specific issues.

When we receive media requests, we circulate these opportunities to interested members via this group. For example, this month we arranged for Metro Judo Club, a member in south London, to be featured in the HuffPost in a piece about the importance of volunteers against the backdrop of austerity.

Updates

• The Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS):
  • Have announced that the British Youth Council will lead on a Youth Steering Group, Young Inspectors Group, and Digital Youth engagement research. The projects were first announced in last year’s Civil Society Strategy
  • The Sports Minster spoke about her priorities for sport
• The Mayor of London:
  • Included an additional £234 million in his Budget for 2019-20
  • Announced an additional £15 million to combat violence against women and girls
  • Announced a pilot that would GPS tag 100 offenders released after committing knife crime
• The Home Office:
  • Have announced new Knife Crime Prevention Orders, labelled ‘knife crime ASBOs’, for young people as young as 12
  • Have announced a new youth advocates programme, as part of the Serious Violence Taskforce
• The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG):
  • Announced the local authority funding settlement for 2019-20. While it includes an increase of 2.8% on last year, it does not meet the £3 billion gap in social care funding, address the 49% drop in funding since 2010, or represent the sustainable new settlement for local authorities that the Local Government Association and the Commons Public Affairs Committee have called for
  • Announced a £9.8 million youth crime fund
  • Published the summary of their consultation on Integrated Communities Strategy and an Action Plan
  • Is consulting on local structures and accountability for tackling homelessness
• The Department for Education (DfE):
  • Published participation data for those in the further education system
  • Is launching a trial of mental health and wellbeing in 370 schools with the Department of Health & Social Care
  • The Education Secretary spoke about his vision for character and resilience for young people
  • Have added mental wellbeing to the national curriculum
• The Government is establishing a new service to inform charities when they are left bequests
• Baroness Lawrence and the Home Affairs Committee marked the 20^th anniversary of the Macpherson Report. Baroness Lawrence has also compared the failure to address youth violence to ‘ethnic cleansing’
• Guardian article by a youth worker, arguing against the criminalisation of drill music and youth culture
• A Conservative politician is calling for the Conservatives to campaign on violence in the Mayoral elections next year
• Universities will now be measured against racial disparity
• MPs have criticised the Government’s lack of a strategy for early intervention

Reports & resources

• Prince’s Trust have published Macquarie Youth Index 2018 Annual Report
• The Government have published the Youth Justice Statistics for 2017-18. Over ten years, the overall number of young people cautioned or sentenced and the number of first-time entrants have dropped, but knife and weapon offences and length of custodial sentence have increased.
• Centre for London have published Culture Club: Barriers to entry in London’s creative and cultural industries
• The UK Chief Medical Officers have published a review of screen-based activities and young people’s wellbeing and mental health
• Institute for Fiscal Studies published The Outlook for the 2019 Spending Review
• Centre for Social Justice published The Future of Work: A vision for the National Retraining Scheme
• Thrive LDN published Londoners Said
• Loughborough University and JRF published Family Sharing: A minimum income standard for people in their 20s living with parents
• Resolution Foundation published Living Standards Outlook 2019
• The Youth Select Committee, a Parliament and British Youth Council initiative for young people, have received a Government response to their report, Realising the Potential of Work Experience

Get in touch

Please feel free to get in touch with any questions or to get involved in our upcoming policy work.

Samuel Howell, Policy Officer

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