Our policy update for December 2018
08 January 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
Champion London Youth
Our campaign, Champion London Youth, is continuing to challenge negative stereotypes about young people and make the case for high quality, open access youth work in every young Londoner’s local community. Please support the campaign’s message by signing our open letter to Mims Davies MP, the new Youth Minister, calling for a significant reinvestment in youth work.
London Violence Reduction Unit (VRU)
London Youth is now a member of the Practitioner Working Group that is advising the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) on the design of the new public health approach-based London VRU.
We strongly encourage interested members to attend an open consultation workshop at City Hall on 14th January to discuss involvement of communities and young people. We will continue to update our members on the progress of this unit.
MOPAC have committed £6.8 million to fund the VRU. The London Assembly’s Police & Crime Committee have published an open letter to the Mayor of recommendations for the unit’s success.
Politics & Policy
Vicky Foxcroft MP secured a debate in Parliament on the role of the public health approach in reducing youth violence on Thursday 13th December. You can find a transcript of the speeches here and a video of the debate here (from 14:33).
Updates
- The Home Office is seeking interest from organisations to run the £200 million Youth Endowment Fund, a 10 year programme to reduce serious offending among young people.
- The Mayor has published a review of the Metropolitan Police’s Gangs Matrix, which has been strongly criticised for a lack of transparency and racial disproportionality. The review recommends a comprehensive overhaul of the matrix.
- The Mayor has published the final Culture for All Londoners: Culture Strategy for London. You can read London Youth’s response to the consultation on the draft strategy here.
- The Mayor has published the final Sport for All of Us: Strategy for Sport and Physical Activity. You can read London Youth’s response to the consultation on the draft strategy here.
- The Mayor has announced a £600,000 partnership with Google to tackle youth violence.
- The Home Office have announced the 2019/20 funding settlements for policing in the UK, which includes a £970 million increase in spending.
- Action for Children is warning that 1 million young people under 10 will be deprived of basics this Christmas.
- The Lighthouse, a facility for young victims of sexual abuse with £8 million of cross-agency funding, has opened in London.
- The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport and the Big Lottery Fund have launched a £1.1 million fund to deliver safeguarding training.
- The Mayor’s Good Growth Fund has distributed £30 million to 33 projects to reduce deprivation.
Reports & resources
- IPPR have published Move On Up? Social mobility, opportunity and equality in the 21st Century.
- The Health Foundation published A Place to Grow: Exploring the future health of young people in five sites across the UK.
- Grant Givers Movement published Discrimination, Prejudice & Isomorphism, which suggests that a lack of diverse staff in funding organisations leads to a bias against applicants from minority backgrounds.
- An academic paper concludes that counselling in the voluntary and community sector has comparable outcomes to statutory and education-based services, but serves a distinct demographic.
- Sport England have published Our Active Lives Children and Young People Survey, which found that 17.5% of the 3 million children surveyed were not getting the recommended hour of activity per day.
- The Joseph Rowntree Foundation have published UK Poverty 2018.
- Public Health England has published a summary of 2017/18 statistics for alcohol and drug treatment for young people.
- A YouGov poll shows that 18-24 year olds are the most pessimistic about social mobility.
- The Department for Education have updated the Review of Children in Need with interim findings for professionals working with vulnerable children.
Get in touch
Please feel free to get in touch with any questions or to get involved in our upcoming policy work.
