Youth Volunteering

Lord Pickles Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)]

I am today announcing a grant of £10 million over two and a half years, to support activities for young people in England.

The grant will be used by Youth United, an initiative set up by HRH The Prince of Wales, which is a coalition of organisations that collectively provide volunteer-led volunteering opportunities for 1.5 million young people. The Youth United youth member organisations are: Air Training Corps, Army Cadets, Boys’ Brigade, Fire Cadets, Girlguiding UK, Girls’ Brigade, Marine and Sea Cadets, The Scouts Association, St John Ambulance, Volunteer Police Cadets.

Youth United will use this funding to recruit and train up 2,700 new adult volunteers to run 400 new groups of their member organisations in communities across the country. This will mean over 10,000 more young people will be able to join a pack or troop over the next two and a half years.

Youth United will target this funding towards areas with few resources, where there are currently limited opportunities for young people and where too few adults have the skills and experience to support existing groups or to establish new ones.

The areas identified where this money can make the biggest impact are:

Birmingham

Bradford

Knowsley

Hackney

Haringey

Manchester

Middlesbrough

Newham

Redbridge

Rochdale

Tower Hamlets

Youth United will also work in an additional four areas which will be targeted as HRH Prince of Wales’s priority areas for helping young people:

Broadwater Farm Estate (Tottenham)

Burnley

Burslem (Stoke-on-Trent)

Redcar (Redcar and Cleveland)

This funding will enable 400 new groups to start. Once established, these new groups are expected to be permanently self-sustaining, raising their own running costs through local fundraising activity and/or subscriptions. I fully expect that these new groups will continue to provide valuable skills and opportunities for young people for many years to come.