Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to strengthen the evidence base of open access youth work and non-formal learning opportunities for young people.

The Government recognises the importance of evidence for youth work, which is why we are making investments to build and strengthen the evidence base for open access, ‘informal’ youth provision. We fund the Centre for Youth Impact in its efforts to lead the thinking around impact of work with young people and are investing £1 million in a three-year evaluation (https://yiflearning.org/) of open access youth provision through the Youth Investment Fund, which aims to develop practical and relevant measurement approaches for open access youth services.

We are also actively engaging organisations from the youth sector and young people on this issue as part of the Civil Society Strategy.