Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has taken recent steps to work with (a) the Duke of Edinburgh Award, (b) other youth award schemes and (c) volunteer programmes to help promote community safety.

The government recognises the vital role that youth services and activities like the Duke of Edinburgh Award play in enhancing young people’s wellbeing, as well as significant benefits to social cohesion and community safety.

The Home Office is committed to working extensively with charities, voluntary organisations and other partners across the sector in our work to reduce crime and keep people safe. The includes, for example, through the Youth Endowment Fund, which funds programmes in England and Wales that aim to prevent children and young people from becoming involved in violence. In addition, Violence Reduction Units are required to operate ‘with and for the community’ and must have someone to represent community, young people’s and the voluntary sector’s interests as part of their governance arrangements.