Govt Youth Strategy: Consultation / Youthvoice – Latest

Following the appointment of Kayleigh Wainwright to lead on youth engagement in the co-production of the Governments new Youth Strategy the DCMS Youth Team hosted a Webinar for interested stakeholders on 6th February and have now circulated the slides. Kayleigh also posted an update in mid February on LinkedIn. Interested parties can sign up for newsletters from the Youth team at DCMS. Links and comment below.

Webinar

The slides (below) describe the aims, scope, process,  timetable, which is well underway. Both advisory groups have now met (Expert and Youth) and more details on their membership is expected in early March.

Aim 

“..to coordinate youth services, as well as move away from one-size-fits all approaches from central government, bringing power back to young people and their communities and rebuilding a thriving and
sustainable sector.”   What does ‘power’ means in this context? Many service providers already consult and we already have guidance for local authorities to ‘consult’ young people on the development of local services – but will the strategy aim to revisit previous innovations giving young people or their representative (locally and nationally) powers to set standards and ‘inspect’? powers to get  “scrutinise” annual delivery reports? powers to co-produce services and allocate budgets (This last idea was once a manifesto commitment by Labour in opposition over 20 years ago) ?

The Scope of the strategy acknowledges the need to “co-ordinate” wider government’s work on youth” if it is to respond to a the current consultations open invitation to young people to set the agenda – as we know young people current priorities include the ‘Cost of Living’ and ‘ Mental Health’, so its now been clarified that the Strategy is “initially focusing on policies within the DCMS remit -e.g. youth spaces, out-of-school services, youth workforce).

Overview of the co-production process

Co-production: With young people, sector leaders, experts, academics and  Other Government Departments.

1. Initial conversations with stakeholders and engagements with young people. 2. Set up of Youth Advisory Group and Expert Advisory Group 3. Commissioning of an external organisation for survey, digital postcard, focus groups and other youth engagements 4. Roundtable discussions with young people and cross sector experts.

Slides

Latest on the process above.

1. Stakeholders in touch with DCMS were invited for discussions with Youth Policy Team members and initial focus group were commissioned from regional youth work units across in England in January
2. The Youth Advisory Group and Expert Advisory Groups were recruited by invitation only by Ministers and have had one meeting in February. Membership of the groups is not known – but is expected to be released in March
3. This was commissioned and awarded to a consortium. Under this a second round of youth engagement has been commissioned by youthled My Life My Say who are current recruiting for focus groups to their Democracy Cafes (See Bitesize News for venues, dates and contact information for those still recruiting in March)
4. Roundtable discussions with others – perhaps due on the coming months. See Kayleighs update below

• The DCMS have invited interested parties to sign up to their Youth Team newsletters to keep up to date with progress on the strategy, including further opportunities to engage in its development. These newsletters will be circulated regularly throughout the process, including the opportunity to sign up to regular webinars. You can sign up here.
• In addition, if you have any information or evidence you would like to share in relation to the National Youth Strategy, your can share via this email address (youth@dcms.gov.uk).

Kayleighs Update. (mid February)

“It’s been a busy in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport National Youth Strategy Engagement Team as we get to work on ensuring that the new National Youth Strategy is meaningfully co-produced with young people across the country!

Here’s a snapshot of what we’ve been up to and some of the key themes;

⭐️ On-boarding a commissioned organisation/ partnership who have been selected to lead a national survey, digital postcard, regional focus groups and solution hacks across the country.. all led by young people. More details to come on this soon.
⭐️ Meeting the Expert and Youth Advisory Groups for the first time. They will be providing input, support and challenge throughout e Strategy Development process.
⭐️ Meeting the NCS – National Citizen Service Trust Youth Advisory Board to hear their thoughts on how best to engage with young people and what their hopes are for the Strategy.
⭐️ Hosting our first webinar for professionals working with young people so that they can stay up to date with the process, be ready to involve young people and input their views.
⭐️ Mapping key groups ane organisations across sectors that we want to be engaging in this process.

Some of the key takeaways from these conversations include;
👍 The Strategy needs to be ambitious but also tangible with clear actions
👍 To reach all diverse range of young people, the comms has to be youth friendly/ youth led and we need to mobilise all the great orgs working with young people.
👍 There’s a lot of intersectionality. This needs to be considered and captured.
👍 This is an opportunity to really shape how Government can engage with young people in the long term and build trust.
👍 We need to carefully consider how to co-produce with the younger age group and those who are often left behind in National consultations.
👍 From young people on their hopes for the strategy; opportunities and services are vital but only if you know where they are and you can access them easily, accountability is key, needs to be a focus on health and wellbeing, feeling safe, a choice of out of school provision based on your interests and needs.

If you’ve got evidence to share or you’d like to added to our mailing list to be kept up to date with this work and upcoming engagement opportunities then email youth@dcms.gov.uk

Young Voices Heard notes and comment

• “The Strategy is due to produce a report and action plan by the end of the summer (July/August). However, the Spending Review process, which will confirm department budgets from 25/26 until 2028/29 are expected to be confirmed by June this year. How much influence will the  new strategy have on budget allocations?
• Will there be scope to review whether the coordinating role of the strategy itself continues within DCMS – or is located , as many have been calling for in the past, a bespoke Department and Minister with a coordinating role? Its the sort of innovation that might have been developed in opposition before a General Election.
• Last year it was announced that the NCS programme and its 25/26 budget will end in March 2026. Will this release resources for the strategy, or will this represent a saving for the Chancellor – or a bit of both?
• The existing DCMS Youth Voice initiative included support for the British Youth Council to deliver the  UK Youth Parliament, but was only funded until March 25. The National Youth Agency successfully tendered to take over UKYP for the remaining year 2425. No new tender for the future was announced, and I expect NYA will be given an extension for another year – and decisions about the future national youth voice/youth council will be part of the Youth Strategy going forward. 
• NYA started a consultation process (survey and focus groups) on the future of a youth council for the UK following the closure the British Youth Council last March 2024. Its expected to report by March – but this process may continue in parallel, and indeed will feed into the current Co-Production consultation.

My focus will be to submit evidence on how the Youth Strategy will address the Governments recognition and support for the re-establishment of ongoing youth voice structure going forward – nationally, regionally and locally. There is no reason why others, having seen that the scope includes Youth Voice, can now submit their views/evidence on this to the Youth Strategy review – both young leaders and older champions and supporters.”  James Cathcart 26/2/25