The Prince's Trust response to Minister Attwood's letter

By way of an introduction, I have taken up a new position with The Prince’s Trust as Head of Public Sector Partnerships just this week and Ian has asked me to respond to you with a brief overview of our views on how the Department can continue to deliver on its targets in a more cost-effective way through its service providers in voluntary and community sector.  
 
What is clear from the impact of the economic downturn and the pending public expenditure cuts is that:
 

• The Prince’s Trust in Northern Ireland continues to record a growing demand for our services from young people that are not in education, employment or training;
• Over 52,000 young people in Northern Ireland, many of which live in the top 10% of most deprived wards in the region, are currently not in education, employment or training;
• A lack of opportunity for these young people means that they are significantly more likely to go through life unemployed, while some respond through being hostile, angry and volatile, often bolstered by alcohol;
• The impact of DSD’s work to address the causes of deprivation in recent years, particularly through the Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy, is significantly more likely to be undone by a new spiral of unemployment, workless families and a growth in the cycle of anti-social behaviour in our most deprived communities;
• The Department needs to deliver more for less, and by this I mean that it needs to take on a leadership role in cutting out waste in the voluntary and community sector. The Minister needs to consider stopping support for organisations that do not have high positive outcomes and divert funds to organisations and partnerships that are more strategic in their approach, deliver measurable outcomes and can be held publicly accountable for being cost-effective and meeting their targets;
• Organisations like The Prince’s Trust already have in place the core infrastructure and resources to deliver at a regional level and, most importantly, are proven in achieving high positive outcomes that directly improve the quality of life for vulnerable young people and their families living in the most deprived areas of Northern Ireland;
• The Trust supports over 3,000 disadvantaged young people in Northern Ireland every year, we spend on average £600 per young person and most importantly, 83% of the young people we support across all our programmes go on to education, employment or training. In stark contrast, for example, the cost of keeping a young person in custody each year in Northern Ireland is £81,340, whereas the cost associated with The Prince’s Trust training one volunteer to mentor young offenders is £1,250;
• In setting the Department’s budget over the next 4 years, the Minister needs to consider the long term costs of not supporting disadvantaged young people. He needs to question whether it would be a false economy not to invest in this area, which will inevitably store up bigger problems in terms of long-term unemployment, anti-social behaviour and the costs associated with policing, prisons and the provision of state benefits to young people facing barriers to education, training and employment;
• The ripple effect of our work and positive outcomes with disadvantaged young people brings cost-savings to all Government Departments in terms of meeting their service level agreement targets under the Programme for Government. In this context, I would challenge all of the Departments to recognise the cross-cutting nature of work by organisations like The Prince's Trust and to work together in a more joined-up way to review the effectiveness and value for money of different programmes run by the voluntary and community sector. Ideally, I would like to see two or more Departments sitting down together with their service providers in sector and asking them to demonstrate why they represent value for money and challenge organisations to develop more strategic partnerships where possible;
• I am certain that the achievements of The Prince’s Trust in Northern Ireland in youth employment, widening access to education and training and diversion from crime would represent a highly cost-effective way for the Minister to meet his Department's targets in a publicly accountable way.

It is on this basis, that I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you in the first instance and subsequently with the Minister and his officials to discuss how The Prince’s Trust can work in partnership with the Department to develop cost-effective solutions that can deliver measurable improvements in the quality of people’s lives in the most deprived communities across Northern Ireland.
 
Our initial meeting would also be an opportunity to explore the ideas around service providers within the voluntary and community sector working in partnership to deliver programmes on a cross-departmental basis to better address the multitude of social issues that arise out of not supporting disadvantaged young people.
 
I look forward to hearing from you in due course.
 
Kind regards
Mark Dougan
Head of Public Sector Partnerships
The Prince’s Trust Northern Ireland
T: 90758103

Other Responses

A list of the other organisations willing to share their responses. If you would like yours to be included, please forward to lisa.mcelherron@nicva.org

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