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• Aiming High for Young People
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• Things to do, places to go
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Youth Opportunity Fund and Youth Capital Fund

The overall aim of the Youth Opportunity and Youth Capital Funds is to improve the provision of positive activities for young people, by giving them the power to decide how this funding should be spent in their area.

Applications are made by young people to a panel of other young people who make decisions on whether applications are appropriate and should receive funding. Funded activities must support the five Every Child Matters outcomes, benefit the local community and offer good value for money.

Giving young people, particularly those facing disadvantage, a genuine influence over the design and delivery of services is the most effective way of ensuring that provision is in line with what young people want. An independent evaluation of the first two years of the programme showed that the Funds have had a genuine influence on empowering young people, their participation in positive activities and the quality of provision on offer.

The Funds should help local authorities to meet their statutory duty to secure young people's access to positive activities and that authorities ascertain young people’s views on provision. Capital investments through the Youth Capital Fund and Youth Capital Fund Plus are integral to the Government's broader ambitions to improve the range and quality of places for young people to go and complement investments through myplace.

The Funds were announced in Youth Matters and were launched as a two-year scheme in April 2006 with a combined budget of £115m. In July 2007 Aiming High for Young People: A ten year strategy for positive activities announced the continuation of the Funds until at least 2011. A total of £220 million has been secured for the Funds over 2008-11, which includes additional resources on top of existing baselines in the 50 most deprived local authority areas.

The Funds are delivered by local authorities. If you are interested in making an application or want to find out about the Funds in your area you should contact the relevant local authority. Further information and help on how to find your local authority contact is available on the Directgov website.

Documents 

Youth Opportunity Fund and Youth Capital Fund: Delivery guidance (2008) sets out delivery arrangements and funding allocations for local authorities; revised in February 2009 with new guidance on safeguarding, capital assets, and opening times of facilities.

Youth Opportunity Fund and Youth Capital Fund: Year-end report 2008–09 (February 2010) reviews the third year of the funds.

Youth Opportunity Fund and Capital Fund good practice guide (August 2008) offers a range of examples direct from LAs and groups of young people and contains some key recommendations based on the learning from the first two years of the Funds.

Outcomes of the Youth Opportunity Fund and Youth Capital Fund (August 2008)

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Associated documents

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Last updated on 04/02/2010