The first eight Young Futures Hubs have arrived with a planned network of 50, £70 million in funding and the warm administrative glow of a strategy freshly removed from its folder. The Government says the hubs will bring mental wellbeing, employment and crime prevention support together for young people. The football has received a map and is now waiting to learn which service deals with being kicked around.
The first wave covers Birmingham, Brighton and Hove, Bristol, County Durham, Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham and Tower Hamlets. The programme is intended to offer people aged 10 to 18, and up to 25 for those with special educational needs and disabilities, somewhere to go, something to do and someone who cares. It is a decent promise, although the football has noticed that somewhere to go is often what public policy discovers immediately after removing places to go.
The announcement says local support will be brought together under one roof. Young people should be able to find wellbeing support, careers guidance, positive activities and help before problems become more serious. The football applauds the principle and asks whether the roof includes signage, or whether that arrives in the next strategy.
The sharper detail sits behind the cheerful launch. The Government says council spending on youth services has fallen by 73 per cent over the past decade, with 1,036 council run centres closing since 2010. Rebuilding youth provision is therefore presented as a national mission, which is an impressive way to describe putting the furniture back after announcing that furniture was an unaffordable luxury.
This is the contradiction worth keeping in view. A system loses places for young people, observes the consequences, then unveils a network of places as though it has invented the radical concept of being present. The hubs may provide valuable support. The transformation language, however, is doing the sort of heavy lifting usually assigned to a cupboard assembled without instructions.
The eight hubs have opened or will shortly open, with funding running to March 2029. In some areas, panels will bring together police, schools, children’s services and community organisations to identify vulnerable children and connect them with support. That joined up approach could make the route easier to use, provided the route survives the usual journey through budgets, boundaries and three people asking who approved the sign.
The football has completed its own assessment. It requires a trusted adult, a safe space and a positive activity involving a ball. It has also requested that the next national strategy explain where everyone was before the last one arrived. The request has been sent to the department responsible for locating requests.
Source: GOV.UK.
