Decision details
To award York College £169k from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund to run a project supporting young people at risk of becoming NEET in the Further Education system.
Decision Maker: Corporate Director of Place
Decision status: Decision Made
Is Key decision?: No
Is subject to call in?: No
Decision:
York has been allocated £5.1m from the
UK Shared Prosperity Fund to deliver an agreed Investment Plan
submitted in August 2022 and approved by Government in January
2023. This Plan included funding to support over 16’s who
are, or are at risk of becoming, economically inactive. The York
UKSPF Partnership Board have identified an emerging issue for young
people who are in the Further Education (FE) system at York College
and Askham Bryan College. Young people in FE have moved from a
school setting and may not have strong links with the teaching and
pastoral staff at college, leading to a high risk that they might
leave courses in the early weeks of an academic year. This project
seeks to address that problem by increasing provision for such
people, training college staff in life coaching and mentoring, and
providing opportunities for the young people to explore what might
be their best options.
Following discussion at the November 2023 York UKSPF Partnership
Board, York College were invited to submit a proposal for a
project, working with Askham Bryan College, to put innovative
provision in place to help address these issues. The Colleges
presented their proposal to the Partnership Board at its April 2024
meeting and have received the support of the Board for their
project.
At its meeting on 12th October 2023, CYC Executive agreed that the
revised investment plan is implemented by extending the current
delegation to the Corporate Director of Place in consultation with
the Executive Member for Economy and Transport and taking advice
the York SPF Partnership Board.
In order to implement this project, a formal decision from the
Corporate Director of Place is therefore now required to formally
allocate £169k to York College from the 2024-2025 York UKSPF
funding.
Decision: To commission York College and Askham Bryan
College’s Futures Foundation 4U project, with York College as
the accountable body, and allocate £169k from the York UKSPF
Investment Plan (intervention E33) to the work.
Options Considered:
Three options have been considered:
• Option 1: do nothing
• Option 2: commission a project through York College and
Askham Bryan College
• Option 3: run a competitive process to select a
provider
Options Rejected:
Option 1: do nothing – this is a
recognised issue which the Partnership Board have expressed their
desire to fund activity to address.
Option 3: run a competitive process to select a provider –
the success of this project depends upon working with young people
already in the colleges, and its legacy will be changes to the
mainstream provision in the two settings. Procurement of a provider
would both introduce a significant delay when there is limited time
to put support in place, and require a third party to integrate
with existing college systems, introducing additional and
unnecessary costs for no clear policy advantage.
Publication date: 26/04/2024
Date of decision: 26/04/2024
Accompanying Documents: