Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who the Independent Chair of the Youth Endowment Fund will be; and who will sit on the (a) management committee and (b) advisory council of that fund.

In March 2019, the Home Secretary announced the award of a £200m endowment to the charity Impetus, to establish the Youth Endowment Fund. Applied over ten years, the funding will be used by the Youth Endowment Fund to support interventions steering children and young people away from involvement in crime and violence and to find, generate and apply best available evidence about which approaches are most successful.

The Youth Endowment Fund has been established to operate independently of Government, and publishes information about its activities here: https://impetus.org.uk/youth-endowment-fund.
The £200m endowment was awarded at the end of March by way of a Grant Agreement. Since this award, Impetus has rapidly been establishing the Youth Endowment Fund’s operations and has launched its first call for proposals.

This is an open call, to fund and evaluate interventions primarily targeting young people aged 10-14 who are judged to be at risk of being drawn into crime and violence. This first funding round opened on the 28 May and will close on the 23 July, at which point applications will be assessed. As such, no projects have yet been awarded funding and no bids have been rejected. Further information about this first funding round can be found here: https://www.sibgroup.org.uk/youth-endowment-fund.

There are currently four officials in the Home Office whose responsibilities include oversight of the Youth Endowment Fund

The Youth Endowment Fund has been established as an independent charitable trust and is ultimately accountable to the Impetus Board. Appointment of the Youth Endowment Fund’s Independent Chair is expected to take place by the Autumn. The Youth Endowment Fund Committee comprises one representative from each of Impetus and the two organisations partnering it in delivering the Fund: the Social Investment Business and the Early Intervention Foundation; as well as a Home Office representative and other co-opted members. The Advisory Committee is yet to be established but will bring together a broad range of relevant expertise.

The pay of the Youth Endowment Fund’s Executive Director and Senior Team are a matter for the Youth Endowment Fund. However, when running the Competition to secure an organisation to run the Fund, all bidders were assessed against the expectation that no member of staff should receive a salary in excess of £150k. Under the terms of the Grant Agreement, Impetus is required to ensure that senior remuneration is proportionate and justifiable. The Home Office has also recommended that the Fund publishes details of senior staff remuneration.