Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of the Youth Endowment Fund in reducing (a) youth violence and (b) knife crime.

The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) plays a central role in evaluating and supporting interventions aimed at reducing youth violence and knife crime. This is critical to us properly understanding the challenges of youth violence and knife crime and how to most effectively address them.

The Home Office periodically reviews the YEF’s activities and assesses the impact of projects funded by the YEF and the reach of resources developed by the fund such as the YEF Toolkit.

The YEF has generally made good progress in these key areas over the period of the Grant. More widely, the YEF provides essential support across seven sectors including education, children’s services, and youth justice to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence.

The Home Office will continue to work with the YEF on reducing the impact of youth violence and knife crime, including through our commitment to halve knife crime in a decade.