Review of Voluntary Sector Organisations
(Community Learning and Development)
YouthLink Scotland
27 August 2013
Contents
Page
1. Introduction
1
2. Context and background
1
3. Key strengths
1
4. How effective was the leadership of YouthLink Scotland?
2
5. How effective was YouthLink Scotland in key aspects of
management?
2
6. How well did YouthLink Scotland meet the needs of its
stakeholders?
4
7. What is YouthLink Scotland’s capacity to improve?
5
8. Main points for action
6
9. What happens next?
6
Appendix 1: Quality indicators used to evaluate YouthLink
Scotland
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1.
Introduction
In June 2013 the Scottish Government (SG) commissioned Education Scotland and
Audit Scotland to undertake a review of YouthLink Scotland (YLS). Education
Scotland and SG agreed the quality and performance indicators to be used in the
review from the framework of indicators within the HMIE publication How Good Is
Our Community Learning and Development?2 (HGIOCLD?2).
The first review on YLS was published in March 2006 by the then Her Majesty’s
Inspectorate of Education (HMIE) and Audit Scotland. The review concluded that
YLS effectively delivered a range of projects which clearly related to the then mission
and strategic objectives of the organisation. YLS successfully influenced policy in
line with the interests of young people and of the youth work sector. The review
found that there was considerable work to do with regard to developing a fully
systematic and corporate approach to programme development, management,
monitoring and financial outcomes. A follow-up review at the request of Ministers
took place in 2007. This follow-up review noted that the organisation had taken
effective action to implement the recommendations of the original report.
The scoping and fieldwork for the review took place between May and June 2013.
It involved interviews, in person and by telephone, with staff and key stakeholders of
YLS. It also included reviews of policies and procedures and an assessment of
financial monitoring and reporting arrangements.
2.
Context and background
YLS is the national agency for youth work. It is a registered charity. It is a
membership organisation representing the youth work sector in voluntary
organisations, in local authorities and other statutory bodies. YLS has the role as the
national agency to support the youth work sector to play its part in the context of
young people’s rights and wellbeing. The vision of YLS is to have a youth work
sector that can support young people to become successful learners, confident
individuals, effective contributors and responsible citizens.
The funding for YLS is obtained from an annual grant from SG and through bids to
other government and charitable funding opportunities. In addition, YLS administers
funded programmes such as Cashback for Communities, directing funds to local
areas.
3.
Key strengths

Staff’s commitment to the organisation.

YouthLink programmes and its support provided to members makes a
difference to the lives of young people in Scotland.

The drive and capabilities of a highly effective Chief Executive Officer.
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4.

The effective board that provides a clear strategic focus for the work of the
organisation.

The flexible and responsive approaches to hosting SG and other programmes
within the organisation.
How effective was the leadership of YouthLink Scotland?
YLS has a clear and shared vision with six main objectives that organise the work of
the board and staff. The board now provides clear direction, support and challenge
to the staff. There is a very effective mix of skills and expertise within the board. The
board broadly represents the diversity of the youth work sector. Board members
actively support staff on particular areas of work. The board regularly makes very
effective and challenging decisions in terms of resources. They align funding to their
strategic objectives. The organisation is now far more risk aware and successfully
risk assesses its activities. The Chair and Vice-Chair provide clear direction,
challenge and support to the organisation. The organisation has clear targets and
timelines for staff and has well developed approaches to strategic and business
planning. The Chief Executive consistently provides strong and visible leadership in
a variety of settings both within the organisation, with members and in wider circles.
He actively engages with individuals, groups and communities in the design and
delivery of services and encourages his staff to do likewise. The Chief Executive
actively develops the skills and expertise of the Senior Management Group by the
rotation of duties and professional development activities. Staff morale is very high
and all staff are dedicated and committed to the organisation. This is a considerable
improvement. As a result of the clear direction of the board and senior officers, YLS
is an organisation that now achieves high levels of engagement and successful
involvement with an increasing range of government departments, voluntary sector
and business organisations. This has resulted in new work for the organisation to
host and deliver government programmes. YLS has significantly increased the
finances to distribute to the sector from the period 2007-13. This has successfully
promoted the role and importance of youth work in making a difference to Scotland’s
young people.
5.
How effective was YouthLink Scotland in key aspects of management?
Financial management
YLS now has comprehensive financial procedures in place. The main financial
trends of the organisation are all now positive. There is now a clear reserves policy.
Finances are managed prudently with designated reserves to cover known future
costs including pension liabilities. There is a well defined process for setting the
annual budget, with input from the senior management team and finance and audit
committee members before approval by the board. The annual budget is well
managed with six monthly accounts, monthly management accounts and in the
second half of the financial year detailed monthly forecasts of the year end position.
The Finance and Audit Committee meets regularly and members have a range of
appropriate skills and experience. The Finance and Audit Committee provides a
2
good level of challenge to staff and closely monitor the financial position. A detailed
risk register is in place with responsibility for managing each risk clearly assigned.
Overheads are reviewed on a regular basis. Savings have been made in areas
including electricity costs, insurance and printing. YLS has successfully built its
financial capacity.
Operational planning
YLS now has clear strategic objectives that direct its operations. There is now an
effective time recording system to provide accurate costing of projects. The
introduction of an appropriate accounting system has significantly improved the
monitoring of project budgets. The introduction of new information technology tools
helps to administer the CashBack for Communities youth work programme much
more effectively. This has aided community organisations to easily make bids to this
programme and generated savings. Clear procedures are in place for post-project
review to ensure recipients spend grants appropriately. There are clear and
comprehensive external evaluation reports on YLS projects. YLS has effectively and
successfully delivered National Voluntary Youth Work Organisations Support Fund
for the last six years and this has made a significant contribution to youth work
services across Scotland. There are effective arrangements to measure these
programmes and their delivery processes. YLS reports regularly on the youth work
sector through effective and widely distributed publications. The use of high profile
events such as the Youth Worker of the Year Awards improves the quality and
national profile of operational youth work provision across Scotland. While this work
represents considerable progress, there is still room for further improvement. The
board should further improve the approaches to regular organisational self-evaluation
and the collection of evidence of impact to support its continuous improvement
agenda. This would enable YLS to provide further support to member organisations
and partnerships to demonstrate the impact of their work through systematic
approaches to evaluation. This would increase workforce confidence and sector
planning. YLS should now provide more support, advice and guidance to both youth
workers and staff in schools who are taking forward Curriculum for Excellence.
There is scope, as the Strategic Guidance for Community Planning Partnerships:
Community Learning and Development is fully implemented across Scotland, to
move to a new forward looking definition of youth work to start to improve the overall
community learning and development (CLD) provision and approaches. While YLS
makes good use of new technology in some areas, there is now further potential to
develop the use of new technologies to allow greater reach across Scotland, for
example greater use of video-conferencing, handheld and web based resources.
Participation of service users and other stakeholders
YLS are engaged in partnership working with all thirty two local authorities as part of
the Cashback for Communities programme, and 16+ Activity Agreements and
11 local authorities as part of the No Knives, Better Lives campaign. These
campaigns have significantly increased the profile of YLS and its capacity to work
across the full geography of Scotland, despite a decline in the staff numbers in the
organisation. This is a significant improvement. These campaigns have
considerably enhanced their partnership with local authorities, police and other
statutory agencies which are now very effective. YLS is now a host to SG
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programmes. The campaigns have been delivered through the active participation of
service users, including young people on grant awarding panels and training events.
This has also included training professionals from outside the youth work sector.
YLS contributes effectively to joint approaches to the planning and delivery of youth
work nationally through support to national and thematic networks, conferences and
annual events. YLS are seen as a valued partner by member organisations and
several of the partnerships demonstrate excellence. Member organisations
participate across the full range of activities of YLS from the board to project delivery.
YLS provides very effective support to enable youth work managers from across
Scotland to meet regularly to progress and respond to developments across the
youth work field. YLS regularly disseminates good practice and information about
new developments in youth work. Their work effectively supports member
organisations to learn from each other and improve their services for young people.
YLS works in effective partnership with Young Scot and the Scottish Youth
Parliament to build common approaches to promote the needs of young people and
those who work with them. While the Chief Executive and organisation are actively
involved in a range of partnerships in the youth work sector, there is now a need for
YLS to develop a wider range of networks within the formal education sector. There
is a need to continue to explore and develop links to other elements in the CLD
sector in line with the Strategic Guidance for Community Planning Partnerships:
Community Learning and Development and other policy areas such as the Post-16
Education (Scotland) Bill and Curriculum for Excellence.
Inclusion, equality and fairness
YLS successfully participates in a UK wide pilot to create an equality and human
rights framework specifically designed for voluntary and community sector
organisations. The use of the framework helped YouthLink assess their own
performance on equality and human rights and identify actions to help improve
performance. YLS now uses the 10 principles of Equalities in the Third Sector to
benchmark its own equality practices. YLS will now only use venues which are fully
compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act. CashBack for Communities and
National Voluntary Youth Work Organisations Support Fund funding application
forms take good account of equalities issues. A few recent YLS publications are now
being translated into Polish. There is a strong and ongoing working relationship with
organisations who support young people who are Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and
Transgender. There remain a number of areas for further improvement. YLS now
needs to address the targeting, promotion and inclusion of a wider range of faith and
ethnic minority groups in the membership. There is scope to increase the
membership to better reflect the rich religious and cultural diversity of Scotland today.
6.
How well did YouthLink Scotland meet the needs of its stakeholders?
Young people and youth workers in Scottish communities benefit from YSL youth
work programmes either through funded programmes or from training. Some young
people and their families, including those facing significant challenges, are having
their achievements recognised and gaining confidence, through receiving YLS
awards. These awards also enable agencies to gather positive media attention
leading to an increased uptake of services by vulnerable young people. Young
4
people who act as volunteer panel members gain significant new skills in fund
allocation and scoring of bids under the CashBack for Communities programme.
A number of young people also work on the Youthbank scheme as a result of their
involvement. The CashBack for Communities programme also provides important
opportunities for disadvantaged young people to benefit from a range of stimulating
programmes. These programmes may not happen without this funding, given the
present financial climate in local authorities. YLS now needs to further support
member organisations and partnerships to consistently demonstrate the impact of
their work with young people.
YLS’s work on 16+ Activity Agreements has built capacity for youth workers to
become engaged in this area of work leading to an increase in the number of
agreements across Scotland. This is leading to improved positive destinations for
vulnerable young people in most local authorities. Youth workers and other
professionals involved in the No Knives Better Lives training programme gain new
skills and understanding of violence in the community. This helps to improve their
practice. The impact of the No Knives, Better Lives youth engagement initiative for
YLS has been increased collaborative working with councils, police and others and
provides greater opportunities for consultation. This has raised the profile of youth
work as a preventative approach in a new area of practice. YLS provides high quality
support in a number of areas to their member organisations. This ranges from
support with child protection policies, accreditation support, organisational
development and specific youth work issues. The National Voluntary Youth Work
Organisations Support Fund has delivered considerable funds to the youth work
sector in Scotland. This work has significantly raised the profile, and contribution of
the youth work sector in Scotland. This support work enables members to function
more effectively as organisations and for their client group of young people. The
Digitally Agile CLD project delivered effectively in partnership with Learning Link and
Scottish Community Development Centre enabled youth workers to improve their
knowledge and awareness of social media and new technologies. YLS now needs to
further support member organisations and partnerships to consistently demonstrate
the impact of their professional development work with youth workers and other
associated professions.
7.
What is YouthLink Scotland’s capacity to improve?
YLS has considerably improved as an organisation since the last review in 2007.
The organisation is well managed, has proper procedures and protocols and is now
more stable financially. Staff morale is high and has improved considerably. YLS
now delivers on an increasing number of government priorities in relation to young
people. It has significantly increased the profile, role and standing of youth work.
The organisation is now seen as an asset to the youth work sector in Scotland. It
has considerably improved its standing with member organisations and other key
stakeholders. It has increased its geographic reach and its abilities to deliver its
programmes across all of Scotland, despite a decline in staff numbers. There is still
room for improvement in areas relating to self-evaluation, use of new technology and
diversity. YLS should now engage more actively with Curriculum for Excellence and
the new CLD Strategic Guidance. Overall, YLS is well placed to continue to develop
its role as a national agency and has a very good capacity to improve further.
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8.
Main points for action
The board of YLS should now work with Education Scotland and SG to
9.

Improve the organisation’s approach to self-evaluation and its ability to
rigorously measure the impact of its programmes on young people, youth
workers and associated professionals.

Increase its representation to take account of Scotland’s cultural and religious
diversity.

Extend and develop its approach to support youth workers and the wider
education sector to continue to implement Curriculum for Excellence.

Enhance and further develop its approaches to information and
communication technology to deliver its programmes.
What happens next?
There are some improvements needed, but YLS now has a clear understanding of its
strengths and areas for improvement. The stakeholders they support, including
learners, are achieving well. As a result we have ended the review process at this
stage. We will monitor progress through our regular contact with the organisation.
Our CLD team link officer will discuss the most appropriate support in order to build
capacity for improvement with the organisation. Education Scotland will maintain
contact to monitor progress in liaison with SG.
Phil Denning HMI
Managing Inspector
Education Scotland
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Appendix 1:
Quality indicators used to evaluate YouthLink Scotland
HM Inspectors use performance measures and quality indicators when making
judgements in their reviews of national voluntary organisations. The quality
indicators used were selected from those published in June 2006 in the publication
HGIOCLD?2. This publication is available on the website
www.educationscotland.gov.uk.
Improvements in performance
Impacts on participants
Impact on paid and voluntary staff
Improving services
Partnership working
Financial management
Strategic leadership
very good
very good
very good
good
very good
very good
very good
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This report uses the following word scale to make clear judgements made by
inspectors.
excellent
very good
good
satisfactory
weak
unsatisfactory
outstanding, sector leading
major strengths
important strengths with some areas for improvement
strengths just outweigh weaknesses
important weaknesses
major weaknesses
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