Future Academies founder Lord John Nash is a former education minister and a former judge of the Prince of Wales Award for Innovation. This article will look at ‘Youth Matters’, the UK Government’s first dedicated youth strategy in 20 years.
Youth Matters is essentially a 10-year plan for changing lives and outcomes for young people living across the UK. It outlines a variety of Government commitments to both young people and youth services.
As part of the strategy, the UK Government has committed funding to:
- Creating a new ‘Better Youth Spaces’ programme, earmarking £350 million in funding to provide equipment to around 2,500 youth organisations
- Supporting organisations operating in underserved areas, enabling them to deliver high-quality youth work and activities via a £60 million ‘Richer Young Lives Fund’
- Building or refurbishing up to 250 youth facilities over the course of the next four years
- Investing £5 million in strengthening youth services through improved information sharing, effective local partnerships and enhanced digital infrastructure, improving young people’s access to safe, high-quality, effective support in their local communities
- Recruiting and training volunteers, youth workers and other trusted adults with $15 million of investment
- Creating a new £22.5 million programme of support across up to 400 schools to boost young people’s personal development, well-being and essential life skills
Published alongside the Youth Matters strategy was the ‘State of the Nation’ survey, which was commissioned by the UK culture secretary. The survey provided a snapshot of life in 2025 for the average young person, covering everything from the COVID-19 pandemic and cost-of-living crisis to ongoing global uncertainty and the always-on digital world.
Responding to these challenges, the Youth Matters strategy aims to:
- Provide circa half a million young people with access to a trusted adult outside their home
- Reverse the decline in spending on young people by local government
- Equip young people with essential life skills such as resilience and online safety skills
- Halving the gap between richer and poorer families in terms of who gets to participate in meaningful activities both within and outside of the school environment
As part of the strategy, Young Futures Hubs have been created to provide young people with access to youth workers and other trained professionals to support their career development and well-being, as well as preventing them from harm. The National Youth Agency has been tasked with delivering the Local Youth Transformation Programme in addition to leading on supporting development of Young Futures Hubs in partnership with youth sector partners.
The National Youth Agency is supporting delivery of the National Youth Strategy by:
- Supporting youth work to ensure it is safe for all through its online safeguarding and risk management hub. The National Youth Agency is committed to ensuring those working with young people are properly trained and able to engage safely, irrespective of location.
- Providing coordination and support across the youth sector at a national level to raise the status of youth workers and plan for future workforce needs. For example, via national campaigns such as Youth Work Week as well as through the National Youth Sector Advisory Board.
- Maintaining and expanding a register of professional youth workers to record their ongoing professional development.
- Rolling out the National Youth Sector Census across organisations and youth workers across the country, increasing understanding of the landscape across organisations as well as the challenges faced by youth workers.
- Ensuring that youth work standards, qualifications and curriculum respond more adequately to the needs of young people, exploring ways to champion and share best practice. The National Youth Agency is committed to engaging the sector via its youth work qualifications transformation programme, enabling it to better meet the needs of the young people of tomorrow.
For two decades, the UK had no national strategy for its youth. Simultaneously, the experience of growing up in the country was being transformed. Today’s youth are the first generation to be born in a digital world. In the aftermath of a global economic crash, they have experienced more than a decade of economic and political turmoil, not to mention a pandemic.
The State of the Nation report set out the reality of growing up in the UK in 2025. Co-produced with a steering group of young participants from a diverse array of locations and backgrounds, the findings were stark. The next generation is simultaneously the most connected yet isolated in modern history, with young people ranking amongst the greatest casualties of a decade of underinvestment. The UK Government has committed to investing in places for young people to go and people to care for them. The National Youth Strategy was created to confront immediate challenges faced by over 10.6 million young people, tackling underlying causes of child poverty, giving children the best start in life and ensuring every child can achieve and thrive at school.
