On Track money to come out of the Children’s Fund

The children’s fund will have to meet the cost of a youth crime
prevention initiative announced in 1999.

A total of £380 million is to be distributed by the
children and young people’s unit (CYPU) to local partnerships in
England over the next three years to prevent social exclusion among
children aged five to 13.

But guidance issued last week by the CYPU revealed that each
area piloting the Home Office’s On Track programme will have to use
its share of the children’s fund for the £400,000 per year
cost of the scheme. Twelve of the 40 areas selected for children’s
fund money are piloting the On Track programme, which was announced
by Home Office minister Paul Boateng at Community Care
Live in December 1999.

The guidance to local authorities said that from April 2001 “the
costs of the On Track services will be met from the overall sum
available to your area”.

Althea Efunshile, who heads the CYPU, told a conference in
London earlier this week that local authorities would be expected
to facilitate the multi-agency partnerships charged with planning
preventive services for young people and their families.

She said the unit would want evidence that young people would be
involved and added that the CYPU was establishing a reference group
of 100 young people to advise Boateng.

The conference was organised by the Association of Directors of
Social Services, the UK Initiative and the children and young
people’s unit.

Children’s fund part 2 guidance from www.dfee.gov.uk/cypu