A further £90m in grant funding will be allocated to youth services from a scaled-back fund worth ‘over £300m’.
The grants are part of the second phase of the Government’s Youth Investment Fund (YIF) and will support youth services in ‘some of the most underserved’ areas in England.
Culture secretary Lucy Frazer said: ‘I want to see every young person have someone to talk to, something to do, and somewhere to go outside of the classroom, no matter where they are from, to help maximise their potential in life.’
Launched in an announcement by then-chancellor Sajid Javid in 2019, the YIF was originally worth £500m, with an aim to help refurbish or provide around 520 youth facilities.
The total fund is now worth ‘over £300m’, and will deliver grants for ‘up to 300 facilities’, according to the Social Investment Business, which is delivering the cash on behalf of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
In February 2022, the fund was cut back to £378m, but when the second phase was launched in August that year, the DCMS said it was worth £368m.
The department has been asked to confirm exactly how much the fund is now worth.
