CYP(3)-CB 018

Children and Young People Committee

Inquiry into Child Budgeting

Response from RNID

About us

RNID Cymru is the largest charity working to change the world for the 480,000 deaf and hard of hearing people in Wales. We do this by campaigning and lobbying, with the help of our members, raising awareness of deafness and hearing loss, providing services and through social, medical and technical research.

Across the UK we have approximately 38,000 members and our response will focus on key issues that relate to deaf people. Throughout this response we use the term 'deaf people' to refer to deaf, deafened and hard of hearing people. RNID is happy for the details of this response to be made public.

Comments

RNID Cymru welcomes the opportunity to give evidence to the National Assembly for Wales's Children and Young People's Committee short inquiry into children's budgeting in Wales.  

RNID Cymru offers a number of services for deaf and hard of hearing children and young people in Wales.

We provide a Young People’s Support Service in Newport, Cardiff and Gwynedd.  The projects provide a range of specialist support services for deaf and hard of hearing children and young people between the ages of 0 and 25, such as: befriending; one-to-one personal development support; in-school support; opportunities to meet other deaf and hard of hearing young people; and access to other services such as counsellors and therapists.

Also, RNID Cymru has a new project funded by the Big Lottery Fund, working with young people aged 16 - 30 years in South East Wales.  The project offers support to deaf and hard of hearing young people, supporting them to develop life skills, overcome challenges to living independently and gain skills to get into employment. The project team will provide intensive one-to-one support to around 75 deaf young people over the next three years and also plans to help 200 others who need information and advice.

Questions

To what extent do you think that budget setting and allocating resources for children and young people is transparent at national and/or local level?

RNID Cymru believes that budget setting and the allocation of resources for children and young people is not transparent at either a national or a local level.

We support the aim of Children and Young People’s Partnerships and the adoption of Children and Young People’s Plans locally across Wales. However in our experience more needs to be done to develop the following:

• Cascading of information to stakeholders

• Transparency in decision making

• Clearer entry pathway into Children and Young People’s Partnerships

The voluntary sector has representatives on Core Groups within Children and Young People’s Partnerships, but often information is not disseminated from the voluntary sector representative back to those they are representing, so organisations are not aware of what is happening in core groups and in other groups such as the Partnership Board, Joint Commissioning Group etc.  

It is not clear what funding pots Partnerships distribute, and to what extend they undertake joint commissioning in practice. There is also lack of clarity regarding what funding is available and when they will undertake next funding rounds. For example, we are currently seeking funding for our Young People’s Support Service in Cardiff. We approached the Cardiff Children and Young People’s Partnership enquiring if any funding was available, such as the Cymorth Fund.  The response was that there was no Cymorth funding currently, but that they would be reviewing services in the future and if any gaps in provision are identified, there could be some commissioning opportunities.  This uncertainty impacts on RNID Cymru’s projects, staff, clients and our budgeting and planning processes.

Also, there are additional grants available from different sources outside of the Partnership (e.g. Children’s Services Grant through the local authority, or youth revenue funding through the local authority/ CVC). We wonder why these sources of funding are are not distributed through the Children and Young People’s Partnership?  

There is no annual review published by local authorities and Children and Young People’s Partnerships on the funding of projects.  Information regarding funding opportunities can often be dependent on local knowledge and key contacts.

It would be beneficial to have one point of contact which has information about all children and young people’s statutory funding opportunities in a local authority area.

To what extent do you think children and young people are taken into account in budget setting and allocation decisions in policy areas not obviously related to them, e.g. transport, housing, planning?

We do not feel that children and young people are taken into account in budget setting and allocation decisions in policy areas not obviously related to them.

To what extent do you think that departments within national and local government are joined-up in terms of what they spend on children and young people? Do you have examples where this is or isn’t happening?

RNID Cymru does not believe that departments within national and local government are joined-up in terms of what they spend on children and young people.

It seems that national services can apply for national funding and local services can source funding locally, but it is unclear how projects which cover a region (i.e. more than one local authority area) should be funded.  An organisation like RNID Cymru for example, may want to develop a regional young adult transitions service. It would be difficult for us to do this, as we would need buy-in and monetary support from a number of local Partnerships, local authorities etc.

Do you think there is enough forward planning about how funding is allocated to deliver policies and programmes for children and young people? Please give examples.

No, there is not enough forward planning about how funding is allocated to deliver policies and programmes for children and young people. It often appears to third sector organisations such as RNID Cymru as if decisions are made last minute.  As a result funding applications have incredibly tight deadlines and national and local third sector organisations do not have the opportunity to plan and develop applications.

Do you have any examples of cost benefit analysis being undertaken on policies affecting children and young people (i.e. assessing the costs and benefits of the impacts of an intervention or policy)? Is this something you would like to see done more routinely and made more transparent?

RNID Cymru is not aware of cost benefit analysis being undertaken on policies affecting children and young people.

We would welcome more cost benefit analysis of policies affecting children and young people if relevant voluntary organisations could be part of the process.  This could ensure that an intervention or policy would have clear outcomes. It would ensure that voluntary organisations providing services would have clarity on what should be measured when running a service or project.

Tackling child poverty is seen as a high political priority in Wales. To what extent do you think budget allocations reflect this high priority? To what extent is budget allocation and actual spend in Wales 'pro-poor’?

We do not feel that we have enough information to respond to this question.

To what extent do you think children and young people are enabled to participate in budget setting and allocation decisions at a national and/or local level, and do you have any examples of this happening?

We do not feel that children and young people are enabled to participate in budget setting and allocation decisions at a national or a local level.

Children and young people should be enabled to participate through the use of the National Children and Young People's Participation Standards Self Assessment Pack.

What would you like to see change to make it easier to monitor spend on children and young people?

To make it is easier to monitor spend on children and young people, RNID Cymru would like to see a more open and transparent system.

At present it is often unclear how much money is budgeted for different policy areas in each local authority and, as a result, it is difficult to develop services that will support children and young people.

Are there any further comments you'd like to make about children’s budgeting?

The current situation with regards to children's budgeting on a local level makes it incredibly difficult for a national charity like RNID Cymru.  

As the process of applying for funding to provide services and projects is different in every local authority area, it can be difficult for a national organisation to be kept informed of opportunities to provide services for children and young people.

The process can often be disjointed, with different timescales and different procedures and application forms.  

The process can work well for local organisations and groups, as they may have the knowledge and local contacts who sit on networks and groups. As a result, where there are no local organisations that can deliver a service, it is extremely difficult for a national charity to fill the gap.  Thus some services are not being provided in every area across Wales.  In RNID Cymru's case, deaf and hard of hearing children and young people in Wales do not have the same access to services.

Another difficulty which we face is developing projects funded by funders such as Children in Need and the Big Lottery Fund into long term services and gaining statutory funding to do this.  A recent example is our Young People’s Support Service in Cardiff, which was funded for three years by Children in Need and was very successful. We applied for continuation funding, but the response from Children in Need was that the work should be statutory funded. However, there is little funding available locally, if at all, through the local authority or Children and Young People’s Partnership.  There seems to be no bridge/ link to enable us to move from voluntary funding to statutory funding in cases like this.