The Voluntary Youth Sector

With the contributions of central government and local councils varying as their policies and priorities have changed, the voluntary sector’s role in providing open youth work facilities has remained highly significant. What follows outlines the challenges – especially financial – which charitable organisations overall are currently facing and more positive initiatives taken by ones that are youth-focused. It also explores how the wider policy environment and in particular, since July 2024, the Labour government’s Civil Society Covenant have sought to influence their responses and inputs.

The challenges …

Within a highly constrained financial environment, charities generally have continued to struggle to sustain their distinctive role and inputs. In January 2024, for example, research by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF)[1] found that, with half of the organisations in England and Wales at full capacity, increased demand and higher costs had forced 40 per cent to draw on their reserves just to meet operational expenditure and 38 per cent to seek extra support from funders.

All this came at a time when – following cuts to local authority services of £1 billion in the previous 12 years[2] – councils were still reducing their grants to voluntary groups to a point where, for many, this could leave their very survival at risk. Prompted by what they labelled an ‘out of control’ crisis’, in February 2024 a cross-party group of MPs called on the then Conservative government to, as a matter of urgency, inject £4 billion into council budgets.[3]

Reflecting on these pressures, a Guardian editorial in January 2026 concluded that ‘for some of the country’s household-name charities, this perfect storm (had) ensured that 2025 was an annus horribilis’. It also highlighted that ‘… thousands of smaller grassroots organisations are simply struggling to stay afloat, digging into reserves and cutting services’.[4] The editorial noted that, as well as fewer people volunteering, ‘charitable giving has declined to the lowest level since tracking began’. This was confirmed by later CAF research which concluded that, with millions of people no longer able to afford or willing to make donations, these had fallen by more than £1.4 billion in the previous year. As a result, in 2025 only 50 per cent of people were donating to charity compared to 61 per cent a decade earlier, with the average size of gifts falling from £72 to £65.[5]

Letters to the Guardian in response to its editorial addressed two other issues distorting charities’ priorities. One was that, ‘in a target-driven society, funders often have their own performance indicators to meet’. The other – at a time when UK charities were found still to be prioritising ‘privilege rather than potential’ when hiring staff[6] – was that this decline in volunteering risked worsening the sector’s existing problems recruiting trustees.[7]

These pressures impacted very directly on voluntary sector bodies working with young people. In July 2024, for example, the ‘youth violence prevention’ project Redthread announced that, because of ‘major financial challenges … due to the current external funding landscape’, it was considering merging with Catch22, an organisation with a much wider community brief.[8] Two months later NYA’s National Youth Sector Census revealed that, if they failed to attract some local authority funding, nearly half of the responding organisations – particularly those in more deprived areas – anticipated running out of reserves within six months.[9]

The announcement the previous March of the planned closure of the 75-year-old ‘bastion of youth voice’, the British Youth Council (BYC), had had special significance for the voluntary open youth work sector. Even though a year earlier the DCMS had awarded it a £750,000 two-year contract to run the UK Youth Parliament, the Department refused to provide emergency funding to deal with the threatened closure because of what it called the ‘scale of the challenges’ facing the organisation.[10] According to BYC’s Chair, two factors had helped prompt the resultant closure. One was an ‘economic environment (which) has significantly impacted our ability to generate income’; the other – an example of how dependent a charity could become on the business sector – the loss of a partnership worth £70,000 a year when the cosmetics firm the Body Shop went into administration.[11]

These ongoing financial pressures on open youth work had been illustrated as far back as late 2023 by Girlguiding’s decision to close its overseas operations in 36 countries and five of its activity centres in the UK. After protests by some of its volunteers, it agreed to reopen the overseas units and – U-turning after initially rejecting the offer – to sell one of the centres to a campaign group which had set itself up as an incorporated charity.[12]

Some difficult issues faced by the Scouts in this period could also have been triggered in part by underlying resource pressures. Following the death of one of its members while on a trip to Wales in 2018, a coroner concluded in February 2024 that ‘the lives of young people are being put at risk by The Scout Association’s failure to recognise the inadequacies of its operational practice’. In response the Association’s Chair said that it had ‘already made many changes to our risk assessments, safety rules, training and support we give our volunteers’.[13] Later in the year the Association was also forced to relocate 4,500 of its members attending its World Jamboree in South Korea following controversy over sanitation arrangements and access to food.[14]

… and the achievements

Other news from the sector was much more positive, however. In July 2024, for example, the Oasis Charitable Trust which was running 54 school academies in ‘deprived’ neighbourhoods across the country opened a ‘youth hub’ in a former girls’ school in south London as a pilot for one of Labour’s key proposals for developing additional youth provision.[15].

By then – April 2024 – the Scouts had in effect received a renewed vote of confidence from the government with the award of a £129,000 contract to encourage its members to take up teaching as a career[16] Three months later, as its waiting lists rose to 107,000 – the highest level ever – it reported that over the previous year it had recruited an additional 2,200 volunteers[17] and, as part of its efforts to update its programmes, the following June 2025 introduced a new badge focused on developing young people’s ‘money skills’[18]. In October a new Chief Executive was appointed who, as well as fifty years direct involvement in Scouting, came with considerable wider voluntary sector experience.[19]

That month UK Youth also appointed a new (interim) Chief Executive with a voluntary sector background going back many years.[20] By then – in May 2024 – it had published a detailed blog piece on the evaluation of the #iwill Movement – its youth social action programmes – which focused particularly on what it had learned from collaborating with Volunteering Matters to carry these out.[21] Backed by Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, in August it announced an expansion of its Building Connections scheme which, by linking with small and medium-sized businesses, aimed to train youth workers in six areas of England to identify employment opportunities for young people most in need of support. To help them develop their skills and confidence, the scheme included mentoring opportunities for those facing barriers in the labour market.[22] Working with The Scout Association, NYA and other organisations, UK Youth also set up a ‘shadow review’ to help ensure that young people were consulted on a planned government review of how pupils were being taught and assessed in school,.[23]

In April 2024 Girlguiding responded to evidence that 84 per cent of its members wanted to do something about climate change by launching an environmental strategy. It placed this commitment at the centre of its May 2024 ‘manifesto’ which also included a promise to reduce the organisation’s own carbon emissions by half by 2040.[24] The following month it published statistics showing that it had attracted the highest number of participants in its 68-year history and that young people’s volunteering hours had risen by 33 per cent to more that 4.7 million in the year to March 2024.

Early in 2026, however, it found itself having to take the more controversial and what turned out to be internally polarising decision that, by the following September, transgender girls and young women would have to leave the organisation.[25] Though, it said, its values had not changed, ‘living by our values cannot change our legal responsibilities’. Volunteers across the UK had by then formed a ‘Guiders Against Trans Exclusion’ (GATE) group which was planning protest demonstrations in six counties Sacross the country. Though some individuals made clear their support for the decision, by April some 500 volunteers had signed a collective letter of intent to resign from the organisation.[26]

Like other voluntary youth sector organisations, the Duke of Edinburgh Scheme also reported greater outreach, with its programmes being offered by 159 new secondary schools, 109 centres for young people with additional needs and 58 community organisations.[27]

The wider policy context

These developments were now occurring in a context shaped by the build-up to the election of the Labour government in July 2024 and its subsequent policy initiatives. Particularly significant here was what Labour leader Keir Starmer called his vision of a ‘society of service’ which, based on a partnership between civil society and government, assumed that the voluntary sector would be ‘essential’ to the new government’s plans.[28]

Three months after coming to power – in October 2024 – Labour’s culture secretary Lisa Nandy sought to turn this aspiration into action when she announced the creation of a new Civil Society Covenant. Underpinned by a promise of allocating the sector £54 billion a year, this committed the government to restoring charities to ‘the centre of our national life’.[29] Following work with ‘key partners’, the Prime Minister launched the Covenant in July 2025, with two DCMS ‘Guidance’ papers[30] the setting out in detail its purpose and how it was to operate:

With the aim of becoming ‘a new principles-based foundation for resetting the relationship between the UK Government and civil society’, the Covenant was described as ‘symbolis(ing) the government’s recognition of civil society as a trusted and independent partner in tackling the deep seated challenges of our time’.

A Joint Civil Society Covenant Council with ‘cross-sector membership’ was to be established which would ‘set… direction and provid(e) strategic oversight of (the Covenant’s) implementation’.

Supported by an £11.59 million fund, a Local Covenant Partnership programme was to be created to ‘… support local areas to develop and implement new “local covenant partnership” agreements in 15 local authority district areas across England’. These would ‘… tackle local policy priorities and better meet the needs of communities’.[31]

A specific task for the Partnership programme was to ‘… actively engage young people in the co-production and development of a new National Youth Strategy’[32] – a proposal suggesting perhaps that its funding might over time provide some additional financial support for voluntary youth sector projects.

More broadly, with the aim of putting young people ‘at the heart of policy development’, a Youth Advisory Panel was to be established made up ‘of young people with experience of being out of education, employment and training…’[33]

Albeit with the caution that ‘it mustn’t stall at warm words’, the Covenant was reported to have been welcomed by charity leaders ‘as a positive step forward’.[34] By March 2026 its Civil Society Council had recruited several senior figures from the voluntary children and youth sector including former Chief Executives of UK Youth and the Scouts.[35]

The role of the National Citizens Service

The National Citizens Service (NCS) – given ‘a permanent statutory footing’ in 2017[36] – described itself in its 2024/25 Annual Report[37] as helping to deliver the government’s National Youth Guarantee and as ‘the only dedicated public body for youth’. In the same paper, however, it also talked of itself as an ‘independent trust’ and as an ‘Arms Length Body’. As suggested in my last book[38], what therefore also needs to be explored is whether and, if so, how it operated as a voluntary organisation.

Within a strategy focused on ‘a country of connected, confident, caring citizens where everyone feels at home’, Chief Executive Mark Gifford – a former senior manager at the supermarket Waitrose – talked in 2024 of the Scheme ‘… continu(ing) to transform itself’. As it cut costs by 32 per cent in 2023-24 – from £72.2 mi to £ 50.3 million – in the first year of its delivery of its ‘new offer’ it provided over 178,000 ‘experiences’ for young people and aimed to provide 130,500 more in 2024-25.[39] By July 2025 (that is, by the end of its 2023-2025 strategy) it reported:

It had actually provided young people with 420,000 such ‘experiences’ for.

35 per cent of its participants had come from ‘diverse ethnic backgrounds’.

39 per cent of participants in its ‘Away from Home’ experience had been based in an NCS priority area.

Its online game – ‘co-designed with young people’ – had in just over two months attracted almost a quarter of a million young people.

The detail of this new offer was spelt out in an evaluation report published in February 2026[40]. The programme model had been ‘redesigned’ from ‘a “one size fits all” residential experience to a year-round model with three distinct groups of activities (or “service lines”)’:

‘Shorter residential experiences of two to four nights…’

‘Communityexperiences offering “open to all” activities close to young people’s homes all the year round, and “targeted activities” which scaled up existing interventions for specific groups or locations (e.g. Scouts)’ …

‘Digital experiences…’

As the evaluation report explained:

Through these experiences, NCS aimed to help young people build skills for life and independent living; enhance employability and work-readiness; and provide opportunities for volunteering and social action. All three service lines aimed to facilitate social mixing of young people from all backgrounds, as a key way of building long-term social cohesion.

The Scheme also ‘evolved’ its ‘youth voice practice’ by creating two ‘remunerated positions for young people’[41] who, as ‘critical contributors’ to strategy development, led the discussions of a board of directors appointed by the DCMS.[42] However, contributing to its underpinning neo-liberal aspirations, NCS governance was ‘marketised’ and ‘the funding of expansion was typically experienced as occurring at the expense of the pre-established Youth Service of local authorities and the voluntary sector’. (Emphasis in the original).[43]

In July 2024 Gifford revealed that, after four years in the role, he would be stepping down in the late autumn. By then, the new Labour government had announced anyway that, from the end of the 2024-25 financial year, the Scheme would be ‘winding down’ because, though when it had been set up it had ‘… met the needs of the moment … the world has changed’. Unsurprisingly perhaps, this left those running the organisation ‘sad and disappointed’.[44]

Though the NCS was a comparatively new presence in the youth work field, the other organisations considered in this piece have a history of providing open youth work facilities for young people going back well over a century. And that is before we even take account of, for example, those small one- and two-nights a week church and village youth clubs set up and run locally by volunteers. However, in a period when the crushing effects of austerity cuts are till impacting severely on the charity sector overall, and faced with young people’s increased (and increasing) needs, the evidence suggests that many of these projects are struggling even to survive. Here too, therefore – as I suggested in a previous post on the government’s National Youth Strategy – two questions remain: can the fine words of its Civil Society Covenant be turned into practical action and will the promised funding actually be delivered on the ground?

References

[1] Melanie May, 2024, ‘Two-fifths of charities using reserves and asking funders for more help as need and costs soar’, UK Fundraising, 19 January, https://fundraising.co.uk/2024/01/19/two-fifths-of-charities-using-reserves-asking-funders-for-more-help-as-need-costs-soar/#:~:text=Nearly%20two%2Dthirds%20(61%25),staff%20numbers%20or%20make%20redundancies.

[2] Fiona Simpson, 2024, ‘ Warning over voluntary youth providers’ low funding reserves’, CYPN, 19 September

[3] Patrick Butler,, 2024, ‘Charities warn of “devastating knock-on impact” of English councils’ financial crisis’, Guardian, 3 February

[4] Guardian, 2026, ‘Britain;s charities should not be left struggling to do more with less’, 1 January

[5] Patrick Butler,, 2026, ‘Fewer Britons giving to charity, study says, with donations down by £1.4bn’, Guardian, 16 March

[6] Robin Vinter, 2024, ‘UK charities hiring staff with “privilege not potential”, report author warns’, Guardian, 28 April

[7] Guardian letters, 2026, ‘Under-pressure charities face conflicting demands’, 9 January

[8] Sian Hopkins, 2024, ‘Redthread explores merger with Catch22’, CYPN, 25 July; Catch 22, at https://www.catch-22.org.uk/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20604535855&gbraid=0AAAAADtNCYSbHodwt7tHMoo4o_q2ypCah&gclid=Cj0KCQjwuvrBBhDcARIsAKRrkjdgBswdoTC1jVp6s1OaB7i7kEuGXQ-B7oA9w_KKY4xdvDqAMW0iENAaAiqtEALw_wcB, accessed 3 June 2025

[9] Fiona Simpson, 2024, ‘ Warning over voluntary youth providers’ low funding reserves’, CYPN, 19 September

[10]Fiona Simpson, 2024, ‘British Youth Council announces closure’, CYPN, 22 March; GOV.UK, 2023, ‘UK Youth Parliament Grant awarded to British Youth Council’, 8 March, ‘https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-youth-parliament-grant-awarded-to-the-british-youth-council#:~:text=The%20Department%20for%20Culture%2C%20Media,Parliament%20Grant%20for%202023%2D25; Fiona Simpson, 2024, ‘DCMS refused request to bail out BYC ahead of closure’, CYPN, 5 April  .

[11] Fiona Simpson, 2024, ‘British Youth Council: five factors behind demise of youth voice stalwart’, CYPN, 29 April

[12] Joe Lepper, 2024, ‘Girlguiding rows back on plans to scrap overseas operations’ CYPN, 28 March; Amrit Virdi, 2024, ‘Campaign launched as Girlguiding rejects bids for outdoor centres’, CYPN, 8 July; Joe Lepper, 2025, Campaigners to reopen activity centre within weeks following Girlguiding U-turn’, CYPN, 16 January

[13] Joe Lepper, 2024, ‘Scouts putting “the lives of young people at risk”, warns coroner’, CYPN, 28 February

[14] Joe Lepper, 2024, ‘Scouts appoints new chief executive’, CYPN, 9 October

[15] Sally Weale, 2024, Former girls’ school in London to reopen as pioneering youth hub, Guardian, 8 July; Fiona Simpson, 2024, Oasis to pilot youth hub modelled on Labour’s manifesto pledge’, CYPN, 9 July

[16] Amrit Virdi, 2024, ‘Scouts wins £129,000 DfE contract to boost teacher recruit ment’ CYPN, 11 April

[17] Joe Lepper, 2024, ‘Scouts issues volunteer plea as waiting lists reach record level’ CYPN, 4 July

[18] Hilary Osborne, 2025, ‘Cuba or camping trip? New Scouts bade helps teenagers learn to budget’, Guardian, 7 June

[19] Joe Lepper, 2024, Scouts appoints new chief executive’, CYPN, 9 October

[20] Joe Lepper, 2025, ‘UK Youth launches search for permanent chief executive’ , CYPN, 17 April

[21] UK Youth, 2024, ‘What UK Youth is learning about evaluating youth social action’, https://www.ukyouth.org/2024/05/what-uk-youth-is-learning-about-evaluating-youth-social-action/ 17 May

[22] Amrit Virdi, 2024, ‘Charity expands youth employment pathways programme’, CYPN 7 August

[23] Joe Lepper, 2024, ‘Shadow curriculum review launches to ensure young people’s voices are heard’, CYPN, 20 November

[24] Amrit Virdi, 2024, ‘Girlguiding launches plan to reduce environmental anxieties amng children’ CYPN, 24 April; Amrit Virdi, 2024, ‘”Our ambitions can change society”: Girlguiding’s strategy director on organisation’s future vision’, CYPN, 22 May

[25] Jessica Murray, 2026, ‘Guiding gives trans girls and women until September to leave the UK organisation’, 24 March

[26] Jessica Murray, 2026, ‘“Deeply distressing for all of us”: families react to Girlguiding’s trans exclusion’, Guardian, 6 April

[27] Amrit Virdi, 2024, ‘Duke of Edinburgh’s Award sees highest ever participation level’, CYPN, 13 May

[28] Andy Ricketts, 2024, ‘Voluntary sector “essential” to Labour’s plans for renewal, Starmer tells charity leaders’, Third Sector, 22 January, https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/voluntary-sector-essential-labours-plans-renewal-starmer-tells-charity-leaders/policy-and-politics/article/1858363

[29] UK Fundraising, 2024 Melanie May, 2024, ‘CSOs urged to get involved in shaping new Civil Society Covenant’ , UKFundraising, 17 October, https://fundraising.co.uk/2024/10/17/csos-urged-to-get-involved-in-shaping-new-civil-society-covenant/#:~:text=CSOs%20urged%20to%20get%20involved%20in%20shaping%20new%20Civil%20Society%20Covenant,-Melanie%20May%20%7C%2017&text=A%20new%20Civil%20Society%20Covenant,get%20involved%20in%20shaping%20it.; Robert Booth, 2024, Lisa Nandy announces plan to restore charities to “centre of national life”’, Guardian, 18 October

[30] GOV.UK, 2025, ‘Civil Society Covenant: programme’,17 July, https://www.gov.uk/guidance/civil-society-covenant-programme; GOV.UK, 2025, ‘Civil Society Covenant’, updated 24  July, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-society-covenant/civil-society-covenant

[31] DCMS Youth Team, 2026, ‘DCMS Youth Newsletter’, March, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-local-covenant-partnerships-fund/local-covenant-partnerships-fund-competition-guidance

[32] See my January 2026 blog piece at https://chilypep.org.uk/meet-the-team/bernard-davies/open-youth-work-matters-blog/

[33] GOV.UK, 2025, ‘Civil Society Covenant’, updated 24  July, op cit

[34] Civil Society, 2025, ‘Covenant welcomed by charity leaders who warn it “mustn’t stall in warm words”‘, 17 July, https://www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/covenant-welcomed-by-charity-leaders-who-warn-it-mustnt-stall-at-warm-words.html

[35] Derren Hayes, 2026, ‘Children’s sector leaders join Starmer’s new Civil Society Council’, CYPN, 11 March

[36] Ged Turner, 2024, ‘Dominant and envisioned logics of governance: A case comparison of youth services policy in England and Wales’ Youth and Policy, 12 July

[37] DCMS, 2025, NCS Trust Annual Report 2024/25, 10 July https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-citizen-service-trust-annual-report-and-accounts-2024-to-2025

[38] Youth Work Policies in England 2019-2023, Palgrave MacMillan, published 2024, p 94.

[39] Fiona Simpson, 2024, ‘NCS cut costs by 32% through year-round offer, business plan reveals’, CYPN, 31 May

[40] GOV.UK, 2026, ‘Evaluation of the National Citizens Service 2023-2-25’, DCMS, 13 February

[41] Ged Turner, 2024, ‘Dominant and envisioned logics of governance: A case comparison of youth services policy in England and Wales’ Youth and Policy, 12 July

[42] GOV.UK, 2024, Annual Business Plan 2024/25, NCS, May 2024 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/665069c7c86b0c383ef64f72/NCS_Trust_Annual_Business_Plan_WEB.pdf; Fiona Simpson, 2024, 31 May, op cit

[43] See Ged Turner, 2024, 12 July, op cit

[44] Fiona Simpson, 2024, ‘NCS leaders “disappointed” by government decision to close programme’, CYPN, 13 November