£100,000 grant approved for city’s youth hub
A grant of more than £100,000 has been approved to continue funding Wolverhampton’s Youth Employment Hub in the city centre, which works to support people aged 16-24 into employment and training opportunities.
The grant agreement with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will enable the facility – based at The Way Youth Zone in School Street – to continue helping even more youngsters over the next 12 months.
Cabinet resources bosses approved the decision at a meeting last night after hearing the proposal from Councillor Chris Burden, member for education, skills and work.
Councillor Burden said: “This report is seeking approval for us to accept more funding from the DWP to fund the Youth Hub. That is asking for us to accept a grant of £100,000 and 60 pounds to fund the hub, which is currently in The Way in the city centre. What we are going to use that money for is to cover the costs of a co-ordinator and a customer services officer for another 12 months.
“This is so we can fund activities and expenses for such things as jobs fairs, marketing and branding for all these projects. Effectively, I’m asking cabinet to give me permission to accept a grant from the DWP. We have to do that because this is a grant paid in arrears on the subject that we achieve the things that are asked of us.
“I’m confident we can do it because the Youth Hub that we have got already has been operating at The Way since October 2021, and since then we’ve registered 581 young people for support in the hub and 33 per cent of those have gone on to gain employment.
“For context, the DWP had only asked us to approach 300 young people and only set us a target of 20 per cent into employment. So we’ve not just smashed the target of the amount of young people we had to see, but also the amount that we had to get into work as well,” he added.
“The DWP have commended the work that we have done at The Way, but they have increased some of the requirements we need. So it’s got to be 500 young people and 30 per cent of them into work. We achieved it last time when we weren’t even aiming for it, so I’m confident we’ll be able to do it this time.
“We want this to stay at the Youth Hub at The Way because it’s working really well. These are trusted people in a trusted place. Over the next 12 months we would like to develop even further and bring in new partners to support young people with careers advice,” said Councillor Burden.
The proposal was seconded by council leader Councillor Ian Brookfield and all members voted in favour of accepting the grant.
