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Sajid Javid yesterday launched the bidding process to choose an organisation or consortium that will run the £200 million youth endowment fund.

Announced in October as part of the government’s long-term plan to tackle serious violence, the fund will provide a 10 year investment to support interventions steering young people away from becoming involved in violent crime or reoffending.

It will also build the evidence base for the most effective interventions for tackling serious violence.

Launching the bidding process to run the youth endowment fund, Home Secretary Sajid Javid yesterday said:

The youth endowment fund will significantly strengthen our response to serious violence and support action we are already taking, such as the Offensive Weapons Bill and National County Lines Coordination Centre.

I want it up and running and saving lives as soon as possible, and look forward to receiving the proposals to run this substantial investment

The youth endowment fund will be run by an independent organisation or body, similar to the Education Endowment Foundation. It will invest £200 million and use the proceeds to fund projects designed to guide vulnerable young people away from violent crime, and develop and share new knowledge of the approaches that are most successful.

The successful bidder will need to demonstrate its ability to:

• use sector knowledge and available evidence to identify the best projects to fund
• ensure robust evaluation of the projects, using this evaluation to build a body of evidence on what works in stopping children and young people from becoming involved in crime and violence
• share this evidence and best practice in order that it might inform policy making, academic research and the local commissioning of services
• seek to grow the value of the fund through attracting further contributions
• administer and manage the fund as a long-term investment from April 2019

Prospective bidders to run the fund will need to submit their proposals by 23 January. Full details on the application process are available on the call for proposals webpage.

The youth endowment fund is one of three innovative new measures announced by the Home Secretary in October which also includes a new legal duty to underpin a ‘public health’ approach to tackling serious violence, for which a consultation is due to be launched shortly, and an independent review of drug misuse to ensure law enforcement agencies and policy teams are targeting and preventing the drug-related causes of violent crime effectively.

The government also continues to deliver the 61 commitments outlined in the Serious Violence Strategy, including seeing the Offensive Weapons Bill to restrict access to dangerous weapons through Parliament, delivering the £17 million Early Intervention Youth Fund, a new £3.6 million National County Lines Co-ordination Centre to disrupt violent drug gangs and a £1.4 million social media hub to identify and take down online material inciting violence which will open early 2019.

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