Youth Music has announced changes to its funding model and organisational structure.The leading UK charity also confirmed that its £10 million National Lottery funding is in place for the next two years, until March 31st 2013.
“In a time of austerity and within a context of widespread cuts elsewhere in the sector, with many excellent organisations losing funding or suffering cuts, we take especially seriously our responsibility to use this money effectively,” Youth Music explained in a statement on its website.
“We have undertaken a major review of our approach to distributing funds, with the ultimate aim of giving more children and young people access to high quality music provision.”
Through becoming an increasingly cost-effective and efficient grant-maker, Youth Music said it will ensure that an increased level of funding is made available to organisations.
The Lottery distributor revealed that it is obliged to keep grant-making administration costs below five per cent. It must also restrict the amount it spends on non-grant costs to within eight per cent. To this aim, Youth Music has been cutting costs across all departments over the past year.
Furthermore, Youth Music explained that its delegated Lottery allocation of £10 million per annum is now worth £7.15 million in real terms compared to 1999, because it has not received an up-rating to reflect inflation.
“We therefore need to be increasingly innovative to achieve maximum benefit for children and young people.”
Although it is changing how it works, Youth Music insisted that its vision remains unaffected.
“We believe in the power of music to enable all children and young people to express themselves, learn and develop – a vision that is shared with many in the music education sector. It is this belief that will remain at the core of our future work.”