Agenda item

Youth Council

(time limit 20 minutes)

 

Make Your Mark

Make Your Mark is a UK wide consultation on issues important to young people aged 11 – 18. This ballot goes out to all high schools in Oldham, so that pupils can vote on what they feel is important in their lives and what they think Members of the Youth Parliament should campaign on for the year ahead. For the last 7 years the Youth Council has co-ordinated the consultation for Oldham. 

 

Due to the devolved nature of politics and services such as the NHS and Policing, this year the consultation changed and young people were given 3 different categories with 5 issues within each category to vote upon. The 3 categories were:

       UK wide issues

       Devolved issues

       Local issues. 

 

The issues for UK wide and devolved categories were debated and chosen by the UK Youth Parliament and the local issues were debated and chosen by the Oldham Youth Council. Young people taking part in the consultation had the opportunity to vote for 1 issue from each category.

 

This year approximately 11,500 young people across Oldham were involved in the consultation which represents over 45% of Oldham’s 11-18 population.

 

Of the 5 issues in the UK wide issues category, unsurprisingly, ‘Protect the Environment’ was the top UK wide issue for Oldham’s Young People, with 4,515 votes. This represented nearly 40% of all votes cast and was over double the number of votes cast on any other issue.  There was a similar result in the Devolved issues category with ‘Put an end to Knife Crime’ gaining 4,199 votes (36.7% of votes cast) again nearly double the votes cast any other issue.

 

The local issues category results had a clear winner, public transport was the top issue with 3,855 (34.8% of the votes cast).

 

The Youth Council have drafted a report, with a full breakdown of the Make Your Mark results both locally and nationally, that elected Members should have received. The report also breaks down the results by school which will allow Members to see how young people in your ward voted.

 

The results of the consultation have enabled the Youth Council to prioritise our work on environment, knife crime and youth violence and looking at public transport. We had already started work on environmental issues through a programme named Pioneers of Sustainable Hope (or POSH). A charter of young people’s environmental rights has been developed (that is out for consultation), are creating resources to help young people be more environmentally friendly - which will be handed out at our Eco festival (as part of our youth summit) and we have joined your cross-party climate change group.

 

Knife crime will also be one of the topics that we look at during our youth summit in February 2019. We are also researching how other areas of the UK, such as Glasgow and Brixton, have tackled youth violence through the public health model and hope to visit some places to see what could work here in Oldham.

 

We feel public transport will be a difficult issue to tackle as we are not sure how much influence we can have over private companies. However, we plan to consult young people to see if it is the cost, safety concerns, reliability or a combination of all 3 that needs to be addressed.

 

While we have already started the hard work on addressing these issues, we realise our influence on decision makers and those responsible for making a difference may be limited, therefore we ask that Full Council resolve to:

1.          Note the results of the Make Your Mark consultation.

2.          Hold a task and finish group with the relevant Cabinet members to explore what is being done in Oldham to address these issues.

 

Minutes:

The Youth Council PROPOSED the following MOTION:

 

Make Your Mark

“Make Your Mark is a UK wide consultation on issues important to young people aged 11 – 18.  This ballot goes out to all high schools in Oldham, so that pupils can vote on what they feel is important in their lives and what they think Members of the Youth Parliament should campaign on for the year ahead.  For the last 7 years the Youth Council has co-ordinated the consultation for Oldham.

Due to the devolved nature of politics and services such as the NHS and Policing, this year the consultation changed and young people were given 3 different categories with 5 issues within each category to vote upon.  The 3 categories with 5 issues within each category to vote upon.  The 3 categories were:

·       UK wide issues

·       Devolved issues

·       Local issues.

The issues for UK wide and devolved categories were debated and chosen by the UK Youth Parliament and the local issues were debated and chosen by the Oldham Youth Council.  Young people taking part in the consultation had the opportunity to vote for 1 issue from each category.

This year approximately 11,500 young people across Oldham were involved in the consultation which represents over 45% of Oldham’s 11 – 18 population.

Of the 5 issues in the UK wide issues category, unsurprisingly, ‘Protect the Environment’ was the top UK wide issue for Oldham’s Young People, with 4,515 votes.  This represented nearly 40% of all votes cast and was over double the number of votes cast on any other issue.  There was a similar in the Devolved issues category with ‘Put an end to Knife Crime’ gaining 4,199 votes (36.7% of votes cast) again nearly double the votes cast any other issue.

The local issues category results had a clear winner, public transport was the top issue with 3,855 (34.8% of the votes cast).

The Youth Council have drafted a report, with a full breakdown of the Make Your Mark results both locally and nationally, that elected Members should have received.  The report also breaks down the results by school which will allow Members to see how young people in your ward voted.

The results of the consultation have enabled the Youth Council to prioritise our work on environment, knife crime and youth violence and looking at public transport.  We had already started work on environmental issues through a programme named Pioneers of Sustainable Hope (or POSH).  A charter of young people’s environmental rights has been developed (that is out for consultation), are creating resources to help young people be more environmentally friendly – which will be handed out at our Eco festival (as part of our youth summit) and we have joined your cross-party climate change group.

Knife crime will also be one of the topics that we look at during our youth summit in February 2019.  We are also researching how other areas of the UK, such as Glasgow and Brixton, have tackled youth violence through the public health model and hope to visit some places to see what could work here in Oldham.

We feel public transport will be a difficult issue to tackle as we are not sure how much influence we can have over private companies.  However, we plan to consult young people to see if it is the cost, safety concerns, reliability or a combination of all 3 that needs to be addressed.

While we have already started the hard work on addressing these issues, we realise our influence on decision makers and those responsible for making a difference may be limited, therefore we ask that Full Council resolved to:

1.       Note the results of the Make Your Mark consultation.

2.       Hold a task and finish group with relevant Cabinet members to explore what is being in Oldham to address these issues.”

 

Councillor Chadderton MOVED and Councillor Williamson SECONDED the RESOLUTIONS as outlined in the Motion presented by the Youth Council.

 

Councillor Chadderton asked that the Make Your Mark outcomes be addressed at the Corporate Parenting Panel.

Councillor Williamson requested feedback be provided on the issues.

 

Councillor Shah spoke in support of the Youth Council Motion.

 

On being put to the vote, the MOTION was CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY.

 

RESOLVED that:

1.       The results of the Make Your Mark Consultation be noted.

2.       A task and finish group with relevant Cabinet Members be held to explore what was being done in Oldham to address these issues.

 

NOTE:  Councillor S. Bashforth entered the meeting during this item.