Agenda item

Youth Council representatives have been invited to the meeting, to include a report on the Make Your Mark ballot results.

The Committee received a presentation from Youth Council representatives advising of the results of the most recent Make Your Mark ballot.  Every year the United Kingdom Youth Parliament holds a UK-wide ballot where all young people aged 11–18 years can vote on what they feel is important in their lives and what they think Members of the Youth Parliament should campaign on for in the year ahead. Oldham Youth Council co-ordinates the vote across the Oldham Borough.  Due to Covid the 2021 ballot had been delayed until February 2022 meaning there was no Make Your Mark ballot in 2021. Participation in the ballot for national issues was a 42% turnout, with the local issues ballot being 41.8% turnout, the reduced turnout resulting from a small number of votes cast via the national Youth Parliament website which did not include local options.  It was noted that turnout was higher than the average ward turnout at the recent local elections.

The ballot identified seven National Topics and, following consultation with local young people and discussion at the Oldham Youth Council on these topics and others raised locally, a list of ten Local Topics for consideration were determined. 

From the identified national and local issues, specific attention was drawn to Oldham’s top three National issues of –

1. Jobs, Money, Homes and Opportunities(for example, more training and apprenticeships, ending homelessness);
2. Poverty (for example, ending child poverty); and
3. Education and Learning (for example, improved climate education, free university, better mental health education)

and to the top three Local issues of

1. Tackle racism and xenophobiaby celebrating diversity and educating Oldham residents;
2. Tackle street harassment, including sexual harassment on the streets and public transport; and
3. Cheaper and Safer public transport.

The Youth Council’s Make Your Mark report had made recommendations, with campaigns having started on some issues while looking to take Motions to full Council on others.  It was noted that ballot results were interesting as for the first time Oldham’s results differed from rest of the UK.  While the UK voted Health and Wellbeing as top, Oldham chose Jobs, Money and Opportunities, Poverty, and Education and Learning as more important.  In response, the Youth Council was recommending that organisations providing opportunities for young people’s futures should look at how they inform young people of what they do.  Opportunities around jobs and training had been at the top of the Make Your Mark issues since 2020, the past two campaigns also showing concerns around money, including paying for university, access to training and jobs and the wider aspects of poverty. There was considered to be several potential reasons for this, including a lack of awareness of what support is out there and media stories around the rise in the cost of living. The Youth Council was looking at running some research to dive deeper into why young people chose these issues and indicated that they would like to continue working with the Committee to investigate these issues for 2022. 

The Committee asked Youth Council representatives for views as to why the national and local priorities had varied on this occasion.  It was suggested that the level of deprivation in Oldham, linked to reductions in funding and difficulties in finding jobs may have contributed to this.  Members noted that the Council needed to work with young people to better understand why they felt these were the most important issues, the Council needing to react to the concerns and put things in place.  It was also noted that issues raised during the recent local elections included concerns about, for example, potholes, which while of concern to older residents did not appear to be a priority concern for younger people.

The Chair noted a need to identify a best way forward on each issue, for example those which might be pursued through a motion to Council or, alternatively those which needed a deeper dive, possibly via a workshop session.  The Committee was advised that racism and xenophobia had been determined as an issue for submission to the next Council meeting, while Youth Council representatives were looking to more specific detail on why Jobs, Money and Opportunities issue was selected locally.

RESOLVED – that the Chair hold further discussions with the Youth Council and Officers to identify how best to progress consideration of the identified priority topics.