Uniformed youth charities, including the Scouts, St John Ambulance and Girlguiding are being invited to bid for £1.5m in government funding to improve their reach in deprived areas.

The Uniformed Youth New Groups Fund has been launched by the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to help uniformed youth groups set up new groups and units in deprived areas.

Charities and organisations recognised by membership body Youth United Network are being invited to bid for grants through the fund.

This includes the Boys’ Brigade, Fire Cadets, Girls’ Brigade, Girlguiding, Jewish Lads’ and Girls’ Brigade, St John Ambulance, Sea Cadets, the Scouts Association and Volunteer Police Cadets.

But Network members Army Cadets and Air Cadets are excluded.

The funding will be for resource funding only and to be used within the current financial year. The deadline for applications is September 25, 2022.

The Fund is looking to target areas of disadvantage not currently served by uniformed youth groups and aims to create 2,200 new places for young people aged between 10 and 18. A minimum of three quarters of new places must be reserved for those in disadvantaged areas.

Another focus is on helping young people develop skills and improve their wellbeing.

Grants must not exceed 50% of each applicant’s annual income. No maximum or minimum value of the grants has been set.

A tenth of the funding is being made available to support organisations to boost their internal capacity to run groups long term.

The fund opens for applications today (September 8) and workshops will take place for applications throughout September.

Successful applications will be notified at the beginning of October.

The government has pledged a total of £22m in funding for uniformed youth groups to create 24,000 more places and recruit more volunteers. The promise was made in its Levelling Up White Paper earlier this year.

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