No official statistical series or open dataset on youth participation and provision

No regular official measure of youth civic participation exists; the Community Life Survey covers adults 16 and over in England with small youth samples, and no national register of youth provision exists either. The sector relies on YMCA's reconstruction of council section 251 returns, ad hoc NYA audits, and the one-off State of the Nation report that accompanied the National Youth Strategy. Government could not say, when planning Young Futures Hubs, where existing provision actually was. Academic evidence rests on charity-funded polls with no guaranteed continuation.

The strategy's 2035 targets, half a million more young people with a trusted adult and a halved participation gap, currently have no official baseline instrument. Every funding debate re-litigates contested numbers instead.

An ONS and DCMS annual youth participation and provision statistical series including 11 to 15-year-olds, and an open, machine-readable national youth-provision dataset maintained as part of strategy delivery. The commission is cheap and high-leverage.

// Build together: Counterparty: ONS/DCMS commission; council provision data FOI-able for a shadow dataset meanwhile.

No official baseline exists for the strategy's 2035 targets and the sector relies on charity polls; an ONS commission is cheap, high-leverage and unowned.