Leicester Children and Young People’s Needs Assessment

May 2011

Background

The Leicester children and young people’s needs assessment has been done on behalf of the city’s Children’s Trust, a partnership of many public, voluntary and community sector organisations.  The purpose is to help key decision makers to understand what life is like for children and young people so that they can agree about if, and what aspects of life should be and can be improved.  This agreement about the priorities for the city will help partners decide how to use their resources during 2011-2014.

There are around 79,000 0-19 year-olds in Leicester.  It is not possible to say what life is like for each of them.  The Children’s Trust therefore agreed to use statistical information that was already collected by central government from many of the partner organisations.  This includes information about children and young people’s safety, health, welfare, and educational achievement.  The assessment brings it all together, and explains it, in one place for the first time.

There is no ‘line on a chart’ that can tell if life, overall, is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in the city.  The Children’s Trust therefore agreed to look at Leicester compared to England averages and other similar places, and to look at the differences between groups of children and young people within the city.  This means that, on a range of measures, the assessment shows the ‘gap’ between children and young people in Leicester and others in England, and some ‘gaps’ within the city.

It therefore gives key decision makers ‘the big picture’, and an insight into what the picture is like depending on where children and young people live in the city and/or if they come from any groups where we already know from research that they face disadvantage.

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