What councils spend on young people, and where the YMCAs are
The census counted every young person in England and Wales, place by place. Councils in England tell the Department for Education each year what they spend on services for young people. YMCA England & Wales publishes where its YMCAs are. This puts the three side by side.
This is a map, not a service, and nobody here can arrange a place or a referral. If you have nowhere safe to stay tonight, contact your local council: its housing team, or children’s services if you are under 18. The YMCAs under Find a YMCA are where many young people start.
4,812,590young people aged 13 to 19 in England and Wales
Counted by the 2021 census. 13 to 19 is the age range the statutory duty on councils to provide youth services covers.
£374.0mspent by councils in England on services for young people, 2024-25
Net spending, as councils reported it to the Department for Education.
-39.7%real-terms change since 2015-16
Down from £619.7m in 2015-16, at 2024-25 prices.
104 of 174areas where a YMCA shows
Counties and unitary authorities where a YMCA gives an address, or a YMCA charity records working there.
What councils in England spend on young people
Net spending on services for young people, each year the Department for Education’s current figures cover. The second column restates every year in 2024-25 prices, by the Treasury’s GDP deflator, so the years can be compared.
| Year | Cash | In 2024-25 prices |
|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | £462.2m | £619.7m |
| 2016-17 | £387.6m | £509.5m |
| 2017-18 | £352.4m | £457.4m |
| 2018-19 | £335.1m | £425.3m |
| 2019-20 | £310.3m | £383.8m |
| 2020-21 | £323.4m | £380.0m |
| 2021-22 | £341.0m | £399.7m |
| 2022-23 | £368.0m | £403.1m |
| 2023-24 | £394.3m | £410.3m |
| 2024-25 | £374.0m | £374.0m |
Over those years, spending fell from £619.7m to £374.0m in 2024-25 prices: -39.7%. Of the 146 councils whose boundaries allow a like-for-like comparison, 113 spent less in real terms in 2024-25 than in 2015-16.
Most of the fall is in open-access services. Universal services for young people — the ones any young person can walk into — went from £317.4m to £151.1m (-52.4%). Targeted services, for young people already known to services, went from £302.3m to £222.9m (-26.3%). Both in 2024-25 prices.
The latest year is a fall: from £410.3m in 2023-24 to £374.0m in 2024-25, in 2024-25 prices.
YMCA’s own analysis, Beyond the Brink (2025), puts the real-terms fall in council spending on youth services since 2010-11 at over £1.2 billion, and YMCA publishes its own council-by-council map of it. The Department for Education’s current figures begin in 2015-16, so they test the years since then and say nothing about the five before. Councils also file the same youth work under different headings, so one council’s figure can move because the work moved; the totals for England are steadier than any single council.
The need map, place by place
The need map sets young people, councils’ spending on services for them and young people owed a homelessness duty beside YMCAs, OnSide’s Youth Zones and the charities whose own reports say they run youth work, with a one-page briefing for each of its 174 county and unitary areas and 4 pages, one per need a young person brings. What the reports add sets out who else runs the work and who pays for it. The evidence gap map sets out what public records cannot show: demand, unmet need, extent and impact.
Where the YMCAs are
England’s counties and unitary authorities, split into five equal groups by the published measure of deprivation — the share of each area’s neighbourhoods in the most deprived tenth nationally.
| Deprivation | Areas | A YMCA shows | Council spending per young person, 2024-25 | Real-terms change since 2015-16 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Least deprived fifth | 30 | 13 of 30 | £89 | -41.2% |
| Second | 30 | 19 of 30 | £66 | -39.2% |
| Middle | 31 | 21 of 31 | £91 | -19.5% |
| Fourth | 30 | 22 of 30 | £78 | -48.0% |
| Most deprived fifth | 31 | 23 of 31 | £88 | -39.1% |
YMCAs show more often where deprivation is highest. One is present in 23 of the 31 most deprived areas and 13 of the 30 least deprived. That is a finding about where YMCAs are, not about how much any young person gets.
See the areas where no YMCA shows, and what that does not mean →
The YMCAs themselves
YMCA England & Wales lists 77 locations. 74 belong to a charity on the register for England and Wales. The typical one — the median — reported income of £2,010,250 in its latest accounts: the whole charity’s income, including gyms, housing and everything else it runs.
What this is for
Two readers, and they want different things.
- A young person, or a parent. The YMCA list is searchable here by the question they arrive with — I need somewhere to live, I want somewhere to go — rather than by a postcode.
- Somebody arguing about youth services. There is a public argument about what has happened to youth services. This is the spending councils report, set beside the only complete count of young people there is, council by council.
This was built without asking you, from information you and others already publish, to show what is possible rather than to speak for you. If you would rather it came down, say so and it comes down, and you do not have to give a reason. If you would rather it were built properly — with your own figures for the young people each YMCA works with — that is the more interesting conversation.