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4.1 Program Costs

Budgetary costs

YSC is an important component of the full range of youth programming provided by the federal government. To provide a perspective on the relative scale of YSC that relates to the time period covered by this evaluation, Table 4.1 shows the number of participants, program expenditures (including departmental overheads) and average costs per participant for YSC, Youth Internship Canada (another HRDC youth program) and all youth initiatives combined. These data are aggregated and cover the time period from the beginning of fiscal year 1994-95 to the end of fiscal year 1996-97.

The data in Table 4.1 provide a useful perspective on YSC. While YSC accounts for approximately 12% of total HRDC departmental expenditures on youth programs, it accounts for only 4.4% of participants. This implies a per participant cost for YSC that is almost three times the average for all youth programming. This is not a surprising result, given the nature of the HRDC programs with which YSC is being compared. More than half of HRDC’s expenditure on youth programming is for summer programs, which last about twelve weeks and account for approximately 70% of participants. In comparison, most YSC projects had a duration of approximately 30 weeks. Youth Internship Canada, which also reports relatively high average costs per participant, typically involves projects similar in length to those of YSC. In considering average costs per participant, it is also important to note that both Youth Internship Canada and HRDC summer programs typically involve some wage payments to participants by private sector sponsors.

Costs to sponsors and others

Sponsoring organizations offer in-kind help to the projects, in the form of administrative support, space and the like. When asked in the survey, 96% of sponsors and coordinators said that assistance was given; almost 30% indicated financial assistance, and nearly everyone mentioned in-kind help.

Some projects received much support from other community organizations and some private sector sources. No YSC projects received any significant assistance from other levels of government. The resulting mean for sponsor contributions was estimated to be $795 per participant.

4.2 Suggestions for Change

To complement the analysis of YSC’s effectiveness in achieving program objectives, the report concludes with suggestions from youth participants, HRDC staff, sponsors and coordinators and representatives of non-participating youth organizations for improvements to YSC.

Youth participants’ views

There is no single burning issue that needs to be addressed, according to youth participants.

Participants were asked fairly early in the survey — before any references were made to project remuneration or other related matters — “if you could identify one thing to improve Youth Service Canada to make it better able to help young persons, what would that be?” A quarter of participants either could not answer or said there was nothing they could suggest to improve YSC. Moreover, among those responding with suggestions, no clear issue emerges.

When a variety of specific answers to the open-ended question are grouped together, the following areas for improvement were mentioned by at least 10% of participants:

• Miscellaneous general program suggestions such as better planning and clearer project definition (19%);
• Improving coordinator/leadership (13%);
• Improving compensation (13%); and
• Improving content (12%).

Further evidence that there is no focus of reforms that need to be addressed from the youth perspective is the fact that the items mentioned for improvement are broadly distributed across participants: no significant response pattern was associated with region, gender or age of participants.

HRDC staff’s views

Regional and local HRDC respondents stressed how much happier they are now with YSC since the more flexible terms and conditions were introduced. However, there were a number of suggestions for change.

Several local project officers mentioned the “under-resourcing” of the Youth Employment Initiative. The government, it was said, has made a substantial public commitment to the Youth Employment Initiative that has not been matched in terms of staffing resources at the local level. Devolution of functions to the provinces and reorganization of the federal role has meant that some staff responsible for YSC are able to devote only a tiny fraction of their time to YSC. In other cases, they have acquired YSC responsibilities as a result of a redefinition of job responsibilities that they are not fully equipped to handle.

Several NHQ respondents saw the need to better promote YSC, raise awareness about the program, and give it more visibility — so that people get to recognize the name YSC and associate this name with the concept of community service and youth development. Points of access to the program also need to be improved.¹⁰

A few further themes relating to change were mentioned by respondents:

• Workshops at the national level for YSC project coordinators should continue. It is good to bring people together to talk about what they are doing and to bring them up-to- date on other projects. (Although one respondent welcomed the shift to the regional level, workshops were not being offered at the regional level in other areas.) It was suggested that materials prepared for the workshops should be provided to the regions and HRCCs.
• Regions should be involved in the actual development of policy, not as commentators on initiatives prepared at the national level.
• Let the Region decide on projects over $150,000; otherwise there are delays in approvals.
• Provide for even more flexibility in the allowable administrative costs.
• Track the results of the emphasis on projects for high-risk youth; as these projects will require more from coordinators.

Sponsors’ views

When asked in the fax survey what changes, if any, sponsors and coordinators would like to see to improve the operation of their YSC project, many respondents said “more time!” — in the sense of both longer projects and more time for preparation. More funding and more training for coordinator assistance from HRDC were the other higher ranking concerns. Two aspects of the funding issue were the ceiling on overhead expenses and the stipends for youth participants. Several respondents also mentioned the problem of the earnings of participants being non-insurable.

Some HRCC officers appear to give quite rigid direction to sponsors. For example, one respondent in a focus group was told that the sponsor could not combine streams once the project had started; others reported that such flexibility had been allowed. Another was told that new projects should not contain an educational or training component. Uncertainty about the new rules and a feeling of being discouraged to submit a new proposal led some focus group sponsors to wonder if they could get official, written guidelines about YSC.

Participating organizations also brought up the need for additional funding, but more in the context of projects that deal with high-risk youth. HRDC must recognize that projects for high-risk youth are necessarily more costly in terms of administrative requirements. As one respondent noted, “It doesn’t work if you don’t recognize the differences in the target groups.”

Other significant suggestions were the following:

• Clarify the rules with respect to what is expected of HRCC (i.e., support to projects and frequency of visitations). Greater consistency among HRCCs, at least in the same province or area, should be required. More interaction with HRCCs staff would be appreciated.
• Many thought that some form of follow-up with participants is needed. Funding might allow for a project reunion as part of “meaningful post-project contact to find out where the kids are.” An idea was to set up a placement office that would promote YSC youth.
• Allow a three-year commitment of funds by YSC in order to have a much better impact on the community. There should be time to put down the roots of structures in the community so that the projects have a good chance of continuing.
• Arrange with provincial social assistance to allow women with children and special needs groups to continue to get needed services.
• Give priority to repeat project applications, on the grounds that these organizations have learned how to do the project and will likely do better a second time.

Views of non-participating youth organizations

“Don’t keep doing something new.” “Be more responsive to what people are already doing.” “Support youth organizations with core funding — but insist as a condition that they cooperate with each other.” This was the main advice to HRDC from several youth organizations not currently involved in YSC.

Focus group participants were pleased to learn that local HRDC officers have been given more discretion and assumed that “they will be able to identify the existing groups better.” But they suggested that they should not be afraid to share information on YSC projects: “we’re all serving the same clientele.”

4.3 Conclusions

YSC is seen by everyone consulted as a good model of a youth employment program. Compared with short-term, summer employment programs, it has relatively high costs per participant. This evaluation found objective evidence of positive non-economic impacts of YSC participation, particularly with respect to returning to school.

Many of the suggestions for change to YSC can be accommodated without increasing costs, as some would likely come naturally from repeated funding of successful projects. However, the interest of HRDC staff in countering the under-resourcing they identify as a problem, the request for nationally-sponsored workshops and, especially, the higher costs for project sponsors associated with an increased focus on high-risk youth all imply higher project and program costs.

The solution is not necessarily to shift more costs (in-kind and financial) to community organizations. The resources, voluntary and otherwise, used in YSC projects are not available for helping youth in other ways. Essentially, it is a question of the cost-effectiveness of one means of using resources relative to another. In any case, the needs of youth for assistance in making the transition to the labour market will remain with us for some time.

Footnotes

10

Currently, information about the program states that any youth interested in participating in a YSC project should contact the local HRCC office. However, there is nothing available around the start dates of projects — i.e., an interested youth can call an HRCC office only to learn there are no YSC projects underway. Promotional efforts should be coordinated with the start of YSC projects.