The Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee are scheduled to discuss Manchester's progress towards becoming a UNICEF UK Child Friendly City, receive an update on the Youth Investment Fund, and review the Fostering Annual Report 2024-2025. The committee will also review the overview report, which includes the recommendations monitor, relevant key decisions, the committee's work programme and any items for information.

Manchester: A Child Friendly City

The committee will be presented with a report on Manchester's ongoing efforts to be recognised as a UNICEF UK Child Friendly City. The report states that Manchester is making very strong progress in embedding child rights and that UNICEF UK representatives have noted a deepened sense of ownership from senior leaders and staff.

The report notes that a review meeting took place in June 2025, where UNICEF UK representatives considered documentation and engaged with councillors, senior leaders, frontline staff, partners, and young people, including children from Heald Place Primary School and area youth forums.

The report recommends that the committee:

Consider and comment on the progress and areas for development to ensure Manchester remain on track to be recognised by UNICEF UK as a Child Friendly City.

The report also includes a progress note from UNICEF UK, which summarises the review meeting and highlights successes and areas for development. The progress note makes several recommendations, including:

• Developing a systemic approach to understanding which cohorts of children and young people have rights at risk.
• Continuing to focus on developing leadership of children and young people.
• Developing more of a focus on understanding how children and young people feel about engagement and opportunities to shape direction.
• Recalibrating the Healthy and Place badges in the action plan to ensure the evidence at the next progress review supports work in delivery.
• Ensuring that a narrative of successful work in upholding child rights still leaves space to engage with approaches that have not been successful, dissenting voices and difficult questions.

The report also notes that nearly 1,000 staff from Manchester City Council and partner organisations have been trained in child rights.

Youth Investment Fund Update

The committee will receive an update on the development of six new youth centres across the city, funded through the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) Youth Investment Fund (YIF).

The report states that planning permission has been approved for five of the six sites, with the remaining site awaiting approval. Construction is planned to commence between October 2025 and February 2026, with the facilities expected to be operational by 1 April 2026.

The six youth centres are located at:

• Crumpsall Park (replacing the current visitors centre)
• Newton Heath (an addition to the Stirling Centre)
• Chorlton (new facility on the Fields of Os)
• Old Moat (replacing derelict buildings at the Depot site)
• Burnage (replacing the existing Catalyst centre)
• Wythenshawe Park (replacing portacabins near the main car park)

The report notes that the council will transfer the new facilities to VCSE¹ youth providers under long-term leasing arrangements. The VCSE lead organisations for each facility are:

• Crumpsall Park: Rainbow Surprise
• Newton Heath: 4CT Limited
• Chorlton: Unity Arts
• Old Moat: Old Moat Youth Outreach Project
• Burnage: N-Gage
• Wythenshawe Park: NACRO

The report also states that the new buildings will be significantly much more fit for purpose, have greatly reduced energy costs and attract and engage more young people.

The report recommends that the committee:

• Consider and comment on the contents of the report and the investment in new and existing youth provision in the City.
• Support the Council led project to provide six new youth facilities across the city, It should be noted that there are no direct financial implications to the Council for the project.

Fostering Annual Report 2024-2025

The committee will be presented with the Fostering Annual Report 2024-2025, which measures the progress and achievements of the Fostering Service over the past year and sets out priorities for the coming year.

The report highlights successes in several areas, including:

• More children achieving stability within their Kinship networks.
• An expanding Special Guardianship Order (SGO) offer, with a significant increase in therapeutic support via the ASGSF Fund².
• Greater stability in the workforce, with a reduction in agency staff.
• Stable retention of foster carers, who provide positive feedback on the service and the support they receive.
• 100% of newly recruited carers coming from a fostering household, community, or background.
• Engagement in co-production with foster carers and children to help shape the service offer.
• Continued development and innovation through projects like Mockingbird, Ghyll Head, Stability, GM Hub, Ambassadors, and Fostering Hives.
• Collaboration with the 10 Greater Manchester authorities to develop the regional 'Recruitment Hub'.

The report also identifies several priority actions for the coming year, including:

• Recruiting more carers for children in Manchester.
• Increasing the number of newly recruited foster families from global majority households.
• Increasing carer engagement in training and development.
• Securing permanence via Special Guardianship for more children and families.
• Developing 'Fostering Hives', a place-based, community approach to strengthen the fostering community and support recruitment of new carers.

The report recommends that the committee consider the progress and impact being achieved by the Fostering Service in Manchester and the goals set out for 2025-26.

Overview Report

The committee will review the overview report from the Governance and Scrutiny Support Unit, which includes the recommendations monitor, relevant key decisions, the committee's work programme and any items for information. The report notes that there are no outstanding recommendations. The report includes an extract of the most recent Register of Key Decisions published on 29 September 2025, containing details of the decisions under the committee's remit, including:

• The Management and Operation of a Take a Breath Children's Home
• Contract for Health Visitors
• Contract for provision of School Health services