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On the 28 January 2009, the Audit Commission published a report (Tired of hanging around: using sport and leisure activities to prevent anti-social behaviour by young people) which finds that sport and leisure projects involving music, film-making or football, when designed in consultation with young people, can help stop them from drifting into anti-social behaviour.
The report insists that such projects struggle with a funding system that is wasteful, inefficient and bureaucratic. Youth workers, who should be devoting their attention to young people, can spend a third of their time managing budgets and chasing new funds. Even when funding is secured, it is often fixed and short-term, with no guarantee of renewal.
The report sets out a series of recommendations for councils and central government which, it argues, can improve the design of projects and the funding systems that are essential to their success.