Realisation of young people’s opportunities to influence

Assessment objective

The main question of the assessment was whether the City has promoted young people’s opportunities to influence in accordance with the City’s decisions and policies. This question was answered by determining whether young people’s initiatives have been handled in accordance with the Administrative Regulations and other City policies, whether the young people’s initiative system has been developed in accordance with the City’s policies, whether the 2019 Youth Council election was carried out in accordance with its objectives, whether the Youth Council’s opportunities to influence the City’s operations have been realised in accordance with the City’s policies and whether the influence and participation of young people on the sidelines has been supported.

Conclusions

The City has partly promoted the opportunities for young people to influence in accordance with the City’s decisions and policies. Young people’s initiatives have been processed in accordance with the Administrative Regulations and other City guidelines, except that the Youth Sub-committee has not monitored the realisation of young people’s right of initiative. The development of the young people’s initiative system has started in line with the City’s policies, but development has been slow. The 2019 Youth Council election was carried out in accordance with the objectives of the action plan of the young people’s influence system in that the election inspired more young people to stand as candidates. Youth services has supported the influence of young people on the sidelines by making voting in the Youth Council election easier for pupils in special schools by providing voting instructions with pictures. The achievement of the objectives set for the election was hampered, in particular, by problems with cooperation with schools and educational institutions not run by the City. Another challenge is the differences in the perspectives of the Education Division and Culture and Leisure Division on how to educate for influence in schools and educational institutions.