Tender for Review of the Youth Music Initiative

21 January 2025

The Scottish Government's Youth Music Initiative (YMI) supports local authorities, creative practitioners, and organisations to create access to high quality music and music making projects across Scotland for the benefit of children and young people.  in 2024/25 the programme has a budget of £9.5 million which consist of £9 million for the Youth Music Initiative and £500k for wider Youth Arts.

Established in 2003, this unique programme enhances cultural engagement, creating more equitable access to meaningful music making opportunities that foster inclusivity, creativity, and a sense of place.

The YMI has two distinct strands:

Funding for the Youth Arts Sector – supports freelancers, and organisations to deliver high quality projects for the benefit of children, young people, and the wider youth music sector. There are three funding routes: Access to Music Making, Strengthening Youth Music and the YMI CPD and Training Fund. There is also an additional £500k for the Youth Arts Open Fund, for wider youth arts projects which is administered by YouthLink Scotland.
Funding for local authorities – all 32 local authorities deliver projects that offer equitable access to music and music making projects that strengthen the culture sector in Scotland. This programme is additional to the core curriculum.

Our requirement

We are seeking a partner to undertake an independent review of the two distinct strands of the YMI and its overall impact, to evaluate if the programme is meeting its purpose and the needs of children and young people, the culture sector and wider policy areas. The review is expected to involve desk-based research, interviews with YMI funded projects and engagement with a short-term advisory group who will support the organisation/individual selected to undertake the review.

Strand 1: Funding for local authorities (YMI Formula Fund) - We want to provide a clear picture of the overarching strengths and challenges facing the YMI Formula Fund, one which will inform the strategic future development of the programme and allow us to present a refreshed purpose which better represents current delivery.
Strand 2: Funding for the Youth Arts Sector (Access to Music Making, Strengthening Youth Music, YMI CPD & Training Fund and the Youth Arts Open Fund) - We want to consider the effectiveness of each of these funds for the Youth Arts Sector, to understand if there are ways in which these can be improved in the future.
In addition, we want to consider the effectiveness of each of these funds for the Youth Arts Sector, to understand if there are ways in which these can be improved in the future.

Project outputs 

The organisation or individual selected to deliver the project will be required to: 

Work with an advisory group consisting of those working in the youth music sector, the Scottish Government and Creative Scotland who will act as a sounding board. 
Produce a report to a publishable standard with an executive summary highlighting the key findings of the evaluation as agreed by the advisory group. 
If appropriate, develop a suite of case studies that tell specific stories around the impact of the programme.

Experience and skills

We would expect the successful organisation / individual to have:

High-level skills and experience in writing practical research papers and in-depth studies and understanding of data collation.   
Demonstrable skills in facilitation and or delivering training and resources for a variety of audiences, including those with little or no experience of evaluation.   
Effective project management skills.   
Experience of presenting research / evaluation findings effectively and writing reports of findings to publishable standard.   
Experience of disseminating results and learning from evaluation studies in an accessible and easy to understand style.  
A track record of producing creative, engaging, and accessible outputs to share evaluation and learning.  
Clear understanding of equalities, diversity and inclusion and a track record in applying this to develop an accessible and equitable process and outputs/ resources.  
Previous experience of working in the arts, screen, and creative industries, and/or community development and learning sectors.  
Ability to form relationships with a wide range of individuals across all kinds of projects right across Scotland - working actively to build collaboration and genuine partnerships with the network.   
Capacity to design an approach which builds on existing data sources, resources and knowledge and does not replicate data collection.   
Willingness to shape the work and approach in consultation with the projects.

Pricing

We expect the budget for this project to be between £20,000 to £30,000 excluding VAT. Tenderers registered for VAT should indicate this in their proposal.

Deadline

The deadline for applications is 12pm on Monday 17 February 2025 through the Scottish Government e-Tendering System Public Contracts Scotland (PCS).

How to apply

To apply for this opportunity, please register with PCS as a supplier if you are not already registered.

Once registered, please then complete your application via the PCS Portal using Reference No. JAN522160.

How to register with Public Contracts Scotland (PCS) and submit a Tender Response via the PCS Postbox