The beginning - an overview of the first three years

What's Going On?
The P6 target
The informal sector

What's Going On?

The Youth Music Initiative (YMI) began back in 2003 when the Scottish Arts Council, Youth Music UK and the Musicians Union jointly commissioned an audit of youth music in Scotland - the What's Going On? report.

On the basis of the report's conclusions, the Scottish Government (then the Scottish Executive) pledged an initial £17.5 million over three years to launch the YMI.  The report identified priorities and 'gap areas' in provision which the newly-formed YMI had to take into account, for example composition, primary school tuition and music technology.

The P6 target

The Scottish Executive set a major target for the YMI: 'by 2006, all school children in Scotland should have access to one year's free music tuition by the time they reach Primary 6'.

80% of the YMI's £17.5 million was therefore awarded directly to local authorities to improve youth music provision in schools in order to meet the P6 target.  This is known as the Formula Fund as money is allocated to each authority according to a formula (based on number of pupils and rural weighting).

Every local authority met the P6 target, and in January 2007 The Scottish Executive's P6 Target Report was published. Based on data provided by each local authority, it describes how the target was met in each area.

The informal sector

The remaining 20% of YMI money was available to informal sector organisations working out of the school environment.  Some organisations (known as the National Youth Music Making Organisations, or NYMMOs) were considered to have national importance in the youth music sector and were funded directly.  These were:

The National Youth Choir of Scotland The National Youth Orchestras of Scotland The National Youth Pipe Band Feis Rois

From 2004 organisations were also able to apply to the Informal Sector Fund.  This fund is open to any organisation that wants to develop music making projects - whether large or small scale. 

In the first three years of the YMI around 65 informal sector projects were funded, ranging from recording and DJing in Wick to mandolin workshops in South Lanarkshire.  Projects have been run by youth clubs, charities and community groups as well as youth music organisations.

Visit the Current developments page for information on Years 4 and 5 of the Youth Music Initiative.