28 October 2004
Learning to listen
The Government is committed to designing policies and services around the needs of children and young people. In 2001 the Government launched a new policy to encourage more effective involvement of children and young people in policy making. This initiative, called ‘Learning to Listen’, was supported by action plans for all key Departments, including HM Treasury.
HM Treasury has now produced three action plans since 2002, each one outlining how the Department has engaged with children and young people across a range of policy areas. Past action plans have included the following:
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Child Trust Fund
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Commonwealth Finance Ministers Meeting 2002
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Enterprise
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Financial Education
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Target Two Point Five: The Bank of England/Times Interest Rate Challenge (Now "Target Two Point Zero")
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The Red Box
Many of the policies and programmes above also feature in this year's action plan, reflecting HM Treasury's commitment to further embed a culture of participation across the Department in areas that directly affect children and young people.
Learning to Listen: Youth Participation Action Plan (PDF 306KB)
Related links
The Red Box - The Red Box is an interactive resource to teach young people about tax and public spending. The site invites visitors to take on management of 'The Square'. Through playing games and answering questions participants must raise enough money to maintain, or preferably improve, the services offered in 'The Square'. Participants control their own budget and gain experience of how decisions about tax and public spending are made. There are two different versions of the site, one suitable for 7-11 year olds and one for 11-16 year olds.
Biz/ed Virtual Economy - The Virtual Economy is a sophisticated online model of the economy with extensive supporting materials. It has been jointly developed by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Biz/ed with the support of a grant from the Nuffield Foundation. The Virtual Economy model reflects tax changes made in Budget 2002.
Department for Education & Skills (DfES): Listening to Learn - In June 2002 the DfES published Listening to Learn, its action plan to implement the government’s core principles on involving children and young people. The action plan set out the DfES' vision to embed the principles in its policies and practices over the years to 2006. Related publications on youth participation across Government can also be found on this website.
Target Two Point Zero - the Bank of England/Times Interest Rate Challenge - This Challenge gives teams of students aged 16-18 the chance to take on the role of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, assess economic conditions and the outlook for inflation and tell panels of judges what interest rate they would set to achieve the Government's inflation target of 2.0%.