This study examined changes in the policy process through the operation of the Youth Office, a department dedicated to youth policy directly under the mayor of Seoul, from 2019 to 2020, and analyzed the possibility and factors of public-private cooperation. Through the establishment of an organization called the Youth Office, we analyzed the changes in the cooperation system and budgeting process with the administration, the private sector, and city councils, and pointed out efforts to implement governance principles in the project execution process.
The first change in organizational operation due to the establishment of the Youth Agency has expanded the size of the organization and increased its status as a market-direct organization to support the stable operation of youth policy governance and the role of the youth department. It has the effect of further strengthening the cooperation system for promoting youth policies by facilitating cooperation with other offices, headquarters, bureaus, and the Seoul Metropolitan Council. In addition, a public-private joint operation model was implemented from planning, execution, and evaluation of youth policy governance operation. The second change in project execution was to collect fieldness throughout the project execution and to implement the governance operating principles. In order to ensure the participation of more young people, various methods of collecting opinions were implemented, such as on-site communication projects, holding multiple meetings to promote projects, and operating a pan-generational governance organization. The third is the change in the budgeting process due to the implementation of the youth autonomous budget system. With the implementation of this system, most policy proposals through divisional operation were previously made, but from 2019, young people directly participated in the budgeting process. Through this, the youth policy budget for the Youth Office and the entire Seoul Metropolitan Government has been greatly expanded. In addition, self-governing district youth policy governance was activated, and the Seoul Metropolitan Government's first "Ordinance to Support the Promotion of Youth Participation" was enacted.
Through changes in organizational operation, project execution, and budgeting process through the establishment of the Youth Agency, the operation of the Youth Agency and the promotion of the youth self-government government from 2019 to 2020 were found to be significant as one of the public-private cooperation models. Several factors that made this possible were derived.
The first is that the department called the Youth Office established a youth policy governance operation support system and a project execution system at the same time. A system capable of operating and supporting youth policy governance was designed as a team unit called the "Operation Support Group" to enable practical implementation. In addition, the Youth Administration directly executed the projects proposed by young people and established a process management system for the projects proposed by the youth autonomous budget system in the administration. The second is the planning of a policy tool called the youth autonomous budget system. Youth participation was activated and various policy proposals were possible because there was a youth autonomous budget system that ensured that policies could be discovered, designed, and budgeted through collective deliberation and discussion of young people within a certain budget quota. In the policy process, the input function of the Seoul Youth Policy Network, the decision and execution role of the Youth Administration were operated as a package on the basis of the youth self-budget system, so that youth participation could be implemented in the entire process of policy design, execution, and evaluation. The third is the continuous participation of the private sector to support the operation of youth policy governance. Private entities played the role of coordinators in various areas such as municipal administration participation education, support for the operation of subcommittees, policy consulting, and public relations campaigns for citizens.
The limitation of this study is that the development of youth policy governance in Seoul is not a direct change study on the qualitative development of youth policy, that is, how it has changed youth life. In addition, it was not possible to analyze what changes were made in the perceptions of young people who participated in youth policy governance and whether this experience helped them lead their lives as democratic citizens.
Nevertheless, it is hoped that discussions on reorganization of youth organizations at the local or central government level, or similar organizational models in other fields will provide practical implications to reduce trial and error and contribute to the development of youth policy and public-private cooperation.