Appendix
Government's response to the Eighth Report from
the Children, Schools and Families Committee, Session 2009-10
The Children, Schools and Families Committee published
the report of its inquiry into young people not in education,
employment or training on 08 April 2010. The Report focused on
the policies and practices of the Government that was in office
during the Committee's investigation.
This document sets out the current Government's response
to the eleven recommendations made in the Committee's report.
In some cases these responses are brief as the new Government
is continuing to develop policy in these areas and decisions are
subject to the forthcoming Spending Review. As soon as we are
in a position to provide more information, Ministers will make
formal announcements.
INTRODUCTION
The most recent figures show that the number of young
people not in education, employment or training (NEET) remains
far too high:
- At age 16-18, the official
statistics published on 22 June 2010 showed that 183,000 (9.2%)
young people in England were NEET at the end of 2009.[2]
- For the broader 16-24 age range,
the quarterly Labour Force Survey data published on 20 May 2010
showed that 927,000 (15.3%) of young people in England were NEET
in the first quarter of 2010.[3]
What is more, international figures show that other
nations are outpacing us on both the proportion of young people
participating in education and training and the percentage who
are NEET. The most recent OECD comparisons of the proportion of
15-19 year olds NEET at the end of 2007 showed that the UK had
the third highest rate of the 24 countries that supplied data.[4]
We cannot afford this waste of human potential that
blights the lives of the individuals concerned. We know that being
NEET at this age is associated with negative outcomes later in
life, including unemployment, reduced earnings, poor health and
depression. These outcomes each have a cost attached and so being
NEET is not just bad for individuals but also for our economy
as a whole.
This Government has a clear aim to raise attainment
for all children and to close the gap between the richest and
the poorest. We want more young people from disadvantaged backgrounds
to progress on to the best universities and jobs. Increasing participation
in education, employment and training is integral to that aim
as young people who are not participating do not have the opportunity
to achieve their full personal or economic potential.
It is right that we support young people to establish
themselves and to build productive careers. This is not only a
matter of social justice but also part of a longer term strategy
to reduce welfare dependency and to tackle disadvantage in our
communities.
But we cannot achieve this aim solely through national
direction and control. Local authorities and education and training
providers will play a key role in our plans to improve education.
This is particularly important as the numbers and characteristics
of young people who are NEET vary significantly between local
areas and so services need to be tailored to their specific needs.
RECOMMENDATIONS
In the response below, the Select Committee's recommendations
are in bold text and the Government's responses are in
plain text.
1. We accept that the term "NEET"
is imperfect. In particular, its use as a noun to refer to a young
person can be pejorative and stigmatising. It is, however, a commonly
used statistical category, and—in the absence of an appropriate
alternative—we have accepted it as a first step in understanding
the issues.
The Government agrees with the Committee's decision
to accept the term "NEET". It is an important statistical
term that highlights the significant minority of young people
who do not participate, and so cannot progress.
We also agree that particular care needs to be taken
to ensure that the term is not used pejoratively. We do not support
the use of the term as a noun referring to a young person and
would instead prefer to use the phrase 'young people who are currently
NEET' reflecting that for most young people this is a temporary
state rather than a permanent category.
2. There have been substantial changes to
the provision of information, advice and guidance, not least of
which is a greater role for local authorities. The Government
must monitor the quality of delivery of information, advice and
guidance across England.
The Government agrees with the Committee's views
on the importance of careers education and of information, advice
and guidance (IAG) more generally. This includes targeted support
to ensure that young people at risk of becoming disengaged are
helped to remain in some form of education, employment or training.
We are currently considering how best to provide
young people with access to high quality careers education, as
well as other information, advice and guidance. This will help
them navigate the complex choices on offer to them about education,
careers and their wider lifestyles.
It is important that local authorities are able to
secure the right services for local communities and individuals
and so we must ensure that any monitoring arrangements are not
overly bureaucratic. At present, local authorities, education
and training providers and users of services can use the Quality
Standards for IAG to help them judge the quality of services that
are provided in their area. Data from the National Client Caseload
Information System (NCCIS), which draws on the databases run by
local Connexions services, also allows both national and local
monitoring of the impact of IAG on the proportion of young people
participating and NEET on a monthly basis.
3. Young people make progress at different
rates. Policies and funding mechanisms should not disadvantage
those who work at a different pace from the majority of their
peers. We welcome the work that the Government has already done
to introduce flexibility into its Strategy for young people; we
recommend that greater stress should be placed on the creation
of an over-arching and seamless strategy for 16-24 year olds.
We agree that more needs to be done to join up support
and create an over-arching approach for 16-24 year olds.
The Government's single Work Programme will form
an important part of this, simplifying the system and giving young
people the back to work support they need, regardless of the benefit
they are on.
But we also recognise that the needs of individual
young people can vary significantly, and often the support required
by a 16 year old and a 23 year old can be very different. That
is why it is important that local areas are able to coordinate
and tailor support and services for young people.
4. We recommend that the Government consider
extending the September and January Guarantee to those 18 year
olds for whom further education or training is appropriate. However,
these Guarantees have to have been delivered successfully for
16 and 17 year olds before any extension to 18 year olds is considered.
There is a longstanding duty to secure enough suitable
provision in education and training to meet the reasonable needs
of 16-19 year olds. The duty to secure this provision was originally
placed on the Further Education Funding Council by the Further
and Higher Education Act 1992 and subsequently passed to the Learning
and Skills Council (Learning and Skills Act 2000) and to Local
Authorities (Section 15ZA of the Education Act 1996, inserted
by the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009).
The September Guarantee simply puts in place a process to help
local authorities to give effect to that duty and to ensure that
young people are aware of the options that are available.
This Government will continue the September Guarantee
in 2010 as a means of raising the proportion of young people participating
in education and training and ensuring that the most vulnerable
16 and 17 year olds are identified early and receive targeted
support and advice to help them to participate. We also recognise
that the Guarantee requires significant effort from local authorities
and their partners to implement and we will aim to reduce burdens
and simplify the process where possible.
The Department for Education (DfE) funds courses
up to and including Level 3 for 18 year olds for whom further
education or training is appropriate and who begin before their
19th birthday. There are already high numbers of 18 year olds
who choose this option. In 2008-09, 30% of 18 year olds were in
such provision funded by the Department for Children, Schools
and Families and a further 25% were in Higher Education funded
by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
Given the wide range of different activities which
young people are able to engage in at 18, including Higher Education,
work, volunteering and gap years, we do not feel that a specific
Guarantee process relating to further education would be appropriate
at this age.
5. We recommend that the Government provide
a scheme of work placements for 16 and 17 year olds in projects
of benefit to the community, such as those offered through the
Community Task Force. Young people taking part in such a scheme
should receive any benefits to which they would otherwise be entitled.
Such an initiative is essential if the Government is to properly
plan for the raising of the participation age to 17 in 2013 and
to 18 in 2015.
We agree that it is essential that at an early age,
young people are able to build the skills that they will need
for sustainable employment. There are 69,000 unemployed 16-17
year olds[5] who are not
in full-time education in the UK who may need help moving into
work and may be interested in opportunities for further education
or training.
We set out in the coalition programme that we will
seek ways to support the creation of apprenticeships, internships,
work pairings and college and workplace training places as part
of our wider programme to get Britain working. Work pairings could
offer young people who are NEET the opportunity to be matched
to an experienced sole trader for a period of intensive work experience
and mentoring.
We are also committed to introducing the
National Citizen Service. This flagship project will provide
a programme for 16 year olds to give them a chance to develop
the skills needed to be active and responsible citizens, mix with
people from different backgrounds, and start getting involved
in their communities. National Citizen Service pilots are planned
to start from summer 2011.
6. Young people who are NEET often face a number
of barriers to participation and need to access support from a
variety of sources. The co-location of services such as healthcare,
housing support, access to benefits and financial support and
careers advice and guidance in a joined-up approach could help
young people to access more easily the help they require. Such
provision could prove to be more cost-effective than current structures.
We recommend that the Government take steps to commission a number
of pilots, in order to assess the costs and benefits of the "one-stop-shop"
approach.
This Government believes that local authorities should
have a key strategic role in organising their services for young
people in such a way as to respond to the needs of their citizens
and communities.
We support local authorities who are choosing to
test different approaches, such as co-location, and sharing this
knowledge and experience with other areas. For instance, through
the Total Place programme, a number of pilots have been exploring
options for co-locating local authority and Jobcentre Plus services.
DWP are also exploring the potential to bring in other public
services to their existing local frontline and back office estate,
through worked examples in Manchester, Bradford, Kent and Worcestershire.
7. Not all young people will be in a position
to begin a training course in September or January of a given
year; some may drop out of education or training during the academic
year and wish to begin a new course. We recommend that the Government
set aside some of the funding for the September and January Guarantees
to support local authorities in offering places in education and
training to young people throughout the year.
The number of starts provided by post-16 education
and training providers outside the main October recruitment period
is factored into the funding allocation process.
As a result, the further education sector provides
significant numbers of flexible starts to help young people to
reengage. In the spring and summer terms of 2008-09, 142,000 young
people were recruited into colleges.
Schools, colleges and training providers are best
placed to know what is needed to support participation and raise
standards. As we set out in the coalition programme, we want to
increase the freedom of colleges to meet the needs of their local
young people across the academic year.
We do not agree that holding back funding at the
start of the academic year would help to achieve this aim. It
would reduce the freedom of providers to meet these needs and
would also increase the bureaucracy and expense of the allocations
process. It could also lead to providers turning away young people
in October because they are 'full' only to reopen their doors
later in the year.
8. We were struck by the approach taken in
the Netherlands, in which relatively generous levels of benefits
and other support are offered to young people in exchange for
greater compulsion to take up education, training or work. We
recommend that the Government consider the merits of this approach.
The Government has started a radical programme of
welfare reform which will include the creation of a single Work
Programme to provide greater personalised support and clear incentives
to help young people get into work and off benefits altogether,
alongside a restructuring of the welfare system that will make
it simpler and more transparent so that work always pays.
As part of this process we will look at the approach
taken in the Netherlands to see what we can learn from their experience.
In essence the UK and Dutch Governments share the same aims of
getting young people off benefit and into full time work and reducing
benefit dependency. Both Governments agree that young people should
be encouraged to increase their skills and education and to take
up the opportunities offered to them.
The approach of the Netherlands is different from
the UK system in that responsibility for administering benefits
is devolved to municipalities, who are given a fixed sum of money
for the payment of benefits and work related payments. If the
municipality pays out less in income benefits it can keep the
difference; if it pays more it must find the difference from other
budgets. One of the advantages of the current UK arrangements
is that the benefits support provided by the Department for Work
and Pensions and Jobcentre Plus is guaranteed nationally so that
individuals receive a consistent service across the country.
Another important factor is that the development of individual
local systems to deliver benefits could unnecessarily complicate
the system or be costly to establish and maintain.
In the UK we are already moving towards greater conditionality
for young people on benefits, with increased incentives. The creation
of a Work Programme will take the form of a single scheme offering
targeted, personalised help for those who need it most, sooner
rather than later. A greater level of personalised support will
mean more young people will be better prepared for work as the
jobs market picks up. To make sure we get the best value for
money, we will also be changing the framework to bring the ideas
and energy of the third sector and the private sector to the forefront
of this process.
9. We welcome the fact that the Government
is undertaking a cross-departmental review of the financial support
offered to 16-18 year olds. We urge the Government to bring forward
changes to the benefit arrangements for young people living in
supported housing, in order to enable them to access all appropriate
opportunities for training and employment. We also urge the Government
to address the barriers that risk preventing young people on benefits
from improving their skills through unpaid work or full-time volunteering.
We expect the Government to examine closely the provision made
for 16 and 17 year olds in severe hardship, and to ensure that
these young people are not deterred from pursuing opportunities
in education and training by the constraints of the benefits system.
The review of financial support for 16-19 year olds
was commissioned by the previous Government. The evidence gathered
will be considered in the context of the Spending Review in October
2010.
Young people in supported housing and/or severe
hardship
The benefit system does not deter young people from
pursuing opportunities in education—young people who are
estranged from their family or carer and who want to undertake
(or are already in) full-time non-advanced education can claim
income support and housing benefit between their 16th and 21st
birthdays so long as they meet the normal rules for receiving
those benefits (savings, residence in UK etc). The course they
undertake has to be full-time (ie 12 hours or more per week) and
non-advanced—equating to A level/NVQ Level 3 (and Scottish
and Welsh equivalents) or below. This gives vulnerable young
people who are motivated to return to education the chance to
do so. If a young person in receipt of Jobseeker's Allowance
through the severe hardship route decides that they want to go
back into education, they will be able to transfer from Jobseeker's
Allowance to Income Support.
Volunteering
The treatment of volunteers in the benefits system
is generous and flexible; there is no limit to the amount of unpaid,
voluntary work that someone receiving benefits may undertake so
long as the usual conditions of entitlement are met. Any expenses
reimbursed to the volunteer are ignored for benefit purposes.
The Government recognises the service that volunteers provide,
and so volunteers who claim Jobseeker's Allowance are exempt from
the normal requirement to be immediately available for employment.
Instead the conditions for receiving Jobseeker's Allowance have
been relaxed so that volunteers need only be willing to take up
an offer of full-time employment with one weeks' notice.
Benefit rules aim to strike a proper balance between
allowing benefit recipients to pursue voluntary activity that
is of benefit to the community—while at the same time encouraging
them to retain a clear focus on moving off welfare into paid employment.
10. Local authorities play a central role
in delivering initiatives intended to increase rates of participation
among 16-18 year olds. We are concerned that existing rewards
for good progress are not sufficient to drive the necessary improvements
in local authorities' performance. We urge the Government to review
the mechanisms by which local authorities are rewarded for significant
increases in the rates of participation of 16-18 year olds. In
particular, we recommend that the Government give consideration
to linking such rewards with savings made by the Department for
Work and Pensions when an increase in participation in education,
employment and training leads to a reduction in the number of
young people claiming benefits.
The Government will promote
the devolution of power and greater financial autonomy to local
government and to community groups. This will include a review
of local government finance.
We know that being NEET
is associated with an increased likelihood of later unemployment,
low pay, poor health and depression and so local areas already
reap the benefits of reducing NEET in improved economic wellbeing
for their area for years to come.
The principles developed by local areas through their
Total Place pilots are feeding into our overarching agenda for
the Big Society, in particular through community leadership and
delivery of services. The Total Place principle around service
transformation and a whole-systems approach to tackling key priorities
for individuals and communities will be used to inform future
thinking.
The Government is interested in exploring innovative
funding mechanisms based on payment by results as part of the
Spending Review. For example, Social Impact Bond pilots are planned
in some public service areas.
11. We recognise that future solutions to
reduce the proportion of young people not in employment, education
or training will have to be more cost-effective and will require
efficient, joined-up working at a local level. To this end, we
warmly welcome the piloting of the Total Place programme and strongly
encourage the Government's stated objective of achieving a "whole
area" approach to public services.
We agree that both value for money and efficiency
must remain at the heart of delivering services for young people.
We will promote decentralisation and democratic engagement,
giving new powers to local councils and to communities, neighbourhoods
and individuals.
2 DfE: Participation in Education, Training and Employment
by 16-18 Year Olds in England (June 2010)-http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000938/index.shtml
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3
Labour Force Survey reported in DfE: NEET Statistics-Quarterly
Brief (May 2010)-http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/STR/d000924/index.shtml.
Both of these statistics relate to young people's academic age Back
4
Education at a Glance 2009: OECD Indicators-http://www.oecd.org/document/24/0,3343,en_2649_39263238_43586328_1_1_1_1,00.html
Back
5
Figures use the International Labour Organisation (ILO) definition
of unemployment and relate to seasonally adjusted UK data for
the period March to May 2010. Back
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