Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to improve social mobility among young people.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Alongside education, employment plays a crucial role in helping to improve social mobility among young people.
The DWP Youth Offer provides individually tailored Work Coach support to young people aged 16 to 24 who are in the Universal Credit Intensive Work Search group. This includes more intensive support early in their Universal Credit claim, Youth Employability Coaches for young people with additional barriers to finding work, and Youth Hubs across Great Britain.
Our Work Coaches support young people’s individual aspirations, identify and help address skills gaps and wider barriers to entering work or progressing in their careers. They are supported by a network of dedicated Jobcentre Plus outreach leads specialising in areas including support for young care leavers or who – in the case of our support for schools’ advisers – are helping young people in schools in disadvantaged areas develop successful career pathways.
Spring Budget confirmed that the Youth Offer will be extended to the end of the Parliament and – from Autumn – will be expanded so more young Universal Credit claimants can access this dedicated support.
DWP is a strong champion for social mobility and has met with the Social Mobility Commission and celebrated National Social Mobility Awareness Day. Alongside this, DWP has established the Social Mobility Pledge Consortium in partnership with Talk Talk.
The pledge asks businesses to make measurable commitments to diversify the backgrounds of their workforce and help vulnerable people progress. We celebrated some of the achievements our nearly 120 employer signatories have made over the last year at a national conference at the Tottenham Hotspur football stadium on Tuesday 20th June.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Universal Credit claimants aged 18-24 who are in the Intensive Work Search regime accessed support from a Youth Hub in (a) May 2023 and (b) the most recent month for which data is available.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The DWP Youth Offer provides individually tailored Work Coach support to young people aged 16 to 24 who are in the Universal Credit Intensive Work Search group. This includes the Youth Employment Programme, Youth Employability Coaches and Youth Hubs across Great Britain. Young people are referred to the most appropriate part of the Youth Offer depending on their individual circumstances.
When a claimant enrols on the Youth Employment Programme or is referred to a Youth Hub or Youth Employability Coach they are classified as having started on the Youth Offer. We do not have a separate measure of engagement. The number of claimants referred to a Youth Hub in May 2023 was 1,100
Notes:
For wider information regarding the number of claimants who have been referred to a Youth Hub, I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to PQ 190115.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many jobseekers (a) were referred to and (b) engaged with Youth Hub services (i) in 2021-22, (ii) in 2022-23 and (iii) between 1 April 2023 and 19 June 2023.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The DWP Youth Offer provides individually tailored work coach support to young people aged 16 to 24 who are in the Universal Credit Intensive Work Search group. This includes the Youth Employment Programme, Youth Employability Coaches and Youth Hubs across Great Britain. Young people are referred to the most appropriate part of the Youth Offer depending on their individual circumstances.
| FY21/22 | FY22/23 | 01 April – 31 May 2023 |
Youth Offer | 278,100 | 284,800 | 44,100 |
Youth Employment Programme | 253,600 | 266,000 | 40,500 |
Youth Hub | 14,600 | 14,700 | 2,100 |
Youth Employability Coach | 21,500 | 18,100 | 2,300 |
Notes:
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what comparative assessment he has made of the effectiveness of (a) Youth Hub and (b) Jobcentre support in helping young jobseekers into employment.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The DWP Youth Offer provides individually tailored Work Coach support to young people aged 16 to 24 who are in the Universal Credit Intensive Work Search group. This includes the Youth Employment Programme, Youth Employability Coaches for young people with additional barriers to finding work, and Youth Hubs across Great Britain.
The Youth Offer is subject to a Process Evaluation, with full findings expected to be shared internally by late 2023. This will inform any improvements or future changes to the Youth Offer policy. The evaluation plans involve hearing from young people from a range of backgrounds and circumstances, and those that work with them, on the services they receive via Youth Hubs and Jobcentres to understand their effectiveness and enable us to make improvements as appropriate. There are plans for an impact assessment of the effectiveness of the Youth Offer whose findings will be shared internally once available.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will publish a list of Youth Hub locations in Great Britain as of 19 June 2023.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Youth Hubs are part of the wider DWP Youth Offer which also includes the Youth Employment Programme and Youth Employability Coaches. Youth Hubs across Great Britain bring together employment support from a Jobcentre Plus work coach and place-based support from local partnerships to help young people into work. The support offered in a Youth Hub is dependent on local needs and includes skills, training, employment provision and dedicated support services.
The below list of open Youth Hubs is valid as of 19 June 2023. Due to changes in local needs new Youth Hubs may open, and existing Youth Hubs may close. The number of open Youth Hubs may therefore fluctuate.
Group | Youth Hub Name |
Central and West Scotland | Glasgow Central Based East Youth Hub |
| Glasgow Kelvin College Youth Hub |
| Glasgow/Central Base/Youth Hub |
| Invest Youth Hub |
| Kilmarnock Youth Hub |
East and North Scotland | Aberdeen NESCol Youth Hub |
| Alloa FV College Campus Youth Hub |
| Dundee and Angus College Kingsway |
| Dundee Angus |
| Dundee Helm |
| Dundee Street League Youth Hub |
| Elgin Youth Employability Hub @ Moray Pathways |
| Forth Valley College |
| Stirling Community Enterprise Youth Hub |
| West Fife Youth Hub |
| West Lothian College |
London & Essex | Barking BLC Youth Hub |
| Enfield / Youth Hub |
| Grays Inspire Youth Hub |
| Hackney Youth Hub |
| Hammersmith & Fulham Youth Hub |
| Haringey Youth Hub |
| Islington / Youth Hub |
| Make It Happen Youth Hub |
| Opportunity Space (Greenwich and Bexley) |
| Opportunity Space Lewisham |
| Westminster/ Youth Hub |
North and East Midlands | Harworth |
| Leicester Youth Hub |
| Lincoln / The Network / Youth Hub |
| Northampton Youth Hub |
| Norwich |
| YES Derbyshire |
North Central England | Accrington Youth Hub |
| Barnsley Youth Hub |
| Barrow Youth Hub |
| Blackpool Youth Hub |
| Bradford / Vibe / Youth Hub |
| Burnley Thrive Youth Hub |
| Crossfield House Youth Hub |
| Dewsbury Youth Hub |
| Doncaster Youth Hub |
| Fleetwood Youth Hub |
| Hemsworth Youth Hub |
| Huddersfield Youth Hub |
| Keighley Vibe |
| Kendal/Youth Hub |
| Leeds Dewsbury Road |
| Pendle Yes Youth Hub |
| Penrith Youth Hub |
| Rotherham Community & Employment Youth Hub |
| Sheffield East Youth Hub |
| Sheffield South East Youth Hub |
| Sheffield South Youth Hub |
| Sheffield Specialist Youth Hub |
| Sheffield United Community Foundation Youth Hub |
| Sheffield Wednesday Youth Hub |
| Skelmersdale Youth Hub |
| Wakefield Youth Hub |
| Whitehaven/Youth Hub |
| Workington/Youth Hub |
North East England | Darlington/Youth Hub |
| Durham LA/Peterlee/Youth Hub |
| Durham Works |
| DurhamLA/Stanley/Youth Hub |
| Hartlepool/Enterprise Centre/Youth Hub |
| Redcar & Cleveland/Grangetown/Youth Hub |
| Stockton/Youth Hub |
North West England | Altrincham Youth Hub |
| Ellergreen/North/Youth Hub |
| Farnworth Youth Hub |
| Halton Youth Hub |
| Hyde & Denton Youth Hub |
| Leigh Youth Hub |
| Liverpool Reach Youth Hub |
| Liverpool/MYA/Youth Hub |
| Liverpool/Thrive/Youth Hub |
| Manchester Youth Hub |
| Merseyside Community Training (Quinnovations) |
| Oldham Youth Hub |
| Partington Youth Hub |
| Power in partnership (Widnes) |
| Rochdale Youth Hub |
| Sefton Youth Hub - The Big Onion |
| St Helens Youth Hub |
| Stockport Youth Hub |
| Westhoughton Youth Hub |
| Wigan Youth Hub |
South East England | Addlestone Youth Hub |
| Ashford Youth Hub |
| Brighton and Hove Youth Hub |
| Brooklands College Youth Hub |
| Camberley Youth Hub |
| Crawley Youth Hub |
| Epsom Youth Hub |
| Hastings Youth Hub |
| Rosehill Community Centre Youth Hub |
| Staines Elmsleigh Centre |
| Woking Youth Hub |
| Worthing Youth Hub |
South West England | Bristol Youth Hub |
| Havant Youth Hub |
| Plymouth Youth Hub |
| Southampton Central Youth Hub |
Wales | Cwmbran All About Youth Hub |
| Newport Central Youth Hub |
| Newport East Youth Hub |
| Newport North All About Youth |
| Swansea Youth Hub |
West Midlands | Bilston YH |
| Birmingham Library Youth Hub |
| Birmingham Lighthouse Youth Hub |
| Birmingham South Youth Hub |
| Coventry Job shop Youth Hub |
| Dudley Skills Shop Youth Hub |
| Solihull Youth Hub |
| Telford Youth Hub |
| Wolverhampton The Way Youth Hub |
| Worcester County Council |
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Youth Hub work coaches are employed by his Department as of 19 June 2023; and how many were employed on the same date in (a) 2022 and (b) 2021.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Youth Hubs are part of the wider DWP Youth Offer which also includes the Youth Employment Programme and Youth Employability Coaches. Youth Hubs across Great Britain bring together employment support from a Jobcentre Plus Work Coach and place-based support from local partnerships to help young people into work. The support offered in a Youth Hub is dependent on local needs and includes skills, training, employment provision and dedicated support services.
Due to changes in claimant needs new Youth Hubs may open, and existing Youth Hubs may close. The number of open Youth Hubs and their required Youth Hub Work Coach resource may therefore fluctuate, as claimants access wider Youth Offer support.
The figures included offer a Full Time Equivalent (FTE) of Youth Hub Work Coaches. As some Youth Hub Work Coaches may work part-time in a Youth Hub, or across multiple Youth Hubs, we do not expect this number to be equivalent to the number of Youth Hub sites.
Role |
| ABM FTE |
|
| May-23 | May-22 | May-21 |
Youth Hub Work Coach | 100 | 140 | 140 |
Source: DWP’s internal Activity Based Model (ABM)
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Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities do not face stigma when applying for employment.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
On the 2nd April, DWP launched a new review, led by Rt Hon Sir Robert Buckland KC MP, that will explore ways to increase the number of autistic people in employment. One area of focus in the review is understanding the working practices or initiatives that can reduce stigma and improve the productivity of autistic employees. Whilst the review focuses specifically on autistic people, many of the issues and solutions are likely to be similar for other young people with SEND, and they will also benefit from the recommendations the review will bring forward.
The Disability Confident scheme supports employers to make the most of the talents disabled people of all ages can bring to the workplace. It provides employers with the knowledge, skills, and confidence they need to attract, recruit, retain and develop, disabled people in the workplace. It aims to challenge the stigmas of what it means to employ a disabled person and encourages employers to think differently about disability and to take positive action to address the issues disabled employees face in the workplace. This is in addition to DWP providing employment support to employers and young people with SEND to overcome barriers to employment. This support includes:
The Department for Education are investing c£18 million until 2025 to build capacity and level up quality in the Supported Internships Programme and double the number of internships to support more young people with SEND into employment. This includes grant funding to all local authorities and support and training to strengthen the quality of their supported internship offers, alongside activities to engage employers and support them to host interns.
To ensure that employers are supported to create new apprenticeship opportunities, the Department for Education provide targeted financial support directly to training providers to help remove barriers and stigmas for people with a learning difficulty or disability. Employers could receive £1,000 towards the costs of workplace support when they take on an apprentice aged 16-18 or 19-25 with an Education, Health, and Care Plan, as well as help to cover the extra costs working individuals may have because of their disability through the DWP’s Access to Work scheme. Improvements have also been made to the Find an Apprenticeship service to allow people to identify Disability Confident employers offering opportunities.
Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking through the criminal justice system to help young people avoid crime.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The Beating Crime Plan 2021 highlighted the importance of early intervention for all young people; targeted support for those at risk of involvement in criminality; and targeted interventions for those who have started to offend. It is better that children do not enter the justice system at all, which is why the Ministry of Justice works with partners across and outside of government on programmes which provide help earlier on.
The Turnaround programme is providing £56.5m multi-year grant funding to Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) across England and Wales until March 2025, enabling them to intervene earlier and improve outcomes for children on the cusp of entering the youth justice system. This additional funding will enable YOTs to work with up to 17,500 more children not currently on their caseload. The department’s Youth Justice Sports Fund also recently provided £5m to early intervention sport programmes working with 10–17-year-olds considered to be at risk of entering the justice system, who have benefitted from mentoring, volunteering and sports-based activities.
For those children who do enter the justice system, we want to see local areas addressing the underlying needs which drove that offending behaviour. As part of this, last year the Ministry of Justice developed new Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to monitor and drive Youth Offending Teams’ and partners’ effectiveness in, for example, ensuring more children who commit crime have the education, training or employment opportunities to break the cycle of offending. These new KPIs came into force on 1 April.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Derby (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the success of the Youth Offer and Kickstart scheme against their stated aims of supporting those under 25 to find employment.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Evaluations of the Youth Offer and the Kickstart Scheme are ongoing.
The Kickstart evaluation will continue to assess the longer-term outcomes for Kickstart participants after they have completed their six-month jobs. The commissioned process evaluation will conclude in Spring 2023.
We aim to publish the findings of the Kickstart Scheme evaluation once complete.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the number of young people not in education, employment or training.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Local authorities have a statutory duty to identify and support young people who are not in education, employment and training (NEET). All 16 and 17-year-olds are entitled to an offer of a suitable place in education or training under the September Guarantee, regardless of qualifications gained.
Since 2010, the department has put in place a range of policies that have significantly reduced the quantity of young people designated as ‘not in education, employment or training’ (NEET). The proportion of 16 to 24-year-olds NEET in 2022 was 12.3%, which is down 3.2 percentage points since 2010. This information can be found at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/neet-statistics-annual-brief/2022.
A range of provision is available for young people aged 16-24 to equip them with the skills and experience they need to progress. This includes joined-up support to young people to help minimise time spent NEET, such as Youth Hubs and Supported Internships, which offer tailored support for young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
The department’s ‘Get the Jump’ campaign is targeting young people aged 14 to 19 to ensure they are aware of all the education and training choices available to them, how they compare and where they can lead.
We are prioritising the rollout of Careers Hubs. Evidence shows that schools and colleges which are part of a Hub achieve almost double the amount of Gatsby Benchmarks of Good Career Guidance than those not part of a Hub. This is important because each additional benchmark achieved by a school is typically associated with a 1.4% decline in NEET rates, amounting to a 9.7% decline if a school achieves all eight benchmarks compared to achieving no benchmarks, either fully or partially.
In addition to this, the National Careers Service (NCS) offers intensive support for the most disadvantaged cohorts of the working-age population, including NEET 18 to 24-year-olds. They can access impartial, local careers advice via the NCS, either face-to-face or via the telephone helpline, webchat or website.
The department is also taking steps to increase the number and quality of apprenticeships which will create further opportunities for young people. The new ‘Career Starter Apprenticeships’ campaign is raising awareness of apprenticeships which offer great opportunities for those looking for their first role after leaving full-time education, and we are working with the Department for Work and Pensions to share and promote this information through Job Centre Plus.
The department provides a range of financial support for students who need it to enable them to participate in post-16 education, including free meals, bursaries to help with the cost of education, such as travel, books, equipment, and trips, and support for childcare and residential costs where required. We allocated over £152 million in the 2022/23 academic year to institutions to help disadvantaged 16 to 19-year-olds with costs such as travel, with a further £31.7 million allocated for free further education meals.