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Section 2: (ii) Post-16

The challenge

63. An effective long-term strategy for reducing the size of the NEET group must stem the flows into the group. It is vital to prevent young people falling out of the system in the first place, both for individual well-being and because it is more difficult and costly to re-engage people at a later stage.

64. However we cannot ignore the current cohort of young people who are NEET, nor gloss over the reality that there will always be young people age 16+ who struggle with the transition to adulthood and who will require high quality support to enable them to make that transition a positive one.

65. Our strategies for enterprise and lifelong learning ⁵⁴ rightly focus on equipping all individuals in Scotland with the ambition and skills they need to achieve and sustain employment in a growing economy. Yet it is self evident - in the unchanging proportion of young people NEET in Scotland over the past decade - that there is still some way to go in providing the high quality, appropriately designed opportunities and support needed to make this a reality for all young people.

66. Given the low attainment levels of young people who are NEET, this strategy intentionally prioritises education and training over employment as desired outcomes for the NEET group. Ensuring their long term employability is more likely to be secured through furthering their education and training, whether through formal or informal learning. Fast tracking these young people into low skill/low paid jobs without appropriate training and support is only likely to see them churning back into the NEET group.

67. That said, there will be some young people for whom work is their first choice, and here the challenges are around supporting them - and, where appropriate, their employers - in entry level jobs in order to sustain work and progress to higher paid and/or higher skilled employment.

Supported transitions and sustained opportunities

68. In recent years we have developed a much clearer picture of what works in relation to helping young people who are not in education, employment or training to engage with activities which will support them to move closer to the labour market. The range of agencies and interventions underpinning this progress is as broad as the needs of the individual young people. Looking across the statutory and voluntary sector it is possible to identify the common elements of what works well: ⁵⁵

• Adopting a client-focused approach - capable of addressing the complexity of issues some young people bring.
• Addressing barriers in a holistic way - through offering a comprehensive, co-ordinated service or good signposting to other support agencies.
• Providing high quality and ongoing assessment and action planning - client focussed, ideally using approaches which are shared by other relevant agencies.
• Supporting clients through advocacy - most notably through the provision of key workers who can provide continuity and trust during key transition points.
• Offering flexibility in programme duration - recognising that the intensity and length of support necessary will vary hugely within this highly diverse group.
• Focusing on progression - participants should be supported to move to the next progression point as quickly as possible.
• Anticipating vulnerability at times of transition - ensuring that services work together effectively to support continuity and progression.
• Recognising that progression may not always be linear - and that dealing with set-backs is a key part of the learning process.
• Ensuring high quality and defined aftercare - in order to sustain progress towards employability.
• Engaging employers - and embedding a focus on employment at the start of the process.
• Demonstrating clear evidence of impact - as well as the established 'harder' outcomes this should include reliable means of gauging distance travelled by clients.
• Involvement of young people in service design - too many assumptions are made about what young people need - the most effective approaches are informed by client views.

69. Across Scotland we are fortunate to have a range of pioneering organisations, such as the Prince's Trust, Fairbridge and a host of smaller organisations, which show what can be achieved. The voluntary sector is key to delivering the improved life chances we want for these young people. It can have a particularly important role to play in re-engaging the NEET group, some of whom may have an inherent mistrust of the statutory sector or of government. Moreover, a recent report from the UK Government ⁵⁶ highlighted the importance of services that explicitly focus on young people's thinking and behaviour as a foundation or first step on the road to engagement with the education or labour market. Such services are currently more common in the voluntary sector.

70. These agencies therefore make an invaluable contribution to working with young people and improving their life chances both directly through the services they offer; and through what they can teach other organisations and government about their experiences of working with this group. The following case studies, from national initiatives and local innovations, illustrate what makes up a successful intervention.

Youthstart

Youthstart is about helping young people aged 16-24 make the transition to independent living and supporting them to access and succeed in education, employment or training. It targets homeless young people and young people who are residential care leavers.

Youthstart works on the principles of Supported Employment and is holistic in its approach, recognising that the person's whole life be taken into consideration when making choices relating to their education, training or employment. The team relies heavily on collaborative partnership working, recognising that working with young people with a wide range of barriers means that no one agency can give the support and specialist services required. They adopt the co-ordinating role to bring the partners together to ensure that the young person has the appropriate supports in place to allow them to make the transition to the labour market and are able to sustain their opportunity. Aftercare is a key component of the service.

Youthstart recognises the importance of distance travelled in focusing on both hard outcomes in terms of progression, and on soft outcomes such as improvements in confidence and motivation. Over the last three years the Youthstart project has assisted 683 vulnerable young people, achieving impressive results - 290 moving on into work and 219 going into further training or education. It is exemplary in the importance it places on supporting and tracking the sustainability of positive outcomes. Feedback from the young people themselves also makes for positive reading with many staying in touch with the project saying that without the support of Youthstart they would not have been able to stabilise their lives.

It has recently been adopted as a mainstream service of South Lanarkshire Council.

Careers Scotland Supported Employment Pilots

To stimulate a greater number and variety of employment options, CS developed 7 supported employment pilots at the end of 2002 - a model not readily available to clients other than those with learning disabilities.

Thanks to the pilots, which were independently evaluated in 2004, a composite model of supported employment has emerged with characteristics and potential strengths which include:

• preparation for employment such as confidence building, careers guidance, job search and presentation skills
• opportunities for clients to engage directly with employers and to experience labour market features such as job interviews
• significant support in the initial, high-stress, phase of the placement such as accompanying the young person to work
• a less intensive and discrete form of job support than the traditional job coaching model
  e.g. telephone and texting
• an individualised approach to engaging with employers
• an emphasis on after-care.

The evaluation showed that clients valued and benefited from the supported employment experience in many ways - in terms of soft and vocational skills and also in terms of developing a better understanding of the world of work and their options within it. Client satisfaction levels were good and there was evidence of client progression - even in instances where the type of work undertaken proves not to be that ultimately sought by participants. Benefits which arose because of clients valuing the employability focus of the support were:

• improved confidence and self awareness
• improved vocational skills including the use of IT
• enhanced presentation of assets for clients, e.g. clients developing their own CV and having a better idea of what a job interview might be like.

A total of 342 clients participated in the Careers Scotland Supported Employment Pilots in 2003/04, 146 of whom entered a supported employment opportunity of which 90 were sustained for at least three months.

The evaluation concluded that Careers Scotland should consider the scope for building the skills/tools of the Supported Employment Advisor ( SEA) into the remit of those staff carrying out Key Worker type functions rather than continue with stand alone SEA posts. Careers Scotland is currently taking forward the mainstreaming of this approach nationally with a particular focus on the transition to employment and other opportunities and working with partners to ensure sustainability.

71. At the national level, the Beattie Report ⁵⁷ put better transitions from school for young people firmly in the spotlight. This has led the training and further education sectors to make their provision much more responsive to young people with a range of needs.

72. Skillseekers and Get Ready for Work ( GR4W) ⁵⁸ - our national training programmes - play an important role in tackling NEET in Scotland, creating pathways into employment for young people and ensuring they have the competencies to progress once in work. GR4W, in particular, is a significant improvement on previous approaches being more customised, flexible and client-focused.

73. There have been particularly impressive strides made in improving access to further education ( FE) for young people with disabilities; and some notable successes with hard to reach groups such as refugees and ex-offenders have also shown how to engage effectively with particular sub-groups within the NEET population ⁵⁹. As the latest evidence from the sector makes clear ⁶⁰, key challenges for the future are around improving support for transitions and boosting retention and achievement - with NEET reduction an important indicator in measuring the sector's success.

74. Of course, valuable opportunities post school go beyond participating in a national training programme or FE. For example, becoming involved in volunteering directly can bring great benefits to young people themselves in terms of the skills and experience they can gain, and to the wider community. Such opportunities are now widely accessible to young people through Project Scotland, a scheme which facilitates and supports high quality full time volunteering opportunities for 16-25 year olds.

75. It is vital that all of these opportunities are designed and delivered in a way which makes them accessible to as many young people as possible. Although in its infancy, services across the board are being strengthened by the extension of local authority psychological services to post-school. Post School Psychological Services ⁶¹, through work with individual young people and organisations, are making an important contribution to improving interventions and sharpening up practice by developing the skills of professionals from different disciplines ( e.g. Get Ready for Work training providers, Careers Scotland key workers and further education teaching and support staff) and advising on strategies for meeting the needs of particular NEET sub-groups.

76. However, not all young people are fortunate enough to have high quality provision available to them. Recent research ⁶² has shown that in many Scottish localities the services and support options available for the NEET group can be very limited, and the quality uneven.

Guaranteeing options on leaving school

77. The fact we have national organisations and programmes making provision for this group and the legacy of a Youth Training Guarantee ⁶³ should allow for consistency of the level and quality of services for young people. There should be no automatic assumption, however, that this is in fact the case.

78. For example, we know that there are significant regional variations in GR4W in terms of target client group, performance, and delivery of Lifeskills - a key component of the programme. Progression between our national programmes i.e. from GR4W to Skillseekers and the availability of suitable progression routes from our programmes are also patchy. This post-code lottery is unacceptable.

79. To expose and then remedy such gaps - and, indeed, overlaps ⁶⁴ - we propose that the agencies responsible for delivering key national programmes for the NEET group, set out what they will deliver at a local level and for whom. The local offer of national programmes must be developed in such a way as to ensure greater consistency of opportunity across Scotland, whilst taking account of local needs. As such, it needs to be developed in the context of the local framework for employability and support services proposed in this strategy. There is also a need for greater transparency about the rationale for the deployment of resources locally and the opportunities - where these exist - for these to be enhanced, should local partners agree.

80. The partnership approach we recommend in the later section on 'joint commitment and action' recognises that it often takes a wide range of support to enable some young people to progress to the labour market. In doing so, it challenges local partners to focus on young people who are, or who are at risk of becoming, seriously disengaged.

81. Getting this right involves sorting (i) the infrastructure, within and between mainstream and specialist provision; and (ii) the quality of what is provided, across the board. This presents significant challenges at two levels.

82. At a strategic level, a major, early task for local partners is to assess whether the services on offer, including national programmes, are sufficient to meet the needs of their NEET population. As we know, the picture differs from area to area: in some, the landscape might need to be simplified; in others the mix of provision might not meet local needs or there may be significant gaps in services.

83. We are aiming for an aligned suite of employability and support services, capable of promoting the engagement and sustained progression of young people, including those who are most disengaged. Local partners must establish, as Workforce Plus proposes, a better and shared understanding of the scope of employability services and the need for employability to be joined up with other services ( e.g. education, housing, health, social care). Given the attainment levels of the NEET group, the local post-16 offer needs to support achievement of a SVQ level 2 qualification (or equivalent) and, as such, must include appropriate stepping stone provision, which promotes lifeskills and personal and social development. As another section of this strategy details the right support, too, must be on offer.

84. At an operational level, partner agencies should ensure that services fit together and that there are effective mechanisms in place - for referrals, assessment and tracking - to facilitate this. But we are aware that a number of barriers can stand in the way of this: many front line services providing care and support for those most disengaged do not understand employability and see it as too distant to their client's current situation to give it any attention. ⁶⁵ Moreover, there is a commonly held view that employability is something to be introduced only when a client is 'ready' for it.

85. The table on the following page maps Edinburgh Cyrenians' provision in facilitating the journey from homelessness to a settled working life. It offers appropriate 'step on' provision for people who are prone to slip through the net and who may reject, or may be rejected by, mainstream services. At the same time, sustained employment is in sight, building on earlier opportunities to develop a range of 'soft' and harder skills. Employability is introduced right at the start of contact, as an integrated part of personal planning, alongside housing, health and other services. As such, it is part of stabilisation: not a stage that follows it.

Losing no-one

86. A major early task for the local partnerships will be improving local data on the NEET group. As previously stated, an effective future response to the NEET issue is critically dependant on better intelligence on its causes; the characteristics and numbers in the key sub groups; the stock and flow; and improved long term tracking of young people to further understand patterns of NEET and their consequences.

87. This data is absolutely essential at both a local and national level in order to better target resources and better measure the impact of policy and practice on reducing the size of the group. In many ways, we know what we are aiming for - the Connexions service in England, for example, has established a broad, robust database of all young people from 14 upwards. We see Careers Scotland, in developing its client information system 'Insight', as leading this work. Without a better appreciation of where we start from, and the indicators we need to change, measuring the impact of action taken at both national and local level will be fundamentally comprised.

Supported transitions and sustained opportunities

88. As has been highlighted previously, the core NEET problem which government needs to address is (a) sustained NEET status over an extended period or (b) frequent repetitions of NEET status between short, episodic spells of labour market engagement. As well as getting the infrastructure right, this means getting far better at minimising churn within the post-16 system. Neither can be done without raising the quality of service providers.

89. The understanding and skills of individuals working effectively together with the NEET group at the front line of services are probably the most influential factors in determining positive outcomes for these young people. Improving quality overall will require higher levels of support and professional development for front line staff, who should expect such input in recognition of the key role they play. Consistently, evaluation evidence highlights the importance of having the right people delivering services to the NEET group. To support this, focus must be retained on building the capacity of those agencies that can deliver the goods. ⁶⁶

90. But the bottom line is that providers must improve their engagement, retention and progression rates for young people some of whom - but by no means all - may face significant barriers. This latter point is crucial given what this strategy has said about the varying levels of need across the NEET group. Relatively small levels of extra - and timely - support for some young people may well make the difference between sticking at it, or dropping out.

91. Underpinning all of this is the need to produce evidence of the impact of interventions and their contribution to a young person's long-term employability. This will mean more rigorous tracking of clients than is currently the case. Many of the current performance mechanisms, and financial reward structures, focus too strongly on measuring inputs and outputs, rather than the outcomes of the intervention. ⁶⁷ Even then, the focus tends to be on hard rather than softer outcomes. But it is the latter that represent the small, but often vital, steps of progress.

92. A move towards better tracking of clients is likely to be particularly challenging not only because of the inherent difficulties in measuring 'distance travelled' but also because of the perception - rightly or wrongly - that increased data collection will simply generate greater levels of bureaucracy, diverting time and resource away from the client. However, such rigorous assessment of progress and outcomes is non-negotiable in any serious attempt to improve our response to the NEET group.

93. One of the important measures of the success of the post-16 system is the extent to which it helps our lowest attainers and other vulnerable sub-groups get into, stay in and progress between education, training and employment. This means achieving a high quality range of post-16 services by tackling structural weaknesses, building on what works well and sharing good practice throughout Scotland. It is simply not good enough to offer these young people anything less.

ACTION: POST-16

Guaranteeing options on leaving school:

(i) Scottish Enterprise ( SEn) and Highlands and Islands Enterprise ( HIE), including Careers Scotland ( CS), will continue to build on the success of - and strengthen linkages between - GR4W (including Lifeskills) and Skillseekers. SEn and HIE should further consider how the national training programmes can be developed to improve vocational pathways pre and post-16.

(ii) The Scottish Executive ( SE) will review the Youth Training Guarantee ( YTG) with a view to developing a new guarantee for school leavers, together with an improved vocational training model, testing out these approaches in the 10 schools participating in the CS pilot in
NEET target areas.

(iii) Local authorities, together with their partners, will collectively plan and articulate the training and support for 16-19 year olds they will guarantee to deliver in their area. Building on their statutory duty to plan for the employability of young people who will cease to be looked after, this will make specific reference to the support and provision available to care leavers.

(iv) Project Scotland will set out its proposals for ensuring that young people NEET/at risk of becoming NEET can engage with and sustain volunteering opportunities.

Losing no-one:

(v) The SE will specify the core management information required - at a national and local level - from CS on young people NEET, recognising that local partners may wish further enhancements.

(vi) CS will take lead responsibility - at a national and local level - for working in partnership with the SE, local authorities and other agencies to establish and maintain a national 14-19 database, building on their client information system, Insight.

Supported transitions and sustained opportunities:

(vii) The SE, to build improvements into policies and practices at points of transition and across the post-16 sector, will roll out Post-School Psychological Services to those NEET target areas not currently covered by Pathfinder activity; with a view to further considering national roll out.

(viii) SEn and HIE will support - through contract management and quality improvement processes - the professional development of service providers in order to raise the quality of what's on offer across the board.

(ix) The SE will support the Scottish Funding Council to implement the action plan in Learning for All to continue to improve engagement, retention, and progression in further education.

(x) The SE will develop an employer engagement strategy, complementing other activity with employers, aimed at increasing the range and type of work-related and job opportunities for young people who are NEET or at risk of becoming NEET.

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