Agenda item

Report ED16017

The Committee considered a report providing an update on the provision of support for young people who were identified as not participating in education, employment or training (NEET) or being at risk of not participating in education, employment or training, and the strategies in place to increase the participation of young people following the implementation of the Education and Skills Act 2008, under which all young people aged 16 and 17 years would be required to participate in education or training until the end of the academic year in which they turn 17 years from September 2013 and 18 years from September 2014.  The Education and Skills Act 2008 also introduced duties on Local Authorities to promote the effective participation of young people in education, employment and training in their area and to make arrangements to identify young people not participating in education, employment or training.

The participation of young people aged 16 to 18 years in education, employment and training (EET) was recorded on a national database, from which statistical returns were provided to the Department for Education on a monthly basis around the number of young people who were not participating in education, employment or training or whose status was ‘not known’.

The total 16-18yr cohort for December 2015 was 10503.  The monthly adjusted NEET performance for Bromley for December 2015 was 344 (3.4%)  The December 2015 figures for NEET and ‘Not Known’ showed a significant improvement on December 2014 performance.  Statistical neighbour comparisons also indicated that Bromley’s December 2015 NEET performance for academic age 16-18 year olds was better than the average statistical neighbour performance of 3.8% and Bromley’s Not Known figure of 6.5% was much better than the average statistical neighbour performance of 9.1%.

Participation levels for young people of academic age 16 and 17 showed an increase in December 2015 compared with December 2014 and a number of activities had contributed to this including tracking process to identify young people’s participation in EET, support for young people who were NEET or at risk of NEET to access EET, and action plan to increase 16-18yr old participation rates.

The Committee noted the statistics provided in the appendices to the report.  The Chairman queried why Darwin Ward had such a low proportion of 16-17 year olds as meeting the requirements for participation.  The Committee heard that there were 9 young people in the ‘not participating’ cohort and this small number skewed the statistics.  Of the 9 young people in the cohort, 3 were NEET and 6 were unknown.

In response to a question, the Youth Support Programme Manager reported that it was slightly too early to determine whether there was more engagement from young people resulting from the expansion of Bromley College.  Officers would have a better perspective in a couple of months.  The Director of Education clarified that Bromley College had a good range of subjects for young people that were ready to engage however to date there was no sophisticated provision for the more entrenched NEET cohort.

In highlighting the underachievement of white working class boys, the Chairman requested some further information and analysis surrounding an ethnicity breakdown from census data.  The Chairman also requested that the report be forwarded to the Children’s Board for information.

RESOLVED: That the report be noted and forwarded to the Children’s Board for information.