Careers England Task Group Meeting RESTRICTED - Policy Careers England Task Group Meeting September Guarantee, post-16 participation, NEET and tracking February 2013 Gill Cowan Participation Division

September Guarantee Correlation between September Guarantee and participation, both year on year and by geographical area 92.4% 16 and 17 year olds received an offer in 2012, compared with 92.7% last year 60% authorities made offers to more young people than last year, helped by Common application processes Schools playing greater role in identifying intended destinations and offers RONIs But there was a wider spread of performance, with around 20 authorities making offers to fewer than 90% 16/17 year olds Latest participation figures showing similar trend; most areas improving but wide gap between the highest and lowest performers 2

16-18 year olds NEET Latest quarterly LFS figures show the proportion of 16-18 year olds NEET falling from 14% at end Q3 2011 to 11.3% at end Q3 2012 But there remain some significant challenges: 18 year olds are twice as likely to be NEET than 16/17 year olds Young men are twice as likely to be NEET than young women CCIS is significantly under-recording NEET. At end June 2012, LFS estimated 191,000 16-18 year olds were NEET. CCIS showed 81,500 Under-recording means that young people are not getting support and is affecting delivery of programmes such as the Youth Contract From April 13, young people NEET whose ‘currency’ has expired will continue to be recorded as NEET until they progress NEET adjustment formula remains under review

Tracking CCIS will be the main means of monitoring the duty to participate CCIS also being used to make more data publicly available, for evaluation and destination measures Changes to are being made to improve robustness: New duty on education and training providers to notify local authorities when young people ‘drop out’ New requirement to record ‘course end date’ on CCIS New definition of LDD for CCIS purposes Clearer definitions of participation linked to RPA Statutory Guidance Good practice is emerging and being shared on the LGA ‘Knowledge Hub Data sharing with schools and colleges is improving Managed moves Notification when young people leave learning Privacy notices

Tracking (cont) But there is more to do Better use of ULNs Sharing of information between local authorities ‘Housekeeping’ to remove duplicate records DfE will challenge areas that are not delivering their duties Wrote to around 40 areas in 2012 with high levels of ‘not knowns’ Letters followed up by visits to 5 areas; ‘not knowns’ reduced by 50% in these areas in following 6 months New round of ‘improvement support’ activity now underway including individual visits, thematic workshops, and RPA project dissemination events