Chamber and committees

The Young Person’s Guarantee – Implementation Progress Report was published on 28 July and outlines the progress made against each of the initial recommendations within Youth Guarantee - No-one Left Behind: initial report, published on 2 September 2020. The progress report also provides an outline of the next steps against the commitments made in the supporting Activity Plan and is accompanied by the Key Performance Indicators, which are part of the broader Measurement and Evaluation Framework underpinning the Young Person’s Guarantee. The Framework will support our understanding of the impact of the Young Person’s Guarantee across a range of economic, education and equalities outcomes, enabling the targeting of future resource and to ensure that no young person is left behind.

As Minister for Higher Education, Further Education, Youth Employment and Training, I will be leading this work, alongside Sandy Begbie, partners and stakeholders to continue to build on progress to tackle youth unemployment and to improve the life chances of young people. This includes the delivery of relevant manifesto commitments contained within First Steps , which are to:

• Appoint a Minister specifically tasked with supporting youth employment;
• Invest £45 million through local partnerships to provide training and employer recruitment incentives;
• Fund colleges to deliver around 5,000 more short, industry-focussed courses to help young people train for jobs in key industries;
• Roll-out new school coordinators across the country to support young people access education, work, or training; and,
• Establish a new graduate internship scheme and increase places on volunteering and third sector programmes.