Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government invests £2 billion a year in grant funding to improve the future employment prospects of those participating in further and higher education. Whether in school, college or university, individuals can gain access to careers advice and support through Skills Development Scotland. Educational institutions also routinely encourage students to make full use of their own local careers facilities, with a view to aiding employment.

An action forum on youth employment is being planned in Erskine (for Renfrewshire, Inverclyde and West Dunbartonshire) in August 2012, with a wider rural skills and youth employment action forum taking place in Oban in September 2012. Further events will take place later in the year in Ayrshire, Tayside and Forth Valley.

Please find attached the link to the section on the Skills Development Scotland website that details the public sector contribution rates across modern apprenticeship frameworks by age.

http://www.providercentral.org.uk/OurServices/NationalTrainingProgrammes/Modern_Apprenticeships.aspx.

In December 2011 the Scottish Government announced it would support 1,000 of the most disadvantaged young people including; care leavers, ex-young offenders and young carers, to enter the labour market over the next three years.

An Employer Recruitment Incentive of £1,500 is available this year to support employers who have employed a disadvantaged young person. The incentive will be subject to continuous evaluation and improvement measures throughout the three years that this incentive is available.

Yes. DWP officials in Scotland discussed and commented on the draft Strategy. This included discussions on the Youth Contract.

Skills Development Scotland has spoken to a range of employers and employer-facing groups through the process of developing the certificate of work readiness. Skills Development Scotland is also in the process of establishing an external stakeholder group, which will have employers involved to steer the development of the certificate as it is rolled out.

Given the continuing challenges within the labour market for young people, it is important that we continue to maximise the number of 16 to 24-year-olds moving into employed apprenticeships. All approved modern apprenticeship frameworks in Scotland are funded for this group, with higher contribution rates for apprentices aged 16 to 19.

Skills Development Scotland will continue to prioritise the majority of modern apprenticeship places to the 16 to 19-year-old cohort, get Ready for Work places to 16 to 18-year-olds, and Training for Work places to those aged 18 and above.

The minimum number of hours of work experience required to qualify for a certificate for work readiness will be 192 hours.

In support of Opportunities for All, we anticipate that Youth Employment Action Plans for all local authority areas to be in place by the end of the autumn. For most areas this will be a first version and plans will be updated on a regular basis.

The documents will be available on request, subject to local authority agreement. However, the contents will change on a regular basis in light of progress and local priority.

The Scottish Government is in discussions with a number of equalities organisations and once these are finalised we shall publish the equalities impact assessment.