Councils outsmart Youth Contract

Local is better. That is the message from the Local Government Association, which recently called on the government to hand over the Youth Contract to local authorities.

The LGA's call for local control of the national youth employment scheme is, it seems, not just a tussle for power but a reflection of the success of devolved versions of the £1bn initiative.

The first results from the national Youth Contract, run by the Department for Education, suggested that it managed to get 27.5 per cent of the 16- and 17-year-olds it worked with during 2013/14 into employment, education or training. It is, the DfE says, a "promising start".

Contrast that with the results delivered in Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield, where the Youth Contract is devolved to the local authorities under the City Deal initiative. Together they got 57 per cent of the young people they worked with into work or education.

Their success is not a one-off. In Newcastle and Gateshead, where again the Youth Contract has been devolved, 47 per cent of the young people with which the two local authorities have worked entered training or employment.

For the LGA, the success of these two localised interpretations of the Youth Contract shows that Whitehall just isn't working for out-of-work young people.

"With the greatest will, Whitehall cannot do it all from the centre," says Peter Box, chair of the LGA's transport and economy board.

So why is the local approach outperforming the national? CYP Now spoke to the leaders of the Leeds and Newcastle-Gateshead projects to find out.

LEEDS YOUTH CONTRACT

For Gary Milner, lead for skills for learning and life at Leeds City Council, local intelligence is what makes the difference.

Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield might all get their Youth Contract cash from the same grant, but on the ground the three authorities take different approaches to helping 16- and 17-year-olds in their areas. "What we do in Leeds is not the same as in Bradford and Wakefield, but we do come together and share good practice," says Milner.

Leeds has put the work of its local Connexions service at the heart of its take on the Youth Contract. "We've tied what we've done with the Youth Contract to what is done with the information, advice and guidance service," explains Milner.

"Rather than having those activities separate, we commissioned it as one big contract rather than two different contracts. So Igen have the contract for all the information, advice and guidance and the Youth Contract. The two link together and they identify the young people and do the work with them as well as referring them to the various interventions we've got in place."

The council also calls on its extensive links with local companies to help provide the young people picked for Youth Contract support with business mentors, work experience and advice on life in the workplace.

"We work very closely with companies around this. They do mock interviews, let the young people visit and help them get an understanding of what is expected of them when they take up a job," says Milner. "We've built on what we've already got in Leeds. For example, we have an education-business partnership, so getting business involved hasn't been a problem."

Leeds has also localised the support within the city, giving 25 wards and clusters their own slice of the Youth Contract money. "We put it out at local level to see what interventions they think are needed that we are not commissioning centrally so that they can tie the work into the real need in that locality," says Milner.

Milner believes this focus on local knowledge explains why the work in Leeds is outshining the national Youth Contract. "It's that local intelligence which is so important and which you lose on a national scheme," he says.

"When it's national it's just bolted on rather than being an integral part of what you're trying to do."

N-GAGED, NEWCASTLE AND GATESHEAD

When it came to setting up a localised version of the Youth Contract, Newcastle and Gateshead decided to think smaller rather than bigger.

"Because we were given the freedom to do it differently we were able to devise something to meet our needs," says Melanie Bear, senior adviser on employability, skills and progression at Newcastle City Council.

"We understood what provision there already was and where some of the gaps were, so we developed something to meet those gaps."

The result was N-Gaged, a reimagined Youth Contract that seeks to offer personalised support to young people who are, or are at risk of ending up, not in education, employment or training (Neet).

"Within the national model there is a particular unit cost that providers have to work with but we had the freedom to vary that, so we decided we wanted to produce something that had individualised support for a smaller number of clients," says Bear. "Rather than engaging a large amount of young people and giving them a smaller bit of support, we wanted to engage fewer and give them more."

The more targeted approach has resulted in N-Gaged seeking to focus its work on teenage parents, young offenders, young people in care and those with disabilities or learning difficulties.

As in Leeds, Connexions is where the young people needing help are identified.

Mentoring is central to the N-Gaged approach, says Bear: "We felt that while there is a fair amount of training provision around for young people who are Neet, the missing bit was some intensive mentoring support. Our hope is that because the mentors are supporting them through the programme and for six months after, we will get more sustainable outcomes."

The programme itself concentrates on two approaches: help with literacy and numeracy skills; and providing short work experience placements tailored to the individual young person, and that, ideally, come with the potential to lead to a job or an apprenticeship.

N-Gaged lined up a work placement with double glazing firm Warmseal for Anthony Rutherford. For him, the programme has made a big difference: "I've proven to myself that I can get out of bed in the morning. I feel I've been given a chance to show what I can do."