Labour considers witholding cash from schools if young people become Neet

Labour's independent skills taskforce has concluded that making schools more directly responsible for pupil destination outcomes is the best way of reducing young people who are Neet (not in education, employment or training).

It wants schools to be given a responsibility to track the destinations of all pupils, with an element of funding - potentially 10 per cent per pupil - conditional on passing learners onto the next stage of their education or training.

The report says: "We believe that such an obligation in itself would incentivise collaboration between schools and colleges in the interests of young people. Our proposal would be to set the level of withheld funding at a level which drives institutional behaviour so we suggest an approach based on withholding 10 per cent of per pupil funding for every young person who fails to secure a next step, but this proportion will need testing and modelling."

Schools that had funding withheld would instead be required to use that money to provide an enhanced careers guidance service in an effort to cut the number of future Neets, the taskforce's report proposes.