Nine months on from Nick Clegg's initial pledge to link up Jobcentre Plus work coaches with 16- and 17-year-olds, the Deputy Prime Minister announced last week that a pilot scheme testing the new arrangements in four areas is to be extended to a further 30 regions.
Since May, local authorities, Jobcentre Plus work coaches and voluntary organisations have been working together to support 16- and 17-year-olds who are not in education, employment or training (Neet) in Lewisham, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Sheffield.
Work coaches provide personalised advice and support to jobseekers, including CV and interview support, and signpost them to local employment opportunities.
The government is yet to publish any data showing the effectiveness of the initial pilot schemes, and the four councils involved have been asked not to share any results until the Department for Work and Pensions releases official statistics sometime in the future.
Despite this, two of the councils involved in the pilot have outlined to CYP Now how the Jobcentre Plus coaches have been integrated into existing services.
Hertfordshire County Council
In Hertfordshire, a single Jobcentre Plus work coach is working alongside a well-established team of personal advisers and skills co-ordinators.
Andy Manson, manager of Hertfordshire County Council's services for young people, says the lack of work coaches makes the scheme "logistically difficult" in such a large county, but he is keen to see what results the programme yields.
Manson says his team has been well protected from budget cuts and that it works closely with other areas of children's services, including youth justice and looked-after children, which has put the authority in a good position to target those young people who are hardest to reach.
"We have good information about the young people who are out there," he says. "The work coach is working alongside one of our teams and other colleagues to target particular young people who are at most distance from the labour market.
"The difficulty for them is that it takes some time to get young people to a point where they can engage in the programme."
However, Manson says that once the young people become engaged with the authority, the work coach will go out and meet them in one of the council's community facilities.
He says the authority is currently working through a list of 16- and 17-year-old school-leavers to identify those who have become Neet, and says that the work that follows will be "critical" to the success of the scheme.
Manson says that the council carries out this work on an annual basis and seems sceptical about the impact the Jobcentre Plus work coach will have.
"I will be interested to see what does come out of it because these work coaches are trained to work with adults," he says.
"It does not replace local authority teams who are trained to work with young people."
However, Manson believes that the scheme could have particular benefits for 17-year-olds who are Neet.
"For those people who are 17 and may well come under Jobcentre Plus's remit when they get to 18, it's useful for them to know how it will work and will hopefully help their decision making."
Norfolk County Council
Norfolk County Council is still in the very early stages of its pilot of the Neet employment scheme, after launching its programme in July, slightly later than planned.
The delay was caused by a series of "teething problems", which Karin Porter, education and training participation strategy manager, says related to the accommodation of Jobcentre Plus work coaches within the council's base.
Now up and running, the scheme is supporting hard to reach 16- and 17-year-olds in Kings Lynn.
"We very purposefully decided not to go with Norwich and chose Kings Lynn because it has the second highest number of Neet young people in Norfolk," Porter explains. "It has greater challenges in terms of doing this kind of project. For example, we don't have a council-run young people's venue."
Under the scheme, Porter says that Jobcentre Plus coaches work alongside the council's careers advisers to identify and target young people in need of employment support.
Together they are using existing council schemes, including the Troubled Families programme, and relationships with organisations in the voluntary and community sectors to identify and engage those who are hardest to reach.
"There is a particular venue in Kings Lynn – the Discovery Centre – that works with some of the most disengaged young people," she explains.
"I know that the Jobcentre Plus work coaches have developed a good relationship with staff there and are getting referrals directly from the centre."
Porter is hopeful the scheme will improve outcomes and, if so, she says the council will look at embedding it in other parts of the county.
But despite her expectations, Porter disagrees that the scheme presents a better way of working.
"The Neet group is very diverse. They have many multiple and complex needs. It adds an additional resource into an existing mix of people who work with young people who are Neet," she explains.
