Increasing the participation of 16-24 year olds in learning and employment not only makes a lasting difference to their individual lives, but is central to our ambitions to improve social mobility and stimulate economic growth.

In Opening Doors, Breaking Barriers, we committed to publish a new cross-government strategy to maximise the participation of 16-24 year olds in education, training and work.

Building Engagement, Building Futures sets out how our radical reforms to schools, vocational education, skills and welfare provision will all make a significant difference to young people’s opportunities and support.

The Government recognises that in some areas we need to go further, in particular to help the most vulnerable young people at risk of long-term disengagement. The strategy sets out our new commitments to additional support through more Apprenticeships for young people and through our new Youth Contract.

Our existing reforms and this additional support will help to ensure that all young people can develop the skills, qualifications and experience they need – to succeed in their careers and make a positive contribution to our society and economy.

Building Engagement, Building Futures has been published jointly with BiS and DWP – more detail on those Department’s policies as outlined in the strategy can be found on Departmental websites

Building Engagement, Building Futures: our key priorities

Alongside creating the conditions for balanced and sustainable growth in the wider economy, the strategy sets out our five priorities for action to maximise the proportion of 16-24 year olds who are participating in education, training and work:

  • Raising attainment in school and beyond to ensure that young people have the skills they need to compete in a global economy.
  • Helping local partners to provide effective and coordinated services that support all young people, including the most vulnerable, putting us on track to achieve full participation for 16-17 year olds by 2015.
  • Encouraging and incentivising employers to inspire and recruit young people by offering more high quality Apprenticeships and work experience places.
  • Ensuring that work pays and giving young people the personalised support they need to find it, through Universal Credit, the Work Programme and our Get Britain Working measures.
  • Putting in place a new Youth Contract worth almost £1 billion over the next three years to help get young people earning or learning before long term damage is done.

Raising the Participation Age: locally-led delivery projects

The strategy also announces a new phase of Raising the Participation Age (RPA) locally-led delivery projects. This phase will start in April 2012 and run until March 2013.

These projects are designed to enable local areas to develop and test their approaches to increasing participation and delivering RPA, and to share learning with other areas in the build up to full participation.

The Department for Education welcomes expressions of interest to deliver a project from existing project area local authorities, and those that have not previously been involved.

Please have a look at the full information on the locally-led delivery projects and the specification for expressions of interest.