The Youth Contract provision for 16- and 17year-olds not in education, employment or training evaluation: Econometric estimates of programme impacts and net social benefits

The Youth Contract (YC) offers additional support for disengaged 16-17 year olds to move into education, training or work with training. In most areas of England, the programme is run by specialist providers and paid for by the Education Funding Agency (EFA) implementing payment-by-results.

11,144 Youth Contract participants were observed to have started the programme in the EFA-areas and 1,431 in three core cities between August 2012 and August 2013, with 17 year olds and male participants clearly over-represented.

The aim of the impact analysis was to obtain empirical evidence whether the provision of the Youth Contract for the 16-17 year olds achieved its primary objectives.

Overall, the YC is found to increase substantially re-engagement in learning of different levels in all areas. In EFA-areas, 1,375 additional young people re-engaged in learning as a result of participating in the YC. The YC increased the number of additional young people who re-engaged in learning by 113 in Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield and 18 in Newcastle/Gateshead. In relation to 85,800 16 and 17 year olds who were NEET (SFR 22/2013), this is a reduction by 1.8 per cent.