The Youth Contract provision for 16- and 17-year-olds not in education, employment or training evaluation

Econometric estimates of programme impacts and net social benefits

The Youth Contract 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. This financing model allows providers only to claim a full payment (up to £2,200) if their participants successfully re-engaged in education or combinations of education and work in five out of six months after they first re-engage.

In addition to areas with EFA-funding, there are three areas (Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield, Newcastle-Gateshead and Liverpool) where the programme is run by the local authorities, which are called the ‘core cities’. Owing to the small number of participants observed until January 2014 (104), we were not in a position to estimate outcomes, impacts and social benefits of Youth Contract provision in Liverpool.

This working paper summarises the key findings of an evaluation study on the impacts and social net benefits of the early stages of the Youth Contract, carried out on behalf of the Department for Education by the Institute for Employment Studies.