The Building and Land Guarantees Ltd Blog

Firms and charities are to be invited to bid for a payment-by-results scheme to try to get "NEET" (Not in Education, Employment or Training) teenagers into work or training, in a project launched by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

The £126m scheme is aimed at 55,000 teenagers in England with poor qualifications who are currently not in education, employment or training.

Mr Clegg says it is about "getting them out of the living room, away from the telly and into the world of work".

The scheme, part of the Youth Contract announced in the autumn, will invite bids for contracts worth up to £2,200 for each teenager who can be sustained in work, education or training for 12 months.

The announcement comes less than a week after the latest unemployment figures showed that the numbers of 16 to 24-year-olds not in work increased by 22,000 to 1.04 million in the three months to December. The last NEET figures, for the third quarter of last year, showed that more than a million 16 to 24-year-olds (1,163,000) - almost one in five - were considered "NEET".

Nick Clegg has pledged to deal with the "ticking time bomb" of teenagers who are NEET.

Speaking on Sky News this morning, Mr Clegg said: "Sitting at home with nothing to do when you're so young can knock the stuffing out of you for years, I think it is incredibly important that, at that very vital moment in someone’s life, when they are in their teens, that they don’t lose the ambition and the hope and the optimism about working.

By the age of 42, someone who has been frequently unemployed as a teenager is likely to earn 12-15 per cent less than their peers, the Department for Education said.

But is The £126m scheme too ambitious and will it work?

As we have our own apprentice, we are great supporters in giving youngsters an opportunity to enter the world of work. Comment your thoughts below and get the discussion going!