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Dept for Education and Skills

Answer

Charles Hendry: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills pursuant to the answer of 6 December 2004, Official Report, column 296W, on departmental initiatives (young people), if she will list the projects or initiatives which have been launched by her Department since 1997 which are no longer in operation. [206006] Margaret Hodge: [holding answer 20 December 2004]: Since its inception in 2001, the Department for Education and Skills has kept under review the support it provides for young people aged 13 to 19 with the aim of ensuring that that support meets young people's current and anticipated needs. Within its current areas of responsibility there have been a number of projects and initiatives intended to help young people which have begun since 1997 and which have become part of our mainstream provision. Quality Protects, launched in 1998 by the Department of Health as part of the Government's wider strategy for tackling social exclusion, focused on children and young people looked after by councils, in the child protection system, and other children in need. The programme transferred to the Department for Education and Skills as part of the machinery of Government changes in 2003. The original provision of three years had already been extended to five years, with the programme being mainstreamed from 2004. The Young Runaways Development Project, for which the Children and Young People's Unit provided funding in 2002-03 and 2003-04, transferred to DfES and has now ended. Both programmes demonstrated effective ways of meeting the needs of children and young people which are enshrined in the Children Act 2004 and the Every Child Matters: Change for Children programme, launched on 1 December, and which have introduced, among other provision, a statutory duty to promote the education and wellbeing of looked after children, a statutory duty on organisations working with children and young people to safeguard them and promote their welfare, and children's trust arrangements to focus integrated, multi-disciplinary support on the needs of children and young people. Similarly, Active Citizens in Schools, an award scheme that empowers young people to get involved in projects that benefit the school and wider community, ran as a pilot project from Spring 2002 until September 2004, and is now being made available to schools nationally through a Framework and Toolkit funded by DfES. Schools can then adapt the scheme to fit their needs. Other projects and initiatives have ended as they have been subsumed within other programmes: Connexions Summer Plus, which became part of the anti-crime Positive Activities for Young People programme; and New Start, which paved the way for Learning Gateway which evolved into Entry to Employment (E2E), the work-based programme for young people aged 16-18 not yet ready or able to enter an apprenticeship, sustained employment or further vocational learning opportunities.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

206006; 429 c189-90W

Session

2004-05

Subjects

Children Children in care Disadvantaged Apprentices Advisory services Education Employment schemes Protection Training Young people Runaway children New start partnerships

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk