Education Leavers
19th July 2010
David Burrowes highlights the problems faced by education leavers with criminal records and asks what is being done to help young offenders get a second chance to get on the employment ladder.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con): What steps Jobcentre Plus plans to take to assist education leavers into employment and training in 2010. [8936]
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith): All education leavers claiming jobseeker's allowance receive help and support from a personal adviser, access to jobs and a range of employment and training opportunities. These include help with job search skills, which is very targeted and very personalised. Help is also available from partner organisations such as Connexions.
Mr Burrowes: Given the previous Government's legacy of youth unemployment, is my right hon. Friend aware of the additional problem of education leavers with criminal records seeking employment through the route of rehabilitation? What is his Department doing to give young offenders a second chance to get on the employment ladder?
Mr Duncan Smith: I think my hon. Friend will find that the unified Work programme will be one of the better ways of tackling that issue, because it will be very narrowly focused. If we get it absolutely right, it will be narrowly focused on the needs and problems of those individuals. The previous set of programmes was too disparate; now we can focus, and we should be able to help. Another issue worth raising, although it does not come under the remit of our Department, is what remains on people's records, and I hope that in due course we will be able to look carefully at that. People trying for that second chance sometimes find that employers say no to them simply because they have been inside, and a compassionate society should try to do something about that.
