Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what incentives are in place to encourage employers to offer supported internships to young people with Education, Health and Care Plans.

It is a priority of the department to improve the outcomes of young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The SEND Code of Practice states that all children and young people with SEND should be prepared for adulthood, including employment, and that this preparation should start early.

As structured study programmes based primarily at an employer, supported internships help young people aged 16-24 with an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan to achieve sustainable paid employment through learning in the workplace. There are no financial employer incentives, but in 2017, the government provided £9.7 million for local authorities to train additional job coaches to support young people with SEND on work placements, and to establish local supported internship forums, to bring together education providers, local authorities, employers and other key figures to identify local opportunities and overcome the local barriers to create a supported internship programme.

The number of young people undertaking a supported internship has been rising annually. The most recent report was in January 2020 and showed that 2,231 young people with EHC plans were undertaking supported internships, an increase from 1,646 from the same time in 2019 and 1,186 in 2018.

Work is currently ongoing as part of the SEND Review to consider how best to continue to boost employment outcomes for young people on EHC Plans. Our ambition is to publish proposals for public consultation in the spring of 2021, as soon as it is practicable to do so, working with children, young people, their families and experts across education, health and care to deliver our common goal of improving the SEND system.