Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Youth Unemployment Innovation Fund.

The Innovation Fund is being independently evaluated and the findings will be published as soon as they are available. The first qualitative research findings were published in June 2014 and found that the Innovation Fund had successfully identified and engaged some of the most disadvantaged young people in society.

Interim impact assessment findings will be published in the summer of 2015.

We also publish quarterly Official Statistics and those show that things are progressing well, with 15,400 young people starting participation on Innovation Fund Projects up to the end of September 2014, (which is an increase of 2,700 from March 2014), and 16,600 positive outcomes achieved up to end of September 2014 (which represents an increase of 5,400 from March 2014).