Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to monitor the (a) location and (b) activity of young people under the age of 18 for the purposes of monitoring implementation of the participation age.

Under Raising the Participation Age (RPA) requirements, all young people are required to continue in education or training until at least their 18th birthday. Local authorities are required to track the activity of young people in their area so they can identify those who are not participating, or who are at risk of not doing so, and support them accordingly.

While this responsibility rests with local authorities, the Department for Education supports them by providing a secure portal for them to exchange data about young people’s activities and share good practice. The Department also publishes a Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) Scorecard to help local authorities manage their performance and regularly makes participation data collected by local authorities publically available, although its completeness and accuracy is dependent upon the methods used by each authority.

This data is published on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/participation-in-education-and-training-by-local-authority.