Agenda item

          The Board received a report providing an update on the DWP Youth Guarantee Trailblazer. In August 2025, the Council, as part of the LCR, was commissioned to deliver the DWP/LCRCA Youth Guarantee Trailblazer which was aimed at supporting care leavers and young people aged 18-21 that are not in education, employment or training (NEET). Halton’s YGT launched with £300,000 from the LCR in September 2025 and tried different approaches to captures its NEET residents.

          Part of the Trailblazer was ‘Halton People into Jobs’ which helped refer young people to up skilling or signposted them to specialist services, including for mental health. NEET young people can meet with the advisors who provide practical support, including CV amending and interview practice. This could also include the means of transport to get to a job. The goal was to help 42 young people get jobs by the end of the funding period. One young person now teaches other adult learners with IT skills and is obtaining a teaching qualification.

          A door-to-door service and phone calls were done to reach out to NEET young people as they would not come to the Council office for support. 36 NEET young people had been helped by November 2025. These people would be managed to ensure that they were progressing in obtaining employment or further education. Care leavers were referred to the service and officers provided a lot of funding to help young people; 14 care leavers engaged with the service and five have secured employment.

          There was a wage incentive for those who helped young people get into work and keep them there when apprenticeship funding was delayed. Funding for the project needed to be managed to ensure as many young people as possible could be helped. Some young people request support with being self-employed, recently the YGT helped an ex-NEET young person be a self-employed tattoo artist. In some cases, multiple attempts had to be done to get young people into employment.

          The launch event at the stadium became a workshop and they learnt which areas needed to be covered to help young NEET people. 61 young people have engaged with the service since its launch. Lots of different teams worked together to make the Trailblazer work and different elements were looked at to help them; for example, that a young person’s rent was too high for jobs to pay for. Positive feedback was received from young people who engaged with YGT.

          For the future, the NEET/Care Leaver Panel will be re-established and the YGT will be promoted more. Promotion was done at the leisure centre and other places to reach out to as many young NEET people as possible. Young NEET people were met with weekly. The money for the first year needs to be spent, otherwise the YGT will receive less funding for its second year.

          The Board praised the work done by officers of the YGT.

          In response to questions raised by the Board, the additional information was provided:

• The YGT worked with Halton College and students have been referred to them and they would go to the College’s events.
• Funding had been used to put NEET young people into education and taster sessions were done with adult learner courses.
• YGT will refer care leavers to services if they were unable to refer themselves. 
• Out of county care leavers do not get home visits by the YGT but they may be signposted to services nearer to them.
• As the funding for the YGT came from the LCR, the Council could bid companies for contracts for young people. Therefore, joint work within the LCR needed to be done.
• YGT had funding until the until end of March 2027.

          RESOLVED: That the report be noted.