Fiona Hyslop

The extra funding for Young Person’s Guarantee will include:

• An additional £45m for local partnerships to provide training and employer recruitment incentives
• A further £10m for colleges to deliver around 5,000 more short, industry-focused courses
• £10m to continue to support the roll-out of new school coordinators as part of the internationally recognised youth employment strategy - Developing the Young Workforce
• £5m for a new graduate internship scheme, increased volunteering capacity and third sector programmes

The Young Person’s Guarantee has already created around 18,000 opportunities for people aged between 16 and 24 to help them into work, education or training.

It aims to give all young people the chance to succeed despite the economic impacts of coronavirus while also ensuring employers continue to benefit from the fresh talent and new perspectives that young people bring to workplaces across Scotland.

Economy secretary Fiona Hyslop said: “Building on the early success of our Young Person’s Guarantee and our ongoing significant investment in education, employability and skills, this additional £70m will increase the number of opportunities available for young people across Scotland.

“As we start to emerge from lockdown and rebuild our economy, it is essential we maintain this momentum and ensure our young people have the chance to succeed despite the economic impacts of COVID-19.

“We continue to encourage employers to come forward and join what is a crucial intervention to prevent the pandemic leaving a lasting impact on the employment opportunities of our future workforce.”

Councillor Kelly Parry, COSLA’s Community Wellbeing spokesperson, added: “Scotland’s councils are fully committed to helping young people move closer to, into and progress in employment and we offer a range of support to meet these objectives. The Young Person’s Guarantee investment for local employability partnerships is a valuable and welcome addition to the range of support local authorities currently lead to help young people.

“Our focus will be to work closely with others, to provide intensive support and offer opportunities to ensure that our young people are not left behind. Local Government is of course a major local employer, and provides a range of work experience, apprenticeship and job opportunities and we will look to build on this as the economy recovers.”