Overview
- This week Alan Milburn's interim review warned the welfare system is trapping young people and found that government spending favours benefits over employment support, with 957,000 16–24‑year‑olds classed as NEETs.
- Cabinet ministers are developing targeted bursaries worth hundreds of pounds to top up families' incomes when 16‑ and 17‑year‑olds start apprenticeships, though plans remain under consideration and unfinalised.
- The Social Security Advisory Committee showed some households can lose large sums when a teen begins an apprenticeship, with a worst‑case hypothetical loss of £339 a week, creating a sharp 'cliff edge' between benefits and work.
- Officials are also exploring reclassifying apprenticeships as education and expanding Sector‑based Work Academy Programmes to guarantee apprenticeship interviews and deliver hundreds of thousands of work placements.
- The DWP points to existing funding — £2.5bn and 50,000 extra apprenticeships — but overstretched work coaches who report only minutes per claimant could limit the effectiveness of any new measures and pose difficult choices for disabled young people.