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West Lothian - More Choices - More Chances (MCMC)

(Young People not in Education, Training or Work)

Also in this section: | Economy | Migrant Workers |

Concern about the numbers of young people who are not in education, employment or training, is due not only to the problems they currently face, but also because of the longer term impact on their lives & futures.

Note: Improving services to young people in this group who need 'more choices & more chances' is one of the key local priorities being addressed through the Outcome Agreement, and joint work is also currently being piloted in Livingston North ward. This site is being developed to include links to both these activities.

Estimating the number of young people aged 16-19 in the MCMC group is difficult, and the right-hand menu includes links to some work previously undertaken by Scottish Government, which combines data on school leaver destinations with data on young people in receipt of benefits. There are also more recent data on school leaver destinations.

Skills Development Scotland School Leaver Destination Report 2007 – 2008

The figures below are taken from the School Leaver Destination Return (SLDR) which is a statistical return undertaken by Skills Development Scotland (SDS) on behalf of the Scottish Government. The return is based on a 100% follow up of young people who left school between the 1st of August 2007 and the 31st of July 2008, carried out during the month of September with staff across SDS making contact with over 60,000 school leavers. It is important to note that the reported destination is based on the latest known destination recorded, as at the snapshot date, 6th October. Therefore, if a leaver, on leaving school, entered employment and by the month of September had become unemployed seeking, within the SLDR this would be reported as unemployed seeking. Destinations can be fluid and any changes in a leaver’s SLDR status will be reported in the SLDR follow up.

The Scottish Government use the data produced from the Return to report against the National Indicator and target, “increase the proportion of school leavers (from Scottish publicly funded schools) in positive and sustained destinations (FE, HE, employment or training)”. The Return is used by SDS as an outcome measure for its projects; particularly early intervention projects that have a focus on improving the school leaver destinations of young people who otherwise would have had difficulty in making the transition from school to the labour market. Partners, particularly Local Authorities, use the data to inform initiatives developed as part of the More Choices More Chances Strategy, to evidence the success of initiatives, measure progress against targets, and to identify areas to target resources to improve the post school outcomes for young people.

The West Lothian More Choices More Chances Group on the 'Community of Practice' website which is open to officers across the Community Planning Partnership contains a detailed destination report for each school in West Lothian. You'll have to log-in with your user name/password. If you're not already a member it's worth exploring the wide range of Communities of Practice some of which are open to everyone (search on Scotland for a full list).

More Choices, More Chances in West Lothian

It is estimated that there are 920 young people (16 to 19 year-olds) in the More Choices, More Chances (MCMC) group in West Lothian. This estimate is based on the Scottish Government's methodology for local authority areas (see below).

• West Lothian currently has the 4th highest MCMC level among Scottish Council areas, although this has declined since 2005.
• The MCMC group consists of 920 young people, which equates to 11% of the total West Lothian 16-19 year old population.
• 390 are 16 to 17 year-old school leavers who are not in employment, further or higher education or training (Sept 2007 data).
• 530 are 18 to 19 year-olds on some form of state benefit (Nov 2007 data).

Estimating the size of the group

It is known from research that this group of young people, about which information is required if interventions are to be targeted appropriately, is a very diverse group, and one which is difficult to measure, especially at small area level. A recent study conducted by the Training and Employment Research Unit at Glasgow University (TERU), compared a number of ways of estimating the size of this group. The Report (see menu), looked at the following data sources:

• the Annual Population Survey (APS), which combines results from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the English, Welsh and Scottish Labour Force Survey boosts. APS datasets are produced quarterly with each dataset containing 12 months of data. There are approximately 170,000 households and 360,000 persons per dataset. The APS provides more robust local area labour market estimates than the main LFS. However, due to small sample size no reliable estimates are available from the APS for West Lothian;
• a combination of the School Leaver Destinations Survey (mostly 16-17 year olds) and data on 18-19 year olds on Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefits (obviously school leavers destinations may change subsequent to survey);
• the difference between the total population aged 16-19 and the numbers known to be in education, employment and training;
• an administrative database, similar to the English CCIS database, building on Careers Scotland?s Insight database.

The report recommended that in order to monitor changes over time in this group by locality, the only reasonably accurate measure for assessing change on an annual basis is the the DWP benefits data and the School Leaver Destinations Survey. This is restricted to only one month per year, but a quarterly proxy for changes in the size of the group by localities can be generated through the DWP data on 18-19 year olds.

The Scottish Executive Analytical Services previously produced a report on the MCMC figures for West Lothian which is attached. The key points are outlined below:

• The estimated size of the this group in West Lothian at Oct/Nov 2004 was 900.
• Around 311 school leavers in 2006 were unemployed and seeking employment and training.
• Over 45 per cent of 18-19 year old claimants of DWP benefits were claiming Jobseekers Allowance in 2004 (around 230 people). Around 130 (one in 4) claimants were claiming Incapacity benefits and one in 5 claimants was a lone parent.
• Census data suggest that over half of the MCMC group in West Lothian (63 per cent) were unemployed and seeking work, however the remaining 37 per cent were economically inactive.
• The percentage of school leavers from West Lothian entering employment (27 per cent) was similar to that for Scotland (26 per cent). Furthermore, the percentage entering full-time education (50 per cent) was lower than that for Scotland (53 per cent).

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