§ Mr. Steenasked the Secretary of State for Employment whether every school leaver who is not engaged in further education or cannot find paid employment will be offered some work experience or job creation project under the youth opportunities programme; and whether it 412W is his policy that in future no young person will be on the dole with nothing to do.
§ Mr. GoldingOne of the main priorities in the first year of operation of the youth opportunities programme was to provide every unemployed 1978 Easter or summer school leaver who remained unemployed at Easter 1979 with the offer of a suitable place in the programme. A similar objective will be pursued for the current year's school leavers.
The underlying aim of the youth opportunities programme is to provide an alternative to unemployment for all 16–18 year olds who cannot get work or a place in full-time education. The recent expansion of the youth opportunities programme will enable many more young people to participate, and an additional objective of the programme in the next year will be to ensure that by the end of March 1980 all young people who have been unemployed for 12 months or more will have been offered a suitable place in the programme.