The Provision of a Young Persons Tracking Service

Local authorities are expected to have arrangements in place to track and monitor young people's participation in education, employment and training up to age 19 (and to 25 for young people with learning difficulties and disabilities).

The Education and Skills Act 2008 legislated to raise the age of compulsory participation in education or training until at least 18 by 2015 and until the end of the year in which young people turn 17 in 2013 - this is known as Raising the Participation Age (RPA). Local Authorities are responsible for ensuring that young people in their area participate and that there is support for young people to overcome barriers to engagement.

St Helens Council (\"the Council\") has for a number of years fulfilled its duty to track young people through a contract with Careers Connect Ltd (CC). This has included the provision of a Department for Education (DfE) compliant Client Caseload Information System (CCIS) which CC have used to handle their day-to-day case work, generate management information and provide the local authorities monthly return to the National Client Caseload Information System (NCCIS). St Helens are seeking to procure a Tracking and Monitoring Service that will need to fulfil the DfE requirements and to be fully operational from 1st July 2017.

In order to provide the optimum service, there must be strong mechanisms in place for recording and reporting post-16 learning destinations of young people aged 16-19. A Client Caseload Information System (CCIS) will provide the Council with the means of recording such activities as well helping to target resources towards those young people who are not engaged in education, employment or training (NEET) and those young people within vulnerable groups.