More than one million teenagers have fallen through the cracks of a flagship government ‘guarantee’ to offer every school leaver a suitable post-16 education place.
Data published by the Department for Education and analysed by FE Week reveals around 1.1 million school leavers were not recorded as receiving a suitable offer since records began in 2010.
The figure, which is 6 per cent of 19 million total school leavers for the period, exposes gaps in the ‘September guarantee’ – a policy designed to ensure every 16 and 17-year-old is offered education or training.
In some areas, barely six in 10 school leavers are recorded as getting a suitable offer.
It comes as ministers make fresh promises to “guarantee” post-16 education places and commit billions in employer payments to cut the number of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET).
Guarantee in name only
For more than 15 years, councils have been legally required to “encourage and assist” young people to stay in education.
The September guarantee was introduced in 2008 to increase participation for 16 and 17-year-olds and to identify and track young people covered by the duty.
It was designed to ensure a smooth transition from school into college, training or apprenticeships.
Then in 2015 the education participation age was raised from 16 to 18.
Records reveal that around 70,000 young people a year have not received a suitable offer.
In 2025, 1.3 million teenagers left school and 94 per cent were recorded as receiving a suitable post-16 offer. This means 80,000 were not.
Those missing from the figures include teenagers who received no offer at all, those given unsuitable options, and tens of thousands who were simply “not recorded”.
Postcode lottery
Where young people live has played a role in whether they were offered a suitable post-16 education option.
While 94 per cent of young people in scope of the September guarantee received an appropriate offer last year, some councils reported compliance rates as low as 61 per cent.
Those with low rates mostly blamed data tracking and systems issues.
A spokesperson for Leicestershire County Council, which reported the 61 per cent rate, said: “We are working with our local providers and employers to increase the number and quality of opportunities available to them. We are doing this in line with DfE guidance and in partnership with organisations in the area.”
Derbyshire County Council, which recorded offering a suitable place to 85 per cent of school leavers, pointed to its own internal staff restructures, data-recording pressures, and a local increase in 16 and 17-year-olds.
It said: “Delays in schools and academies returning destination information, staff turnover, and differences in recording systems all affect how quickly offers can be formally logged – which is reflected in the ‘not recorded’ category.”
The council added it was “taking action” to improve performance by strengthening engagement with schools and ensuring it had staff capacity in its youth and family practitioner teams.
Dudley Council, which had an offer rate of 84 per cent, also told FE Week there was a “gap in the recording of numbers”, and breakdowns in receiving key information from local schools and colleges.
Connexions cuts
The September guarantee was introduced in a push to reduce NEET numbers.
However, funding of around £200 million a year for the Connexions careers service was largely scrapped in 2011, stripping councils of specialist staff.
Laura-Jane Rawlings, chief executive of Youth Employment UK, said the cuts to Connexions and local authorities in the early 2010s created a “Wild West” where many areas let youth services fall “to the wayside”.
The introduction of the EU’s GDPR personal data legislation in 2018 and the lack of a national data sharing system was also a “mess” that stopped many schools and colleges sharing student data, she added.
Meanwhile, Oxford County Council told FE Week some students “are not contactable”.
Rawlings said some 16 and 17-year-olds simply “don’t want to stay on” in education or be “tracked” by the government.
She added: “They have got full-time jobs at Tesco, or wherever.
“They don’t want government coming and saying ‘you can do a qualification alongside this’ because they’re just ready to go to work.”
The growing unknown
The DfE’s September guarantee figures suggest that non-compliance with the policy has worsened in recent years.
Since 2019, the number of young people not receiving an appropriate offer each year has grown steadily from 56,000 to 80,000.
The 80,000 last year included 20,000 people, about 1.5 per cent of that year’s cohort, logged as receiving “no offer”, while councils reported holding “no record” of whether 44,000 received an offer.
And post-16 offers made to about 15,000 young people, about 1.2 per cent of the 1.3 million-strong cohort, were “not appropriate” because they were already in employment without training or had “other barriers to address” before education or training could be considered.
However, the DfE warned caution should be applied when using the September guarantee statistics as the quality of data can “vary at local authority levels”.
Matt Dickson, professor of economic and social policy at Bath University, said that while the 94 per cent national average was “encouraging”, a national average of 3 per cent of young people whose destinations are not recorded each year suggests some are being “lost to the system”.
He told FE Week it’s also difficult to know why offers are recorded as “not appropriate”, which could be due to young people needing to go into work, or barriers such as mental health.
The professor added that young people could be recorded as “no offer” because career and study guidance has been “very patchily” delivered across the country since the government defunded Connexions.
In a study on the impact of the compulsory education participation age rising to 18 in 2015, a group of researchers, including Dickson, found the policy had little impact 10 years on.
It said “hasty” introduction of the policy amid a climate of economic austerity, changes in government and removal of local authority control of education via academy trusts all reduced the policy’s impact.
Council cuts and post-16 capacity
Councils are “unique” in their ability to convene local partners to prevent young people becoming NEET, but lack the dedicated funding to do so after years of cuts, according to the Local Government Association (LGA).
It said cuts to council funding led to a 73 per cent decline in spending on youth services between 2010-11 and 2023-24.
Meanwhile, more than a third of councils have told the membership body they are likely to ask for emergency government bailout loans in the next three years – leaving little headroom for increasing investment in specialist youth staff.
In its submission to Alan Milburn’s current review of youth unemployment, the LGA called for dedicated local “youth pathways services” to support young people at risk of becoming NEET.
It said demand for post-16 places outstripped supply, reported a shortage of provision for young people who aren’t ready for a college setting, and warned of a lack of “breadth” in curriculum options and a shortage of in-year start options.
Close relationships
Councils with high September guarantee offer rates told FE Week their effectiveness was due to “close working relationships” with schools and colleges, and investment in careers provision.
Sandwell Council in the West Midlands, which secured an appropriate offer for more than 99 per cent of its young people, said it had “robust tracking and data-sharing systems”.
This includes routinely receiving updates from providers between April and September to quickly target support at students who do not have a suitable offer for the following academic year.
A spokesperson said: “There is a clear correlation between Sandwell’s high September guarantee achievement and its consistently low NEET rates.
“Early, preventative careers guidance supports young people to make informed decisions, leading to more sustainable post-16 outcomes.
“NEET rates for 16 to 18-year-olds are now below the national average, with sustained improvement over the past three years.”
Youth solutions
The government announced a raft of measures to improve young people’s transition to post-16 education in last year’s skills white paper.
These include “automatic” enrolments at colleges, improved data sharing and a national tool for identifying children at risk of becoming NEET.
Three automatic enrolment pilots have already begun, FE Week understands, although it is unclear exactly how the process works.
Recent ‘youth guarantee’ policies include grants for hiring the unemployed or new apprentices, subsidised jobs, and the defunding of apprenticeship standards that are popular with older workers.
A government spokesperson said: “We are determined to break down barriers to opportunity to reach the prime minister’s target for two-thirds of young people to take a gold standard apprenticeship, higher training or heading to university by age 25.
“Our £2.5 billion investment into the youth guarantee and growth and skills levy will help deliver up to 500,000 opportunities to earn and learn, and we’re introducing earlier identification of those at risk of becoming NEET, better data sharing across schools, local authorities and further education providers, and stronger expectations on further education attendance monitoring.
“To build on the September guarantee, we’re also ensuring every pupil gets support from school to find a post-16 place, and trialling an auto-enrolment backstop so that any young person without a plan is given the chance to succeed.”
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