South Lanarkshire Council

Barbara-Jane McIntyre (Youth Employability Co-ordinator, South Lanarkshire Council) provides an overview of how they use the 16+ Data Hub and how it can support young people within a post-school employability environment.

Using the suite of reports available we are able to download them and sort and extract data on young people’s current employability status.

Having a range of partners feeding into the 16+ Data Hub is a significant advantage for ourselves in South Lanarkshire Council. We work very closely with the Skills Development Scotland Team in South Lanarkshire helping to ensure updates on young people are passed onto them and recorded in real time.

There are a number of benefits to using the 16+ Data Hub; some examples of its usage include tracking the young people who complete our ASPIRE Programme (one to one bespoke employability support for young people), helping to ensure they enter and also more importantly sustain their destination. If they unfortunately become unemployed or have an unconfirmed status we are able to identify this and make contact with them to offer and provide further support.

We are also able to track our most vulnerable young people including those who are care experienced; we are able to download (Report A) which includes young people up to the age of 24 and highlights if they have care experience. We are then able to contact our Social Work links to offer employability support if required.

Other vital data we are able to download is the School Leavers Destination Report (Report I). From this Report we are able to undertake an in-depth analysis of our Local Authority as a whole and for each Secondary School. This enables us to look at patterns and trends for our school leavers, and work with schools for improvement and curriculum planning.

Contacting young people when they leave school can be difficult; however, by downloading the appropriate 16+ Data Hub reports we are able to see if they have started their College or University course as planned.

In South Lanarkshire we have an increasing number of schools who are using the 16+ Data Hub reports in this way. Reports are issued to them on a regular basis and they can then interrogate the data for their own particular purposes including supporting their school improvement plan. Going forward we are looking for all schools to access the 16+ Data Hub themselves

What's next?

Find out more about the 16+ Data Hub and Opportunities for All.