DCSF: Activity Agreement Pilots report
The Activity Agreements (AA) Pilots were launched in April 2006 in eight areas of England. AA was an initiative aimed at testing the effectiveness of conditional financial incentives along with intensive support and brokerage of tailored activities in re-engaging young people aged 16 -17 who had been NEET for at least 20 weeks.
In taking part, young people were offered a weekly allowance in return for committing to a plan and completing agreed activities to reintegrate them back into learning and / or employment. Three levels of incentive payment were tested. The published reports are:
DCSF: Activity Agreement Pilots - Process Evaluation (Order Code: DCSF-RR095) by Sue Maguire and Jo Thompson (Centre for Education and Industry, University of Warwick); Jim Hillage, Sara Dewson, Linda Miller, Claire Johnson, Becci Newton, Peter Bates and Rosie Page (Institute for Employment Studies)
This report focuses on the process evaluation, which comprised three waves of fieldwork in the pilot areas. Respondents included project managers, operational staff from Connexions and local LSCs, and representatives from education and training providers. Research Brief: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/DCSF-RB095.pdf
DCSF: Activity Agreement Pilots - Quantitative Evaluation (Order Code for Report: DCSF-RR096, Order Code for Brief: DCSF-RB096) by Emily Tanner, Susan Purdon, John D’Souza and Steven Finch (National Centre for Social Research) A survey of 3,331 eligible young people in pilot areas was compared to a 2,291 young people in control areas to produce an estimate of the impact of AA. There was also a comparison between participants and young people in control areas.
DCSF: Activity and Learning Agreement Pilots Programme Theory Evaluation - Activity Agreements and Small Step Progression (Working Paper 5) (Order Code: DCSF-RR098) by Becci Newton, Tom Levesley, Joy Oakley, Harriet Fearn and Claire Johnson (Institute for Employment Studies)
This paper is part of the programme theory strand of the Activity and Learning Agreement (ALA) Pilots evaluation. This is a realist evaluation method which focuses on identifying and testing some of the key ‘theories’ that underlie the ALA policy to explore which components of the policy work (or do not work), how, for whom, why, and in what circumstances.
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