Young Person's Guarantee Activity Plan (Phase 1): EQIA and Equality Action Plan

Executive Summary

The Young Person's Guarantee is employer-led, building on the success of Developing the Young Workforce, and must make a tangible difference to young people and to those who provide opportunities that allow young people to reach their potential. The key aim of the Guarantee will be to ensure all young people are able to access the opportunities provided through the Guarantee, and be supported to participate and progress within those opportunities. This will involve a 'no wrong door' approach where delivery partners work collectively to connect and support young people towards positive outcomes.

Implementing the Guarantee is a collective endeavour and the Scottish Government has established an Implementation Group made up of partners from the public sector, third sector (including equality organisations), and private sector. The Group, chaired by Sandy Begbie, has been considering how best to progress the recommendations from his initial report and the operational implications of putting them into action. As such, an Activity Plan^[3] (developed with the support of the Implementation Group), sets out the initial high-level activities that are required to implement the Guarantee successfully. This is the first phase of the Plan which will be regularly updated to account for progress made and highlight future activity.

The Plan brings together existing policies and programmes which seek to deliver the ambition of the Guarantee. These existing policies and programmes are funded and delivered by a range of partners, including local government and the UK Government. Building upon these strong foundations, this high-level Plan outlines activity that will maximise and improve this existing work as well as committing the Scottish Government and partners to new activity. The Plan is also aligned to existing Scottish Government strategies - including those relating to education, the economy, and the labour market (e.g. Labour Market Strategy^[4], Fair Work Action Plan^[5], Race Equality Framework & Action Plan^[6], Disability Employment Action Plan^[7], Gender Pay Gap Action Plan^[8] and Future Skills Action Plan^[9]). While the Guarantee could help deliver progress across a number of the National Outcomes (set out in the National Performance Framework^[10]) we can expect the Guarantee to directly contribute towards the following:

• We grow up loved, safe and respected so that we realise our full potential;
• We have a globally competitive, entrepreneurial, inclusive and sustainable economy;
• We are well educated, skilled and able to contribute to society;
• We have thriving and innovative businesses, with quality jobs and fair work for everyone;
• We respect, protect and fulfil human rights and live free from discrimination; and,
• We tackle poverty by sharing opportunities, wealth and power more equally.

The Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA) undertaken for the Activity Plan has highlighted a number of actions to be undertaken in order to fulfil the Public Sector Equality Duty. These actions have been developed into an Equality Action Plan (see Annex) which will sit alongside the Activity Plan.