To ask the First Minister and deputy First Minister to outline the progress being made on the United Youth programme of Together: Building a United Community, to ensure that it extends to Young People in rural areas.

One of the seven core headline actions committed to within Together: Building a United Community is the development of the United Youth Programme. This Programme is designed to offer structured employment, work experience, volunteer and leisure opportunities and is open to young people from both rural and urban areas who are not in education, employment or training.

To date there has been comprehensive and detailed engagement with youth related organisations and young people themselves to ensure the programme has maximum buy-in and consensus.

The co-design process, begun by OFMDFM, is being continued by the Department for Employment and Learning and is being supported by a Design Team.

The first pilot to help inform the design for the United Youth Programme which was rolled out by Springboard has concluded and has now been evaluated. A call for concept proposals, to deliver pilot projects, was issued in early September. Following a development phase in the Autumn, over 150 pilot applications from a wide range of sectors were submitted in December. An assessment of these proposals was completed with assistance from the programme’s Design Team.

As a result, 50 successful organisations (57 proposals) have been selected to proceed to a further development stage, following which around 10 pilot schemes will be taken forward to move into delivery mode later in 2015, prior to the anticipated full roll-out of the programme in 2016.

A list of those organisations successful in proceeding to the next stage can be found at http://www.delni.gov.uk/index/successthroughskills/united-youth.htm