Ms Anne Vaughan:

I will ask Mr. McKeon to speak about the youth guarantee. The Deputy asked about the statement of mutual understanding and penalties. The bottom line comes down to rights and responsibilities. People have a right to a payment and a responsibility to engage. That will happen at one-on-one level and if the deciding officer is of the view that the person concerned is not properly engaging with us, for example, by not taking a training course or not participating, we will look at the imposition of penalty rates. Natural justice will be a part of this. In toto we have applied approximately 3,900 penalties . However, the purpose of penalties is not to penalise a person but to get him or her to engage with us. To be fair, engagement rates are now quite high.