Brown in £40 'bribe' for idle teens

TEENAGE dropouts will be paid up to £40 pocket money to go to school or work under plans unveiled by Gordon Brown today.

The Chancellor is targeting an army of 16- and 17-year-olds who have dropped out of school but shun work or training places.

Some 150,000 are idle when, in Mr Brown's view, they should be taking up jobs or training schemes. The Chancellor was using a speech

to the Unison trade union today to unveil eight pilot schemes, including two in London, to tempt the teenagers with £20 to £40 a week.

'These are the most difficult cases who have failed to respond to either encouragement or warnings and have effectively fallen through the net," said a Treasury source. The Government already pays similar sums, called educational maintenance allowances, to persuade sixth formers to stay at school.

Teenagers in workplace training also get payments but ministers have never previously offered to 'bribe' school leavers. To qualify, they must sign contracts with local authorities. The £140m pilot schemes will cover 30,000 teenagers.