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In the focus groups, young people highlighted transport as a key issue for them as a barrier holding them back from participating in education and training after compulsory schooling. Factors in relation to transport that were highlighted are cost, time and distance, often simultaneously identified by the same participants.

It’s a bit of everything really, the cost, the time and the distance, like having to get two trains and stuff. It will cost too much. . .

(Focus group 5)

There were also more specific aspects of transport that emerged as a barrier, such as the need for transport to apprenticeship placements. Some participants found it difficult to access apprenticeship placements, and one described the experience of starting an apprenticeship at a considerable distance from home.

I did an apprenticeship in childcare and I, um, phoned up to do the one over there, ‘Place name’, and they told me I had to phone up a number in London and all I had to do was go up there for an interview and they’d place me somewhere nearer to where I lived. I ended up having to go to London every Wednesday, and the thing that annoyed like quite a few people was they wouldn’t pay for the expenses to go up there and it was £25 a week.

(Focus group 4)

Further, for some young people the cost of transport was prohibitively expensive compared to the wages on offer, such as for one young person who was struggling to work in central London:

When I got a job that was quite good on good money, I had to quit because I wasn’t earning enough to, like, basically all my wages, the £50 a week, was going on just getting to work and it was £52 for a

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monthly Travel Card and that was one week I would work for basically nothing.

(Focus group 3)

The participants also identified a need for some forms of employment to either have a driving licence or a car, such as the comment, ‘Most of the jobs now, you need a driving licence from 18 years and up’ (Focus group 4).

In summary in relation to transport, young people identified cost of transport, time involved in journeys and distance to be travelled as barriers as well as highlighting the more specific barrier of not owning a car. The young people sought greater access to more subsidised or free transport, or a level of earnings which reflected the costs involved in transport. The young people also sought more local opportunities for work and more open access with the removal of requirements for a driving licence unless that was absolutely essential for the job. It was evident though that the concerns were not universally identified, nor did each issue represent the same level of concern for all young people, as this depended on their particular situation, which contributed to their perception of the issue. Indeed, one young person’s comments on transport that ‘it’s the cost, the time and the distance’ (Focus group 5) almost directly paraphrased the summary phrase in Speilhofer’s report in relation to the barriers for young people being ‘the cost, the availability of public transport and journey times’ (Spielhofer et al., 2009, p.69). Speilhofer et al. (2009) highlighted a second key finding that young people were reluctant to travel, with reasons cited as insular communities and a lack of confidence (Speilhofer et al., 2009, p.69). These findings were not seen in the focus group discussions and there were clear cases to the contrary where young people were prepared to travel to neighbouring towns and indeed to London. This may have been a reflection on the different communities considered as the majority of Spielhofer’s sample was drawn from urban communities where there may be less requirement to travel and a greater rivalry between different communities, particularly from a young person’s perspective (Spielhofer et al., 2009, p.69).

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It was interesting to note that Speilhofer et al.’s (2007) review of research literature related to participation did not specifically highlight transport as an issue. It drew out indirectly related factors such as financial and poverty issues (Simm, Page and Miller, 2007; Middleton et al, 2005), but without specifically linking these to transport. This was surprising as Spielhofer et al.’s (2009) report goes on to identify transport as an issue highlighted by the young people themselves. Indeed, there was literature indicating that transport was an issue in relation to young people’s participation, which pre-dated Speilhofer et al.’s (2007) report, such as Mangan, Adnett and Davies’s report (2001), drawing on survey data from 643 young people. This highlighted transport as an important factor influencing choice, as it emerged as third in median ranking by the young people. Interestingly, Mangan, Adnett and Davies (2001) also considered parents’ perspectives and transport again emerges as third in median ranking (Mangan, Adnett and Davies, 2001, p.42). The importance of transport as a barrier was also highlighted by Gorard and Smith (2007) who cited earlier work (Hramiak, 2001) for the case that, ‘a major reason for not continuing with study was distance to the nearest FE College’ (Gorard and Smith, 2007, p.146). Evaluation work related to the provision of the EMA, however, found transport not to be significant factor in relation to participation (Perren, Middleton and Emmerson, 2003), which contrasted with the young people’s perspectives and the wider research highlighted above (Gorard and Smith, 2007; Hramiak, 2001; Mangan, Adnett and Davies, 2001; Spielhofer et al., 2007). This difference in findings was surprising and a disappointing consequence was that the support through EMA was subsequently withdrawn with the loss of support for transport and other living costs. This is considered more fully alongside other socio-economic factors in the section on social barriers to participation below.

The focus group discussions on transport in this research also highlighted examples of how young people have different perceptions of the same issue. In one discussion, one young person commented that ‘Most of the jobs now, you need a driving licence from 18 years and up’, but this was contested by another young person’s view that, ‘Not most of them’ required a driving licence (Focus

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group 4). This was interesting as from one young person’s perspective, ‘most of the jobs’ require a driving licence and this was clearly perceived as a barrier in securing employment. However, for another young person, the perspective was different and ‘not most of them’ were seen as requiring a driving licence. This perception would be likely to affect the approach to the job market and whether a young person would consider applying for a particular position if the requirement was not stipulated, but left open to perception. This built on and extended current thinking in relation to the population of young people who were classified as NEET. There was a well established consensus that this population was not homogeneous (Archer et al., 2005; Speilhofer et al., 2007), yet limited consideration as to how the heterogeneity of the group affected their perceptions of similar circumstances. This focus group discussion indicated the differences in perception could be significant in their influence on a young person’s decisions in relation to participation.