Alan Milburn will urge the government to create a pre-apprenticeship scheme for school leavers who are not yet ready to start a full apprenticeship, in the centrepiece recommendation of his review into Britain's youth jobs crisis. His final report had been due imminently but has now been held back until after the 28 October budget.

What the national pre-apprenticeship route would do

The proposed national pre-apprenticeship route would offer young people further education, training and work experience before they take up an apprenticeship. It is aimed at those who lack the qualifications, confidence, workplace experience or routines a full apprenticeship demands, and would be delivered mainly through further education colleges.

The programme would combine English and maths with technical learning and hands-on experience with employers, on the lines of a one-year pre-vocational pathway that already exists in Austria.

Milburn set out the plan in his own words:

He said the route would be "Geared towards one thing: getting a young person into work".

The youth jobs figures behind the call

The call comes against a backdrop of rising youth unemployment and shrinking access to apprenticeships for school leavers:

• •As few as one in five apprenticeship starts currently go to a 16- to 18-year-old.
• •The number of under-19s enrolling on an apprenticeship has almost halved in a decade.
• •The number of young people not in education, employment or training (Neet) has risen to almost 1 million, a rise Andy Burnham has promised to tackle.
• •As few as 2% of people starting apprenticeships were previously Neet.

Milburn has said that for years young people were told to get an apprenticeship, but many face a gap between leaving school and being ready for one.

A review delayed until after the budget

The review had been scheduled for launch next week, but its full recommendations have been pushed back until at least November amid concerns in Downing Street that publication could clash with the 28 October budget. Sources close to the review downplayed the significance of the delay.

Downing Street is still deciding how to present the report alongside the Timms review into disability benefits, the budget and the prime minister's 10-year plan for government.

The wider welfare debate around the report

Milburn, a former minister in Tony Blair's cabinet, has signalled that a shake-up of Britain's benefits system will be central to his report. Ministers including Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, have said there is both a moral case and an economic one to overhaul the welfare system, with the war in the Middle East rattling public finances.

Among the options being explored is scrapping a disability benefit for under-25s and replacing it with a multibillion-pound package of support to get into work. The government, however, is wary of provoking a repeat of the welfare rebellion which forced Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves into an embarrassing and costly U-turn.

On apprenticeships specifically, the government this month announced a £100m expansion of local apprenticeship services over two years, delivered by regional mayors, to double the number of areas matching young people with local businesses.

The full recommendations are now due no earlier than November, with Downing Street still weighing how the report should be presented alongside the Timms review and the prime minister's 10-year plan.