The government should do more to help young adults leaving care to get jobs, including employing them itself, the House of Keys heard this week .

Children’s Champion Tim Baker MHK (Ayre and Michael) said that the government must act as ’corporate parents’ to those in and leaving care to ensure they can find work.

Mr Baker had asked Policy and Reform Minister Chris Thomas to detail what is being done to facilitate the employment of care leavers within the government.

Mr Thomas said that there are ’many good examples’ throughout government including the Job Centre, working with St Christopher’s charity, apprenticeship schemes, flexing rules on student funding for off island education and work placements schemes.

However, Mr Baker said that while these methods may help care leavers with looking for work, he questioned ’whether the government is doing enough in this regard’.

He added: ’Isle of Man government is the corporate parent of looked after children.

’And with around 9,000 employment positions within government, surely there must be an opportunity for Isle of Man government to be more proactive and create positive schemes to give these young people, for who we are the corporate parent, the best chance in starting their career.’

He also said that the government is falling behind the third sector in doing this.

Mr Thomas said that ’as an employer, Isle of Man government promotes a work placement scheme, so therefore our human resources policies to attract and hire are geared towards that’.

He added that what Mr Baker had suggested was ’not identified as a specific activity of the attract and hire strategy, but it could be added as a priority’.

Mr Thomas said: ’If it was to be added as a priority, we need additional information from care providers and young people in care to understand the extent to which finding employment after being in care is an issue and to what extent the public service would be the place for people.’

Ann Corlett (Douglas Central) asked Mr Thomas if the government supported equal opportunities for everyone and to ensure ’no one is prejudged when our circumstances are beyond our control?’

Mr Thomas said that was a ’fundamental principle’ of government and public service.

Ralph Peake (Douglas North) said it was ’not always the government’s job’ to provide support but a wider issue for the community.

Mr Baker said that while it is important for the community to support care leavers but government has a duty of care . He added: ’Government needs to more than what it is doing.’