EXTRA work needs to be done to get dozens of youngsters in Burnley and Hyndburn off the jobs and training scrapheap, according to councillors.

If more effort is not made to tackle the problem in Burnley and Accrington then Lancashire County Council could miss out on Government funding of around £1million.

County Hall has been set a target under its local area agreement (LAA) of ensuring that no more than 6.2 per cent of 16 to 18 year olds are not in education, employment of training programmes.

Across Lancashire it is estimated that there are still around 2,750 teenagers falling through the jobs and training net.

Most boroughs in Lancashire are on course to meet the LAA projections by the target date of January 2009.

But both Burnley and Hyndburn have failed to meet the demand and are dragging the county's average down.

Burnley needed to achieve a 9.2 per cent average by the start of the year - but only reached 9.4 per cent.

Meanwhile Hyndburn was asked to reduce their numbers to 10.7 per cent, and just missed out by achieving 10.8 per cent.

Before the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008, Burnley and Hyndburn need to slash their proportions to 8.7 per cent and 9.8 per cent respectively.

Rossendale, Ribble Valley and Pendle boroughs have also met their targets - Pendle was 0.3 per cent ahead of its expected level of performance.

Education chiefs estimate that, as it stands, Lancashire will only end up with 6.4 per cent of teenagers not in education, employment or training (NEET).

This would result in a £1.6million payout under Lancashire's local area agreement, instead of a possible £2.7 million.

Steve Blackburn, county council policy unit spokesman, said: "A partnership approach to focused work with NEET young people needs to be maintained to engage them and help them remain in education, employment or training."

The target is made more difficult by the fact that one-third of those falling into the NEET category are those leaving care, young offenders, teenage parents and those with learning disabilities. Youngsters with 'chaotic' lifestyles and no settled home life are often problematic when it comes to education and training.

Extra efforts are being made by the Connexions careers service to conduct outreach courses in community settings, to improve employment and CV skills among hard-to-reach groups.

Personal advisors are working in youth offending teams to search for work opportunities and the Job Centre Plus service is identifying vacancies and New Deal placements for young people falling within the right criteria.