A version of the below blog appeared on Alan Milburn‘s One Million Futures Substack examining why youth inactivity is rising in Britain.
On a sunny afternoon, a couple of days after the England men’s team’s heart-breaking semi-final defeat in the World Cup, I sat on the stands at Anfield with a group of young people.
The young people on the excellent Liverpool FC Foundation work experience programme had moved on from the game, and onto matters in front of them.
They had a message, they told me, for the new Prime Minister Andy Burnham. It was simple. Don’t forget where you’re from. Don’t forget about us.
So how can this country show young people it hasn’t forgotten about them? I put that question to the children that day. Their responses were in line with the rest of the country’s young people. Clean streets. Things to do. And – crucially – jobs.
As the independent Children’s Commissioner for England, I’ve spoken to many thousands of young people across the country. They are ambitious and desperately want to work. But they feel shifts in the labour market acutely.
“My job is a young person’s job”, a girl told me, “But it’s full of people much older than me. I only got it through my auntie. It shouldn’t be like this.”
She’s right.
So far, the signs from this government are good.
On the steps of Downing Street, in his first address to the nation as Prime Minister, Andy Burnham put young people at the heart of the government’s mission.
In his second week, the PM pledged to cut the number of those not in education, employment or training by reforming education and building a line of sight to regional jobs markets.
Work experience needs radical improvement. Children should understand and feel linked to their local labour markets. I am determined to work with the PM to get educational reforms right, so we have high-quality vocational routes and opportunities alongside making sure every child, no matter their background, can choose quality academic paths.
But the answer to this solution is not dissimilar to a career journey: it starts out with the basics. If the PM is going turn around the crisis facing our young people, we need to address the issue of attendance.
Educational attendance and NEET risk are closely linked – one in three children who were persistently absent were NEET at some point by 19, nearly half were NEET by the age of 24.
Children can’t build the skills employers need if they aren’t learning.
When I took up the role 5 years ago, just after COVID, I made it my mission to get kids back into school.
I was very interested in regional approaches, and I was the independent co-chair of the GMCA Attendance Alliance with Andy Burnham, when he was Manchester Mayor. We showed if we understand the causes and join up services we can make a difference.
We need a similar approach to the ‘hidden NEETs’.
These are the young people who are enrolled in post 16 education but are severely absent. They are the children are most in need of targeted support in education and different pathways into work.
Currently, we don’t even have a national picture of attendance once children hit 16.
Any solution must start with understanding the problem. I’ve used my statutory powers to request attendance data from all post 16 education providers to build the first picture of attendance and understand the scale of the hidden NEETs challenge. I’ll be publishing the findings in Autumn.
But what can we do? I know from experience that we have to address children’s barriers to participation such as transport. Free transport for college students nationwide would make a huge difference.
The PM recognises that mental health is a factor. My recent research found that for the first time there were a million referrals to children mental health services. The government should prioritise rolling out of MHSTs in post-16 settings.
I’d also like to see targeted support for children who are being forgotten in NEET conversations – including care leavers and young mothers.
These are just a couple of possible approaches, and I will be setting out recommendations in the coming weeks. By tackling attendance, we can make sure as many young people as possible are in education to get the support they need.
Speaking to the young people in Liverpool, it’s clear how important this is. The thought of finding a job is a huge source of stress.
I’ve launched the biggest ever survey of children, which has already had 600,000 responses, and I’m travelling across the country promoting it – visiting around 30 towns and cities from Hadrian’s Wall to Land’s End.
Already, I have heard very clearly that when children think about what a good future looks like for them, they are thinking about how they will get a job.
“More job opportunities for SEND including training, more free activities I can take part in” – boy, 16, not in any education or employment
“I can’t get an interview without level 4 GCSE maths and English, but I have amazing construction skills. No one will give me a chance. I feel worthless as a result and am giving up hope.” – boy, 16, not in any education or employment
These comments echo the findings of Alan’s review and put a voice to the impossible to imagine headline figure of a million young people who are NEET. Alan has been clear on the need for everyone to play their part in tackling the crisis. I agree.
One thing my work in Greater Manchester showed me was the vital role that regional governments can play in tackling problems that need a range of organisations – often lots of public services – to work together.
Very simply, if I am an employer and I want to engage with local schools, I often don’t have a single point of contact. Likewise, when running schools there was never a clear single point for engaging with industry, though there are brilliant examples of both schools and businesses working fantastically together.
I see Metro Mayors and Combined Authorities as being uniquely well placed to play a role in bringing employers closer to schools and colleges and encouraging more and better work experience – backed by funding from central government.
In my role as independent Children’s Commissioner for England, I look forward to working with Alan and the government to ensure we deliver an excellent education system and routes into work for every child, in every postcode.
I grew up in Scunthorpe, my father, like most men of that generation, was a steelworker. We took pride in that work, knowing that ordinary hands were forging something that would outlast them, something woven into the fabric of the nation itself.
That pride isn’t exclusive to manufacturing, nor to some vision of a bygone British economy. It is inherent to work itself. Today, it is just as alive in caterers and carers as it is on a factory floor. It is precisely that pride I want the young people of my hometown – and indeed all of England – to rediscover.
