The recent ADCS annual conference had a strong focus on adolescents, whether that was in relation to their education, care and health needs or how we can do more to keep them safer in the places and spaces they occupy.  We invited Alan Milburn to join us, but sadly his diary did not allow for him to join us in Manchester.  I do still want to take this opportunity to reflect on the first output from his NEET review, the diagnosis of the issues, if the not the prescription, if you will. The recommendations will follow later this year. 

The narrative is simple, it’s accessible, and the conclusions are devastating for individuals, for public services and for the economy. Approaching one million 16 – 24-year-olds are NEET, if they were a city, it would be the third largest in the country, bigger than Leeds, Cardiff and Glasgow.  Six in 10 NEETs have never had a job and more than half are not looking for work. This crisis is costing the country a staggering £125 billion per year.  So, what’s contributing to this picture, which is described as both a generational faultline and a moral crisis?

At an individual level, the review is clear this generation of young people are facing a multiplicity of challenges and demands unlike any that has gone before it, from rapidly deteriorating mental health and the legacy of both the pandemic and 15 years of austerity to the technology revolution and the housing and cost of living crises.  More than two thirds of young people are NEET have a health condition, which is described as the “standout change,” but not the whole explanation.  Other factors at play include geography, ethnicity, access to transport and social media.  The review spoke to hundreds of young people and over half of survey respondents felt like the education system does not work for them, similarly, the UK has also seen the biggest fall in the sense of belonging at school in the OECD.

The report paints a stark picture of competing, contradictory targets and demands, gaps in accountability and outdated ways of working in our public services: 

• We have a school system that is measured on attainment not outcomes, an undervalued and underfunded FE plus apprenticeships are increasingly being used to upskill existing employees rather than train up new ones.
• We have a health system that cannot cope with the level of distress being seen amongst young people, yet it works with binary thresholds and continues to try to squeeze everyone down the same clinical pathways.
• We have a welfare system that’s quick to label and slow to help, one that young people say feels more like being in trouble rather than being helped.

The labour market has stepped back and jobs in key youth sectors, including hospitality and retail, are falling away at the same time as careers advice and work experience continues to be patchy, at best.  A demotivated future workforce is being screened out by algorithms and interviewed by AI bots before they have the opportunity to speak to another human being, with young people saying they’re tired of being rejected and judged by people who don’t listen to them.

At a system level, the key take away is there simply isn’t a system of participation.  There’s no clear vision or discernible policy framework, no shared outcomes or funding streams, instead there is parallel working, competing priorities and a series of disincentives.  Responsibility is dispersed and accountability is lacking; signals, such as poor school attendance or poor metal health are seen, recorded and routinely reported, but crucially, not acted upon. 

The review encountered concerns, bordering on fear, about what the future holds for the next generation. The unwritten social contract is being broken.  We can do better, we must. The stakes could not be higher for our young people and for our country.