The Milburn Review is soon expected to publish its diagnosis of one of the most pressing challenges facing the country: the rising number of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET).
But the real question is: how will policymakers and the sector respond?
At EDT, we work directly with tens of thousands of young people and adults out of work or education every year. We consistently see not a lack of ambition, but a system that too fragmented to help young people turn that ambition into reality.
Access to employability support varies hugely depending on where a young person lives; Intensive or tailored support in one local authority not existing in the next. 18-year-olds falling between youth and adult funding streams. Waiting times for access to mental health services varying wildly from one area to another.
This is replicated at a national level. Responsibility for NEET young people is spread across schools and colleges, local and combined authorities, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Education and the voluntary sector.
The resulting patchwork of provision is difficult for professionals to coordinate and even harder for young people to navigate.
This matters all the more because we have found that nine in ten frontline employability providers identify low confidence as a key barrier to young people entering education or work – a challenge even more acute for care-experienced young people lacking stable support networks.
The youth guarantee, two weeks’ worth of work experience and expanded apprenticeships are to be welcomed. But it takes time for these policies to translate into real opportunities, and without stronger national coordination, we risk adding more programmes to an already complex landscape.
Gatsby for NEETs?
We can learn from one part of the system in particular that has improved significantly in recent years: careers guidance in schools and colleges.
The Gatsby Benchmarks offer a clear national framework for what good careers provision looks like. Too often delivery still varies, but schools and colleges share a common set of standards, supported by national infrastructure through the Careers and Enterprise Company and Careers Hubs.
There is no equivalent framework for the services supporting young people who are not in school or college, employment or training.
NEET provision could benefit from the same principle: a framework for high-quality support coordinated nationally – but combined with strong local partnerships to deliver it.
Drawing on our programme delivery, we have begun to develop a framework built around the following principles.
If we are serious about reducing NEET numbers, prevention matters as much as the cure. We cannot separate what happens in schools, at key transition points, and once young people fall out of education or work. Any ladder of opportunity is only as strong as its weakest rung.
That means ongoing access to high-quality careers information, advice and guidance, alongside responsive post-16 learning pathways aligned to young people’s goals.
Ongoing support
Where a young person or adult disengages, local services should be able to track, monitor and re-engage them quickly to reduce ‘not known’ outcomes.
Every NEET young person should have access to a trained adviser and personalised support plan. Where they face complex needs, support should be differentiated and delivered holistically, with strong coordination and collaboration across services. That could include access to flexible funding to address practical barriers such as transport, childcare or digital access.
There should be clear pathways into further education, training and employment, including meaningful opportunities to experience and succeed in a work environment, building confidence and employability skills step-by-step.
Crucially, young people must be at the heart of decisions affecting them. That includes these important conversations about the shape and nature of services designed to support them.
At present, many of these elements exist but they are unevenly distributed or too short-term. Strong local programmes deliver excellent outcomes, but they are rarely embedded across the system.
In the same way that schools work towards the Gatsby benchmarks, organisations supporting NEET young people could work towards a shared set of standards for early identification, personalised guidance, workplace exposure and coordinated support back into education, employment or training. This could be coordinated centrally by an independent body (akin to the Careers and Enterprise Company), and supported by local hubs to drive meaningful results.
The Milburn Review has an opportunity to move the conversation beyond diagnosis and towards system reform.
We dearly hope it recommends national coordination, clear standards for quality support, longer-term funding and genuine collaboration across services to ensure that new initiatives deliver lasting change.
Because if we are serious about reducing the number of young NEETs, we must know what we are all striving for, what excellent practice looks like, and how that is delivered in a joined-up system from school through to adulthood.
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