PUNTO DE VISTA

As a first step to realising that national ambition, in those areas where youth

unemployment is at crisis levels, we call on public sector bodies, business and

voluntary organisations to come together to form Youth Employment Partnerships in a commitment to make a concerted, collaborative push to get young people out of unemployment or inactivity and into education or work, and to prevent young people from becoming unemployed in future.

In chapter 1, we outlined how youth unemployment varies significantly from one

local area to another, so that within an individual local authority close to no young people might be NEET in one neighbourhood and a very high proportion NEET in another. We have identified youth unemployment ‘hot spots’: neighbourhoods situated in 152 different local authority areas across Britain, where the proportion of young people claiming benefit is double the national average, and where we estimate the proportion of young people NEET is at least 1 in 4 (we list these areas in the appendices). In these neighbourhoods youth unemployment is at crisis levels, scarring not just individual young people but whole communities. We believe urgent action is required in these communities, and that all local organisations in the areas concerned should come together to tackle youth unemployment as a top priority.

Youth unemployment: the crisis we cannot afford

Chapter 7: Making it happen: vision and ownership

The old model for such a partnership was simple. Local authorities would run it. But

there are other public sector players whose involvement will be crucial: Jobcentre Plus, Work Programme providers, schools, and the criminal justice system, for instance. Furthermore, this cannot just be a public sector effort. The jobs will come from the private and voluntary sectors as well as the public, and to engage many of the most disadvantaged young people the involvement of voluntary sector

organisations will be crucial – from housing associations to community groups working with disengaged NEETs. The support needed will not come only from within the locality in question: sub-regional Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) will have a role, as might national charities or private sector employers.

We have therefore deliberately avoided calling for one organisation (such as the local

authority) to lead or coordinate these partnerships in every area. Local authorities have a great stake and responsibility in this field, but in some places others will be well positioned to be asked to take the lead. In one area it might be the local authority, in another the Work Programme provider, in another the relevant Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), in another a major charity.

These partnerships should draw up a collective plan for how they will work to abolish

long-term youth unemployment, putting into practice the vision outlined above in a way that fits with local circumstances.

They would be a vehicle for sharing data (which is currently very poor) and

coordinating activities to tackle youth unemployment (for instance, by facilitating contact between schools and employers, or between social care services and education providers, or housing services and jobcentres, or transport services and colleges). But we believe this collaboration must also see youth employment partnerships pooling a proportion of their budgets to jointly commission higher- quality, better aligned services and to reduce waste. The results ought to include not just better and more coordinated services for young people, but also significant reductions in bureaucracy and duplicated spending. The Worcestershire Total Place pilot on NEETs already mentioned found at least 24 organisations having a meaningful impact on NEETs, spending more than £8 million per year on services (of which approximately £400,000 was spent on administration) and more than £9 million on

benefits.9 _{We believe there is clear scope for greater efficiency, and clear scope for}

youth employment partnerships to put significant combined resource into tackling the problem.

The idea builds on innovative practice in the UK (for instance, community budgets

and City Deals) and best practice abroad (for instance, the approach to NEETs in the Netherlands, where a range of support and guidance is made available in ‘one

stop shops’, combined with an element of benefit conditionality10 _{– and where youth}

unemployment rates are consistently low).

It is important to note that we do not see these youth employment zones as mini

enterprise zones, tasked with ensuring that there are jobs in the areas concerned for young people. Rather, we see them as a means of targeting support at high

concentrations of young unemployed people at a time when resources are scarce and new models need piloting. The organisations involved should give young people the support to find jobs wherever they can, be that locally or further afield.

9 Worcestershire Partnership, Report of the Worcestershire Total Place Pilot (2010)

Chapter 7: Making it happen: vision and ownership

Indeed one of the challenges facing some youth employment zones might be to better

coordinate support (e.g. information and advice, housing, care) to enable young people to move elsewhere to find work, where they wish to.