Alan Milburn said ministers needed to ‘make somebody responsible’ for identifying and supporting the children who risked becoming unemployed. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian View image in fullscreen Alan Milburn said ministers needed to ‘make somebody responsible’ for identifying and supporting the children who risked becoming unemployed. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian Youth unemployment Primary schools to be told to identify children at risk of future unemployment Exclusive: Neet crisis review to call for teachers to be asked to spot those at risk of leaving education jobless at 16
What can Dublin teach us? Milburn goes on quest to learn
Prefer the Guardian on Google Primary schools in England should be required to identify children at risk of leaving education at 16 without finding a job, a government review is to recommend.
Alan Milburn, who is leading a review into Britain’s crisis in youth worklessness , said he would call for sweeping changes in education policy alongside a shake-up of the benefits system to address the problem.
Speaking to the Guardian, he said ministers needed to “make somebody responsible” for identifying and supporting the children who risked becoming Neet (not in employment, education or training) after their GCSE year up to the age of 24.
“The warning signs are there from a very early, early age. You know, frankly from preschool,” he said.
“So, definitely primary schools should be identifying children who are at risk of being Neet. And secondary schools and other services should be intercepting, intervening, supporting and helping those young people to get on a different path.”
View image in fullscreen Alan Milburn bakes with local children at a regional youth resource centre in Dublin. Photograph: Patrick Bolger/The Guardian In an interview during a visit to Dublin this week, the former Labour health secretary said the recommendation would form part of his final report into Britain’s youth worklessness crisis, which is expected this autumn.
Britain’s young adults are bearing the brunt of a rise in unemployment, with the number of 16 to 24-year-olds who are Neet surpassing a million earlier this year for the first time in more than a decade.
Representing as many as one in eight young people, the rate has swelled at a significantly faster rate than in other countries amid a sharp rise in mental ill-health and a tough jobs market.
Milburn’s review comes as Andy Burnham puts tackling the crisis in youth employment at the top of his agenda for government, including changes in his first weeks as prime minister to retool technical education and apprenticeships .
Labour is also gearing up for a fresh tilt at welfare reform amid concerns over a spiralling benefits bill and the hit to the economy and people’s lives from a prolonged period out of work.
Milburn said welfare reform would form a critical plank of his final report, but cautioned that any steps to restrict benefit payments for young people would need to be accompanied by higher levels of education, health and job support.
He said that by the time a young person reached the benefit system it represented an “upstream failure” in education, skills and health policy because a functioning system could have helped them to find a job.
“I think we’ve got to turbocharge that education; that support. We’ve got to turbocharge opportunities for young people; we’ve got to make it easier for young people to get a job,” he said.
“And a…