Milburn review to call for young Neets to be located and tracked

Alan Milburn’s youth employment review is expected to recommend identifying and tracking young people at risk of becoming economically inactive, backed by locally led youth services across every community in England. It aims to prevent young people from losing contact with education and work, drawing on Dutch outreach practices where youth workers visit people in their neighbourhoods.

Nearly 981,000 people aged 16 to 24 in Britain are classed as not in education, employment or training, around 13 per cent of the age group; 45 per cent are ill or disabled. Youth service spending by English councils fell by 73 per cent between 2010/11 and 2023/24, while full-time youth worker numbers dropped by 34 per cent. The review is also expected to propose subsidised work and workplace support for disabled young people, and Danish-style “flexi-jobs”; it will argue that planned Young Futures Hubs should be part of a wider local system.