Summary
IPPR’s A better deal: Tackling the NEET crisis, published on 16 September, proposes three connected reforms.
WorkStart would create paid placements in places where the labour market produces too few entry-level opportunities. Apprenticeship reform would prioritise young people, help small employers offer places and remove barriers to participation. A specialist youth employment service would give young people a named adviser, alongside an enhanced youth allowance within universal credit. Together, these form A New Youth Contract.
Much of the diagnosis matches what we see in delivery. The report takes local opportunity seriously, recognises that transitions rarely run in a straight line, and argues for relationships that survive setbacks.
It arrives with an estimated 981,000 young people aged 16 to 24 outside education, employment or training in April to June 2026: 13% of the age group. That was 30,000 more than a year earlier and 30,000 fewer than the previous quarter. ONS, August 2026.
We would add a fourth pillar: sustained funding for the local people, organisations and relationships through which all three proposals would work.
The report describes that support well. What remains unresolved is how to pay for it over time, and how to stop successive programmes consuming resources as they start, stop and rebuild. Every new scheme brings mobilisation, recruitment and reporting requirements. Every ending brings closure work and uncertainty. Where relationships and capacity are lost, the next programme pays to establish them again.
Those costs belong in the account of what employment support costs. They also belong in the argument about how it should be organised.