Former health secretary Alan Milburn is to lead a new inquiry into the rising numbers of young people who aren’t working or studying.
1 in 8 young people in the UK aren’t earning or learning and the numbers have been rising.
We urge Mr Milburn to harness the experiences of people such as our Spear coaches, who’ve been working with jobless young people day-to-day for years.
And we urge him to look at hard evidence of what works.
At The Spear Programme, we support young people at 18 centres across the UK. They overcome barriers such as mental health challenges and low qualifications to get into work or education.
In fact, 75% of those who finish Spear get into a job or onto a course and are still there a year later.
A review by the Department for Work and Pensions’ Data Lab found that Spear is effective. We provide our evidence in the form of both data and young people’s stories.
Spear trainee Ruqayyah dropped out of sixth form and for the whole of 2023 she didn’t leave her house. Since doing Spear, she’s worked as a care assistant, and this year began a social sciences course at a college in London.
“Before I stepped into the Spear Programme, my life was very bleak… I was very isolated and very alone. Thanks to Spear, I've been able to build up that resilience. So when things get tough, I'm able to keep going.”
This inquiry is a welcome opportunity to change the life chances of hundreds of thousands of young people like Ruqayyah. We’re ready and waiting to share our insights, so the UK can unleash the true potential of this generation.