London's boroughs have called for new, fully devolved multi-year funding to tackle the problem of youth unemployment as the PM warns the issue is an ‘economic catastrophe and moral failure’.
Writing in The Times, Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said the Government needs to invest in the success of young people to provide opportunities for the nearly one million young people not in education, employment or training (NEET).
‘Benefits will become the backstop, not the starting point,’ he writes. The cross-party group London Councils has called for a fully devolved, multi-year funding settlement for employment and skills in the Autumn Budget. It says London has the UK's highest youth unemployment rate, with 25% of 16 to 24-year-olds not in work, and one in six of England's NEETs.
Boroughs supported more than 58,000 Londoners through local employment services in the year to April, but say short-term funding makes planning difficult.
Cllr Kam Rai, the group's deputy chair, said: ‘We simply cannot afford to let a generation of Londoners get left behind. The capital offers an extraordinary range of career opportunities, but too many Londoners face barriers accessing them.’
The group also wants Get Britain Working Trailblazer funding guaranteed for a third year, to protect programmes that have helped more than 6,000 Londoners into education, training or work.
