Since 1990, a yearly government survey has indicated that between 9 and 10 per cent of 16 to 18 year olds is without a wage, schooling or training. Our new study looks at the financial, personal and social cost of teenagers who are so-called NEET - not in education, employment or training. The study has found that the problem may be worse than the annual 'snapshot' survey shows, but that a new approach can make scarce resources work harder for those at greatest risk.
Report summary
The report summary document gives an overview of the main findings from the research, complete with a series of questions to help commissioners and members of 14-19 partnerships, children's trusts and local strategic partnerships explore what local issues may be for young people not in education, employment or training and how to work more effectively to help them.
School and College Briefing Documents
The Briefing for Schools highlights schools’ key roles in preventing young people becoming NEET and ensuring they make successful transitions from primary to secondary school and then on to further learning, work, and training.
The Briefing for Colleges highlights the key role further education colleges, sixth form colleges and school sixth forms play in helping young people make successful transitions from secondary school to post-16 learning or training, preventing young people becoming NEET and ensuring young people who are NEET can re-engage in learning. The messages in this briefing are also relevant to other post-16 learning or training providers such as third sector organisations and independent training providers.
Both briefings include local case-study examples and a set of self-assessment questions that can be used to assess and improve a school’s or college’s performance in preventing young people becoming NEET.
Changes in NEET distribution over time
Since the launch of our report on 7 July 2010 the Department for Education has released updated NEET figures for 2009. We have produced a series of maps detailing changes in the proportion and numbers of young people not in employment education and training 2007 and 2009.
A guide for councils' overview and scrutiny function
The downloadable scrutiny guide is for members of scrutiny committees or panels and the officers who support them. It provides the framework for a scrutiny review of action taken to reduce the number of teenagers not in education, employment or training.
Benchmarking your council's performance for young people most at risk of being not in education, employment or training.
You can use our downloadable benchmarking graphs to benchmark your own performance and highlight areas for improvement. The charts in this document show performance in fieldwork areas for groups of young people most at risk of becoming NEET. Each graph shows the percentage of young people who spend time out of education, employment or training in the two years after they leave secondary education at 16. Performance varies across the areas visited, with areas performing differently depending on the at-risk group.
Technical paper: creating a predictive model of the characteristics of young people not in education, employment or training
Our technical paper explains the methodology used to quantify the relationship between the characteristics of young people and their risk of being not in education, employment or training for six months or more. The results of this analysis are referred to in the main report.
Targeted Briefings
Targeted briefings for practitioners are now available on:
- young offenders;
- teenage parents;
- young people with special educational needs;
- young carers; and
- care leavers.
These can be accessed from the targeted briefings for practitioners page.
Estimating the life-time cost of NEET: 16-18 year olds not in Education, Employment or Training
Research undertaken for the Audit Commission by The University of York
The study, by researchers in the University of York’s Departments of Social Policy and Social Work and Health Sciences demonstrates the long term cost of rising levels of youth unemployment associated with young people between the ages of 16 and 18 who are not in education, employment or training (NEET).
The lowest estimate of the cost to the public finances across the lifespan of young people in this category is nearly £12 billion, an increase of 44 per cent in the last eight years. Estimated lifetime losses to the economy and to individuals and their families total £22 billion – a 210 per cent increase over the 2002 figure.
The research can be found on York University's website (external link)