Local government has the ambition and ability to help young people succeed, but we need more and better public service reform in order to do it.
That is the message I gave when I took part in a panel debate on localism at the Annual Youth Employment Convention last week.
Although growth is strengthening, the need is still acute. Inclusion’s research projects that without further reform, one in three young people will be unemployed or underemployed by 2018.
I want Essex to be a no-NEET county, but like many other councils up and down the country, we have ambitions for our young people that extend beyond our current powers.
And I’m fighting against the perverse Whitehall logic that requires councils by law to report on NEET numbers, but will not let go of the tools that we can use to reduce them.
I am proud that Essex boasts better apprenticeship outcomes than central government and NEET numbers here are the lowest since our records began.
We have set up a business-led Employment and Skills Board to ensure employers and colleges are working as one, and we have more really good ideas about the future of skills provision.
Councils with a track record like ours need to have our work supported, not supplanted by top-down initiatives from Whitehall. We need to get behind good initiatives in local areas and bring them together to improve outcomes for our young people.
But we must also intervene where we see local young people or businesses being served poorly by an initiative.
The 16-17 year old portion of the Youth Contract has been running in Essex for 18 months, and has only just scraped double figures in terms of the number of young people it has helped. I have no doubt whatsoever that local partnerships could deliver much, much better.
Despite the rhetoric of councils being told that we are free to be radical and ambitious, the reality is that some ministers don’t want to let go, as a number of select committee reports have recognised.
The result of that intransigence verges on the tragic: services too fragmented and centralised to meet the needs of young people or employers, and our human and economic potential is stymied as a result.
We must be allowed to develop the reform we need which brings services together to succeed for young people and our businesses. Austerity has been a great driver of innovation, and as cuts begin to bite harder aligning and pooling will become even more of a necessity.
Local partnerships have realised that, but some departments have been much slower to catch on.
We need ministers to do their bit to promote localism and decentralisation, and not just for cities.
And while panels, enquiries and working groups such as those recently announced by the LGA and the Public Service Transformation Network are all well and good, my view is that we already know what the problem is and have the evidence that a better way forward is possible.
So let’s just work together to tell ministers that – whether city or county region - we can deliver on our ambition and give young people the opportunities they require to succeed.
Cllr Kevin Bentley is deputly leader of Essex and cabinet member for economic growth and infrastructure
