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With youth services being hit hard by spending cuts, Nic Fell looks at how local authorities can reduce the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training (Neet) by being more savvy about the information they hold. The long-term cost of supporting a 16-year-old who is not in education, employment or training (Neet) is estimated to be £97,000. With sweeping public spending cuts on the horizon, there will be less funding available over the next few years for supporting 14 to 19 provision, so it is vital that authorities take a more strategic approach to reducing the number of young people who are at risk of becoming Neet. Councils' targets are to ensure teenagers are either in education of working Providing the right support at the right time in a child's life is critical to ensuring they get the qualifications and skills they need to find employment, once they leave full-time education. A report produced in March by the former Department for Children Schools and Families highlighted the benefits of early intervention – both on outcomes for children and on the potential savings to the public purse. In short, the earlier issues can be identified, the cheaper and more effective the support put in place could be. In July, an Audit Commission study showed that being out of school and work is often linked with social issues such as being in care, teenage parenthood and homelessness. The report also suggested that teenagers out of education and employment are often the sons or daughters of parents who have themselves dropped out of school early. This raises the question of when the right time might be to start looking at what support children and families need to reduce the likelihood of young people ending up as Neet. And, more crucially, what the early indicators are that authorities could be looking for. There is a wealth of information already being gathered on children and families by schools, social workers and other professionals every day – where they live, what their circumstances are, what public services they are accessing, for example. By making better use of this existing information and analysing the data effectively, it is possible to identify whether a child might have an increased vulnerability to becoming Neet in the future. One authority in the West Midlands has been addressing the Neet issue by analysing data from its Connexions team on those young people who had ended up as Neet in the past. Staff have been looking at a wide range of historical information, such as attendance and achievement data from schools to details of a child's family circumstances, and whether they were looked-after or from a particular ethnic group. The initiative revealed that one of the key factors which increased the risk of a child in the area becoming Neet was poor attendance in school, particularly among looked-after children. The council gathers attendance data for all children electronically from schools every day. This allows them to act quickly to alert attendance officers of any children who were not in school the previous day. Being able to provide the right support from the first day following a child's unexplained absence from class helps the authority to get them back into school sooner. This is vital to re-engaging children in their learning, and gives them the best chance of gaining the qualifications and skills they need to get a job when they leave school. The project has been incredibly successful as practitioners have been able to intervene much earlier to address issues. School attendance for looked-after children has also improved across the council as a result. The other issue that was high on the council's list of Neet indicators was poor attainment, and so the authority wanted to focus on ensuring every child reached their full learning potential. There are some significant pockets of deprivation in the area, and authority staff regularly monitor the attendance and achievement data for children living in these areas to check how they are performing against pupils across the county. Using its management information system, the authority is able to analyse achievement data quickly and easily on different cohorts of children, such as their ethnic background and family situation. Having this information available at the touch of a button has made it easier for the council to ensure every child is getting the support they need to progress in their learning. Information is the key to improving outcomes for children, and reducing the number of young people who become Neet in later years. Closer scrutiny of the gold mine of data authorities already have on vulnerable children and families could help prevent the need for more intensive support in the future – a sobering thought in these difficult economic times. Nic Fell is product director at Capita Children's Services.

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WHITEHALL

The Neet answer is in the data

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