Long-term support cures hopelessness

In the public and newspaper debate, issues quickly became sensationalised as "Neets on the streets", supported by statistical releases on high youth unemployment and the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training, which was last week revealed to be almost a million.

These figures are indeed very worrying, but relate to an issue quite separate to the civil unrest we witnessed. So, let's put the riots in context. The vast majority of young people did not take part. As the dust settles, the statistics on the number of children arrested according to newspaper reports range from 17 to 21 per cent. Some young people were certainly involved and were guilty of criminal acts and must face the legal consequences.

However, have we all too easily dismissed an entire generation as "lost" due to the acts of a relative few? Many did not riot, many were very scared as their streets were trashed and many turned out the following morning to clear up in their local areas.

The big debate should be about the many young people who are failing and being failed - those who are leaving school without the skills for work and life; the lonely, hungry and confused children who are unable to engage in school. To get to grips with this issue, we have to understand what is happening with our economy and in our communities, the lack of adequate pastoral support in schools, the waning of lowand semi-skilled jobs and the inter-generational nature of worklessness.

Perhaps the riots have had one benefit: they have highlighted the areas of most acute disadvantage, where young people face the toughest challenges. In such areas, the road from birthplace to workplace is a treacherous one. The problem of worklessness is now so deeply entrenched in many of these communities that children will need our help not just through their school years, but through their teenage years and into the workplace.

A recent YouGov poll found a quarter of unemployed 16- to 24-year-olds did not believe they would find jobs. That sense of hopelessness is no way to start adulthood.

Young people have told me time and again that their services lack continuity. They fall through the cracks between services. They hop on and off six-month work programmes. They do not understand what else they have to do to make it into the labour market. Funding systems, both government and philanthropic, create unhelpful silos. Where families and communities are unable to provide it, young people need long-term help with joining up the dots.

This term at the Private Equity Foundation, we have started an initiative in London schools, providing 14- to 19-year-olds at most risk of falling behind with a designated "coach". Each coach is responsible for delivering a bespoke plan of action, identifying available services and ensuring that young people gain the premium skills they will need to enter the world of work.

The coaches will stick with them, not for six months or one year, but for five whole years. At £5,000 a pupil, it's not cheap. But its a darn sight cheaper than the £160,000 that the taxpayer can end up shelling out later on in the person's life.

It saddened me this summer that the debate focused on the problems with young people rather than the problems faced by young people. Soon the riots will be old news, but they might just have served a purpose if our policymakers will now address the Neet problem. The government now needs to put its money where its mouth is.

Shaks Ghosh is chief executive of the Private Equity Foundation