Education and Skills Bill
12:00 pm
Nigel Haynes: I think I have to set to set the scene by predicating that we work with the NEET group at the farthest end—we get referrals from the Prince’s Trust. So it is those in deep need that we are working with, and across a whole cross-section of issues, from crime, homelessness, drug addiction, youth truancy—the lot. So our work spans those.
First, on choice, I think choice has to have consequence, and as far as most of our young people in the Green Paper surveys are concerned, they do believe that if there is a degree of compulsion, for some that is going to be appropriate. I think the important thing for the Committee to look at and understand is that, if you have a number of choices, then they are alternatives.
One of the things we always ask is: what evidence is there that compulsion has an effect? With the young people we deal with, the fact that they come because they want to, and stay because they want to, is a stronger motivation for change. When you look at the choices, particularly with our group of young people, you have to think about what support measures are required to get them to enter. A lot of them are not going to go near it—they have walked away from institutionalised provision and there is nothing to say, with what you have on the table, that they are necessarily going to engage with this proposal.
You need to think, what are the gateways that lead into this particular process? If you think about that for the NEET group—for our lot—I think you will say, OK, support is appropriate, some diagnostic systems are there, which have been raised by other people before us, and therefore you need to get local authorities to sort out how that is going to happen. One of things missing from the Bill is that there is no compulsion, if that is the right word, for local authorities to engage with the voluntary sector. We are dealing with the hardest to reach in this instance.