Comment: 'Leicester children deserve same chances as others - Devo is how we do it'

Last month, the Children’s Commissioner named Leicester the seventh hardest place in England to grow up.

Across 162 measures of children’s lives, from school attendance to mental health support to youth services, our city sits alongside Middlesbrough, Bradford and Nottingham at the wrong end of what Dame Rachel de Souza calls the childhood lottery.

Dame Rachel’s answer is Devolution. She calls the Government’s rewiring of the state a once-in-a-generation chance to close these gaps, and sets a simple test: will it deliver for children?

It is a test I would welcome Leicester taking. The problem is that we can’t sit it: Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland has no mayoral strategic authority, and so no seat at the table where these decisions, and the money behind them, are now being made.

That matters most for skills. Writing in The Times, the Prime Minister described the one in eight young people not earning or learning (NEETs) as both an economic and a moral failure.

His answer is a guarantee that starts in school: a technical pathway, work placements and apprenticeships for every young person, so that Britain can “invest in the success of our young people” rather than pay for failure through benefits.

This guarantee, however, is only as strong as the system that delivers it.

Mayoral Devolution gap

Nearly half of England now lives under mayoral Devolution, and skills funding increasingly flows through those authorities.

Tees Valley already receives nine times more skills funding than our region.

And, strikingly, the Commissioner’s data shows NEET rates nearly double where post-16 options are thinnest. If this guarantee is delivered through Mayors, young people here risk being guaranteed less.

Interestingly, the Commissioner's report shows that the county region, Leicestershire, ranks eighth on the opposite list, among the easiest places in the country to be a child.

Yet even there the report raises a red flag: only a quarter of children can reach a school-based Mental Health Support Team - the outright lowest coverage in England.

Poor mental health is one of the most common routes out of education and into worklessness, and a young person too anxious to attend school is unlikely to start an apprenticeship.

This is not a city problem or a county problem. It is a regional one, and it needs the joined-up funding and accountability that Devolution would bring.

That is why De Montfort University has joined Devolution Leicestershire, alongside businesses, colleges, charities and our fellow universities.

We want a strong Devolution deal agreed as quickly as possible, and fair funding for our region in the meantime.

Every year of delay is another year group leaving school without the advantages and opportunities its neighbours increasingly have.

Universities ready for Devo

Universities like DMU are ready to help deliver. The parity between technical and academic routes the Prime Minister wants is what modern universities already do.

We work with more than 100 schools across the city and county, and through TeenTech, Step Into Work and our partnership with the Leicester Tigers Foundation we reach young people before they choose their path, and support those who have already fallen out of education or work.

More than half our graduates build their careers in the East Midlands.

But no single institution can close a gap this wide. That takes a regional skills strategy, aligned budgets and one accountable leader, which is precisely what Devolution
provides.

Leicester’s children deserve the same chance at a good future as those a few miles up the road. A Devolution deal is how we give it to them.