Centre for Cities finds higher youth Neet rates in England's smallest places than in its nine biggest cities

The size split is narrower than the headline suggests. In the Guardian's account of the analysis, the 10 smallest places sit 1.8 percentage points above the nine largest ^[15]. The named cities blur the line further. Birmingham, one of the two cities with the most Neets by count ^[6], has a rate 0.2 points above the small-place average ^[17]. Slough, the example Johnson gave when he said the picture was mixed across smaller cities and towns ^[22], is at 14.1% ^[9], only 0.2 points above the big-city average ^[16]. Sorting places by population would put the line right through that overlap.

Rate and head count rank places differently. London's Neet count is about 42 times Telford's ^[18], yet Blackpool's rate is 8.1 points above London's ^[19]. The Guardian does not name the ten places behind the 15.7% average, so Blackpool, Slough and Telford cannot be assumed to be among them.

Rob Johnson, a senior analyst at the Centre for Cities, tied the higher small-place rates to local economic strength ^[20]. "A big root cause of higher rates of Neets in these places is because we know these are cities that have weaker economies," he said ^[21]. Slough complicates that. "Somewhere like Slough, which is actually quite a productive economy, does have a relatively high rate of Neets. There's an issue there about connecting those people to the local economy," Johnson said ^[23]. We think that points to two problems under one label: too few jobs in weak economies, and a missing link to existing jobs in stronger ones. A local hiring pipeline addresses the second more directly than the first.

Telford's response is a local pipeline. Sarah Davies, executive director of employer engagement and partnerships at Telford College, said there were multiple drivers, among them Covid-19, mental health disorders and changes in the job market, and no "one size fits all" solution ^[13]. "If you're out of work, you're more likely to stay out of work," she said ^[12]. George Bate, 21, has a games design degree and is training as an HGV driver after the job centre pointed him to the course ^[14]. He described the hiring side this way: "I'd applied to most of the stuff around the area and just didn't get a response," he said ^[14].