The Independent Revenues and Benefits Monday Discussion Group returned this week to two themes that are beginning to converge: the growing number of young people not in education, employment or training, and the impact of artificial intelligence on public services, appeals and complaints.
Opening the discussion, Malcolm Gardner framed the issue as “three crises and one system failure”: the NEET crisis, a gap in the local authority employment pipeline, and the growing pressure on local welfare services. His argument was that these are not separate problems. The same households often appear across each area, with common drivers including health, education, entry level employment and weak employment support. He noted that the challenge should not be treated as a problem of motivation among young people, but as a structural failure with moral, economic and administrative consequences.
Malcolm also challenged the idea that graduates have abandoned public service. Drawing on the discussion material, he said the evidence suggests the graduate pipeline into public service has remained relatively stable. The real problem, in his view, sits in the middle and lower parts of the workforce, where councils need youth workers, employment coaches, social care staff and frontline officers, precisely the roles that are often best placed to identify and support young people early.
Paul Howarth picked up the welfare dimension, warning that many young people who are NEET may not be claiming benefits in their own right. Some may be within benefit claiming households, but others are effectively invisible to support systems. Paul’s concern was that if young people are not engaged with any agency, councils and partners have fewer routes through which to offer help. He also linked this to Council Tax Reduction, suggesting that there may be a growing need to support young people, particularly care leavers, and to recognise the pressures on families with children.
Sean O’Sullivan highlighted a policy contradiction around non-dependent deductions. In his view, councils are often using higher non-dependent deductions as an easy way to make savings in CTR schemes, but this may work against wider social policy aims. If the policy aim is to support young adults into work, or to help them remain within family households where appropriate, increasing deductions can create perverse incentives. Sean’s wider point was that the system lacks coordination and that there is little evidence of a clear thought process behind the cumulative consequences.
Gareth Morgan focused on the detail of work incentives and benefit interactions. Discussing the youth minimum wage, he warned that the issue is not simply the wage level itself, but what is then clawed back through tax, National Insurance, benefit rules and household level caps. His view was that the policy detail matters greatly, because increased earnings may not translate straightforwardly into improved household finances. Gareth also pointed to Wales, where there has been sustained effort through programmes such as REACT, Jobs Growth Wales and the Young Person’s Guarantee, although he was cautious about whether the available evidence proves their effectiveness.
Tom Clark brought the discussion back to the importance of local community intelligence. Speaking from a Liverpool perspective, he said the council tax reduction scheme itself may not specifically target NEET young people, but financial inclusion work in the community does matter. He argued that Revenues and Benefits teams often lack sufficient community intelligence, and that practical work in communities is where services can make a real difference.
Kevin Stewart raised a more fundamental workforce question: what future does local government offer young people? He noted the ageing workforce, the loss of experience as long serving officers retire, and the difficulty of replacing like with like. Kevin’s concern was that automation, and AI may remove precisely the lower-level roles through which many current managers and specialists first entered local government. He wanted to see more young people enter the profession and build careers, but feared the opportunities are no longer as visible or available as they once were.
Julie Smethurst described the situation as a “perfect storm”. From the Tameside perspective, she explained that the council has committed to taking 100 apprentices a year and has teams working with young people, including those who are NEET. She also noted the Greater Manchester position on exempting care leavers from council tax up to the age of 25. However, Julie added another important factor: the increasing difficulty of frontline public service work. She warned that abuse from the public, stress and burnout make Revenues and Benefits roles less attractive, especially when young people can earn similar money in other sectors without facing the same level of hostility.
Kirsty Brooksmith gave a practical example of how hard it can be to bring new people into the sector. Speaking about efforts through the Yorkshire and Humberside IRRV group, she said they had offered support such as travel costs, hotel costs and event sponsorship, but still struggled to attract and retain younger people. Her view was that the sector is simply not grabbing people early enough.
The discussion also turned to local government reorganisation. Sean suggested that reorganisation tends to affect senior roles most directly, while Kevin thought it may not significantly change the number of staff coming in at lower levels. Tom warned that the effects may come later, citing reorganised authorities where the first two or three years appeared relatively stable before major staff reductions followed.
In the final part of the meeting, the group considered the rapid growth of AI generated legal arguments, appeals and complaints. Malcolm referred to a court case in which the judge had commented on the increasing use of AI by litigants in person. He said the key issue is not simply that people use AI, but that they may use it to construct arguments they do not understand, including arguments based on hallucinated cases or misunderstood legal authorities.
Kirsty said this was already affecting day to day administration, describing AI generated blue badge appeals as “the bane of my life”. Malcolm agreed that parking and blue badge appeals are likely to be among the areas where AI generated challenges increase sharply, because people can now produce plausible sounding arguments quickly, even when they do not understand the underlying law or evidence requirements.
Malcolm’s broader warning was that AI has lowered the barrier to entry. Tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Copilot can help people generate formal sounding arguments within seconds. That may be useful where people know what they are doing, but risky where they do not. He described the danger as a “confidence illusion”, where AI output looks authoritative and persuades people they have a strong case, even when the legal foundation is weak.
Bob Wagstaff closed the discussion by returning to the NEET theme. His view was that the current position reflects the collision of multiple state policies. For years, policy has encouraged large numbers of young people to go to university, but without a matching labour market strategy to create sufficient graduate level jobs. As a result, graduates may end up competing for non-graduate roles, displacing those with fewer qualifications. Bob argued that the problem reflects a lack of joined up government, and that a serious solution requires a joined-up policy response.
The overall message from the group was clear. Youth inactivity, local welfare demand, workforce planning, public service abuse, reorganisation and AI are not separate issues. They are increasingly part of the same operating environment. For Revenues and Benefits services, the challenge is not only to respond to today’s caseloads, but to think much harder about the future workforce, the design of local support, and the new administrative pressures that AI will bring.
The Recording can be found here
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The Independent Revenues & Benefits Discussion Group continues to provide a vital forum for expert analysis, shared learning, and open debate at a time of significant policy flux.
For more information or to join future sessions, contact Malcolm Gardner at Visionary Network. info@visionarynetwork.co.uk The weekly meeting link is here