As the number of school dropouts rises, how do we solve this NEET problem? (Video)

Bradley Howe would never have described himself as a Neet. But he fitted all the criteria.

School held little appeal and when he left formal education two years ago with no academic qualifications, the future looked bleak.

Various work placement schemes came to nothing and facing a life on benefits, Bradley joined the thousands of others not in education, employment or training, known as the Neets.

Many of those who slip through the net at an early age struggle to claw their way back.

Sometimes it's down to a lack of opportunities, often its accompanied by a lack of inclination and yet there are those like Bradley, who at 18 has turned his life around.

Enrolling on Kier's City Stewardship scheme in his home city of Sheffield almost six months ago, he was given his first proper taste of the world of work.

The jobs aren't necessarily glamorous. One day, the teenagers can be clearing a pensioner's overgrown garden, the next they can be mowing grass and cutting hedges, but in the structure of reporting at 8am for work, combined with a chance to go back to the classroom and complete qualifications in literacy and numeracy, Bradley, and others like him, has thrived. Next month, after beating dozens of other applicants, he will begin a four-year gas fitting apprenticeship with the company and at the end he will hopefully emerge as a 20-something with both a trade and a future.

"I haven't stopped smiling since I found out," he says. "I didn't appreciate school until I had left and by then it was too late. I'd never been particularly academic, but I could have achieved a lot more than I did.

"I felt frustrated with myself. I'd always wanted to learn a trade, but when you're 16 and haven't made the best of things, it's difficult to know what to do.

"When I got the chance to come on the City Stewardship scheme I knew I couldn't blow it again. I just thought, 'Right, if I can show them I'm a grafter, maybe someone will take notice and give me a chance'.

"I never thought it would lead to an apprenticeship. There's massive competition to become a gas fitter, but I passed the tests and that was a real confidence boost. I know how lucky I am to have a second chance."

Not all of those who take part in City Stewardship are blessed with Bradley's enthusiasm. Some, lacking parental support, struggle to get out of bed on time, others moan about the money – they're entitled to up to 30 a week under Education Maintenance Allowance on top of basic benefits – and there is always a percentage who drop out without ever completing the 22-week placement.

Yet no one said getting Neets off the benefits cycle was going to be easy. Figures revealed by the Department for Education yesterday show that one in six 18 to 24-year-olds are now classed as Neets. While the numbers have dropped slightly on the same time last year, there are 130,000 more Neets than there were five years ago and their ranks may well swell further.

With well-qualified A-level students unable to secure a place at university joining the jobs market, and with continued economic

uncertainty causing many firms to be reticent about recruiting, the country's often forgotten underclass could be dealt a further blow.

Against that backdrop the City Stewardship scheme remains something of a beacon. Its origins can be traced back more than a decade ago when Sheffield City Council began taking on youngsters for whom the normal routes to work had been barred.

When construction group Kier took over responsibility for repairing and maintaining the city's 42,000 council homes and buildings, they also embraced the stewardship scheme.

Working in partnership with Sheffield Homes and CTS Training, the idea has always been to harness disaffected youngsters to do jobs that otherwise wouldn't get done, from painting graffiti-daubed stairwells to clearing communal gardens, and in the process teach those who come on board the practical and social skills many of their peers take for granted.

In the early days, there were just a handful of supervisors and a dozen or so youngsters. Today, there 39 mentors and each year 250 or so 16-18-year-olds take part in the placements.

It is just the tip of the iceberg, but Kier has successfully rolled out the scheme to Leeds and Barnsley and with many of the youngsters going on to to either secure apprenticeships within the company or full-time work elsewhere, City Stewardship is proof not all seemingly lost causes have to remain that way.

"The biggest challenge when they first start is getting them to turn up on time," says Andy Dewsbury, who worked as a painter and decorator before joining Kier as a supervisor. "Often their parents don't

work and they have grown up without any role models. Sometimes you do feel like a bit of a surrogate father figure, but it's a good to be able to pass on a bit of your own knowledge and experience.

"As much as teaching them how to paint, it's about teaching them responsibility. They have to learn how to take instructions, to work as part of a team and for many of them, that's a completely alien concept when they first arrive.

"Most of these kids aren't bad, they just need a steer in the right direction. No one would pretend this scheme is a cure-all, but it does show what can be done and the benefits work both ways.

"Working here has opened my eyes to the problems some youngsters face and recently I have become a magistrate. I've only sat a dozen or so times, but when you see teenagers in court who have gone off the rails, it does make you think. Maybe if there were more schemes like this, that wouldn't happen."

As well as gardening and painting and decorating, City Stewardship is also involved in what it calls target hardening. While Kier has a contract to change the locks of any burgled Sheffield Council property within two hours, the presence of the City Stewards means they can return to victims' homes to fit added security measures.

It's a service 83-year-old Ray Swinburn would rather not have had to call on, but he's grateful it exists.

"My wife and I were having an afternoon doze in the living room," he says, speaking outside his home on an apparently quiet city estate while supervisor Andy Bandoo and his young charge, Josh Shutt, fit window alarms. "When we woke up, I realised we had been broken into. They'd emptied my wife's handbag, taken a spare set of keys and driven off in the car.

"We're just grateful not to have been hurt, but it does shake you up. I know you can't ever be completely secure, but after what happened, it's nice to see a couple of friendly faces around and if the work they do acts as a deterrent then it's people like me and my wife who will benefit."

It remains to be seen how the Government's pledge to narrow the gap between rich and poor fits with its raft of cuts, but as those who have graduated from Neet to full-time employment know, behind the statistics are thousands of individual stories.

"I start a job in joinery on Monday," says 18-year-old Ramone Robinson, who, like Bradley, has also benefited from City Stewardship. "For a long time I wondered what I was going to do, but this now feels like a fresh start. It's good to feel useful and know that my family are proud of me."