The Future Job Fund was derided as outmoded and expensive, and yet not long down the line with one million young people unemployed surely it’s time for ministers to accept that they were wrong. It’s clear from the numbers that what they are doing isn’t working, perhaps they need to accept that they were too quick to scrap what was actually the best Labour idea going.

The TUC has the right idea when it says that in order to strengthen the economy and reduce unemployment the government should replace the Future Jobs Fund. The Future Jobs Fund was one of the best initiatives that the UK government ever put into place. It encouraged work yes, but it did more than that. It offered a paid job to young people up to the age of 25 in order to get them onto the first step in the career ladder. And yes, the pay was minimum wage but by the time you’ve been unemployed for over six months you’ll take anything that’s offered to you. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a graduate from a respectable, established red brick university or a high school drop out with no formal qualifications. It makes sense for the government to do their utmost to ensure that no young person is out of work or training for more than six months, and the current way the government is going about things has seen unemployment rise to a record seventeen year high.

Nowhere can this be seen more than in the younger generation, which has been hit time and time again by this government and indeed the previous incarnations. The Future Job Fund offers hope to a generation which has now hit one in five being unemployed, a way into work for a generation that is often still living with their parents because they cannot afford to move out. This isn’t a generation that is out of work because they are lazy or work shy, this is a generation that is out of work because they have no choice in the matter. The Future Job Fund was a perfect way to get people off benefits, to give experience, skills and a reference. And as we all know; it is easier to find work from work.

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The Future Job Fund should have worked for everyone. It got young people off the unemployed lists which looks good on the record books and therefore on the government. It gave companies without the funds to hire staff a six month placement worker which meant that they in turn could clear jobs that had been neglected. And most importantly, it gave a stepping stone to those desperately trying to find a job in today’s rather unsettled job market. It should have been a win for the government, a win for the businesses and most definitely a win for the young people; win, win, win as it were. So what went wrong?