A new welfare package should be offered to young people in an attempt to slash youth unemployment, according to a report published today from the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ).

The report calls on politicians to make a commitment that tackling youth unemployment will be a 'moral mission' in the next Parliament.

The ambitious four-stage blueprint outlines plans which will help and support young people to develop work skills and training from primary school through to adulthood.

The report, The Journey to Work: Welfare reform for the next Parliament, also focuses on helping adults who have been long-term unemployed and outlines new ideas for reforming Jobcentre Plus (JCP).

The CSJ says more than 500,000 young people are currently looking and available for work, but are not in employment, education or training (NEET) in the UK.

The report recommends that expert coaches are appointed to offer intensive help to school children who are identified as being most at risk of unemployment in the future.

A new ‘Youth Offer’ is also outlined in the paper which would mean that school and college leavers not applying for higher education use a new UCAS-style system to apply for education, training or work opportunities during their final year at school or college.

Participants unable to find a job or those assessed as needing more support before entering employment would then join a new ‘Community Wage’ scheme, where they would train with voluntary and private sector organisations on full-time placements.

The research also highlights how living in social housing can be a barrier to employment and calls on the Government to pilot a relocation scheme where people would be offered cash to help with the cost of moving home for work if they wanted that opportunity.

The proposed scheme would apply to any jobseeker who has been out of work and claiming Housing Benefit for a year or more and has received a concrete job offer with a commute of further than 90 minutes each way.

The report received widespread broadcast media coverage. Listen to a special feature recorded by Social Affairs Correspondent Michael Buchanan and an interview with CSJ Director Christian Guy on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme here. An interview was also recorded for the BBC News Channel and is available here.

This is the first of the CSJ’s Breakthrough Britain 2015 series of reports – which will outline a host of policy solutions to tackle the root causes of poverty and deprivation. Reports about family policy, education reform, problem debt, addiction and the future of the voluntary sector will be published throughout the summer.

Vulnerable children and young people are being denied crucial help due to “abhorrent” failures in child protection and mental health services, according to a new CSJ report.

Enough is Enough says some services are in crisis and that a Royal Commission is needed to advise on the wholesale redesign of England’s social care and mental health services.

Children’s Minister Edward Timpson responded by saying there is “more to do” to protect vulnerable children and young people, adding that cases highlighted in the CSJ report were “distressing”.

The report says the point at which many children and young people qualify for help is often too high, and there is a group of “lone children” who are not being taken care of by their parents or State services.

“Child protection and mental health failures in England are like an open wound”, said CSJ Director Christian Guy. “It’s not good enough that we have to wait until we hear the child neglect horror stories before anything is done.”

The study included an analysis of 20 case studies from the London-based charity Kids Company, including that of Jamie McEneff, who “begged social services” to remove him from the care of his mother. He described his experiences to the Evening Standard here.

The CSJ report received widespread coverage in the Evening Standard and also featured in the Daily Telegraph  and the Mirror. Watch a BBC feature on the report here.

On the same day Enough is Enough was published, Kids Company launched its See the Child campaign, which includes a petition calling for a taskforce to tackle the child protection crisis.

Senior Tory MP David Davis will put modern policing under the spotlight when he delivers a speech to the CSJ on Wednesday.

A former Conservative leadership candidate, Mr Davis, a leading figure on the backbenches, is known for being a strong defender of civil liberties.

Mr Davis, the MP for Haltemprice and Howden, was a Foreign Office Minister in the last Conservative Government.

The speech will take place on July 2 in central London. Limited places are still available. More details on how to register are available here.

Bold new laws designed to tackle modern slavery and human trafficking – recommended by the CSJ – were published in the new Modern Slavery Bill this month.

It is hoped the Modern Slavery Bill – which will give better protection to victims and tougher punishments to perpetrators – will be passed before next year’s General Election.

The legislation was proposed by the CSJ in last year’s landmark report, It Happens Here. Home Secretary Theresa May later said it had been the “catalyst” for the change in law. The CSJ also supported Labour MP Frank Field in hosting the Modern Slavery Bill Evidence Review and acted as specialist advisers during the pre-legislative scrutiny. 

CSJ Director Christian Guy chaired a session about the content of the Modern Slavery Bill earlier this month at the End Sexual Violence in Conflict summit with Karen Bradley, Minister for Modern Slavery and Organised Crime.

An independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner will be established to hold ministers to account and measures will be introduced to confront the criminals who enslave adults and children, increasing maximum sentences to life imprisonment.

There will be a legal duty established to require some public authorities to report potential trafficking victims rather than overlook them.  New rights and support for survivors have also been added.

But the CSJ added that the Coalition should seize its opportunity to produce a Bill that also includes new anti-slavery measures for businesses. Similar to a successful scheme in California, the CSJ has recommended that large UK companies be required to publish information about how they are trying to eliminate slavery from supply chains.

The CSJ was quoted by the BBC and wrote a blog for the Spectator. Watch how the BBC and Sky News reported on the publication of It Happens Here.