What does Kinloch Castle, a crumbling Edwardian pile on the island of Rum, have in common with a juvenile delinquent from Falkirk or a homeless drop-out from Glasgow? Surprisingly, a great deal, in that all three have attracted the support of the Prince of Wales and all three have subsequently been thrown a lifeline.
The prince has been in Scotland this week and from the bulk of the press coverage you would think he was merely here on one of his architectural missions. There he was on Tuesday, in the Scottish parliament, grimacing at the exposed concrete and looking nervously at the roof beams. There he was on Wednesday, warning a World Heritage conference in Edinburgh that the city’s status as a beacon of excellence was under threat from developers. And there he was on Thursday on Rum, defending a building well past its prime.
His forays into architectural controversy are even more legendary than his brushes with complementary medicine, his conversations with plants, or his devotion to organic husbandry. While a majority, I suspect, agree with the “monstrous carbuncles” outburst, he is often dismissed as wacky or out-of-touch for his passions.
But in one area, at least, Prince Charles should be heard. The main reason for his visit — his first — to the Scottish parliament was to mark the 30th anniversary of his charity, the Prince’s Trust.
At a reception there, two young men gave an account of how they managed to turn their lives around thanks to the trust. Willie Baird, 17, and William Clark, 24, escaped crime and destitution, respectively, to find employment, stability and self-confidence.
Stories like theirs are typical of Prince’s Trust Scotland (PTS). “School truant to college student in 12 weeks”, or “From young offender’s institution to dream job”: these are the kind of results that those who run the PTS expect. More than 3,000 youngsters who are not in education, employment or training (now officially referred to as NEETs) are helped every year “to get their lives working”.
Those most likely to have fallen by the wayside are those most likely to be picked up by the Trust’s hundreds of volunteers. Working closely with the PTS is the Prince’s Scottish Youth Business Trust (PSYBT), which acts as a “lender of last resort” and enables more than 600 people aged 18 to 25 in Scotland to set up their own businesses every year, providing not just funds but advice and encouragement.
How lucky these youths are to have crossed paths with the trust. How promising their prospects now look. Yet when Prince Charles addressed the parliament he sounded more frustrated than hopeful. Speaking of today’s problem teenagers, he said: “We are wasting vast amounts of talent, opportunity and investment in the future. More than anything else, adolescents need to be taken seriously. Otherwise, it so easily turns into alienation, anti-social behaviour and all the things we tend to see.”
Harking back to his boyhood, when he and his Gordonstoun schoolmates manned a coastguard station on the Moray Firth, he called for a national scheme for young volunteers to work in everything from the armed forces and the police to hospitals. Finding a useful role for the young, as his trust does, would surely end their dislocation from society.
Scotland has the highest proportion of NEETs in the developed world, with 35,000 — one in seven — 16 to 19-year-olds registered as not working. They come from poor social backgrounds, have few if any qualifications, are five times as likely as other teenagers to have a criminal record, and three times as likely to suffer mental health problems. Most are on benefits.
Depressingly, record employment in Scotland does not appear to have made the slightest dent in the number of NEETs in the past decade. For every youngster embraced by the rosy glow of the Prince’s Trust there are more than 10 who are not. Why can a useful role not be found for all of them? The trust may only do so much but it shares its experience with government agencies and its business side works closely with Scottish Enterprise. The Scottish executive has set up expert panels that are devising ways to stop youngsters drifting into welfare dependency. Financial incentives will be offered to coax kids into college or work and a target — 2008 — has been set to measure improvements.
But think tanks and targets will not be enough to shift 35,000 in two years. Only a fundamental shake-up of the benefits system would achieve that, inconceivable in the current political climate.
Schools could do more — not just in the sense that Prince Charles meant, by giving children responsibilities — but by better equipping them with basic skills such as reading and writing. Problems begin at school, not at 16.
However, even wholesale reform of education will do nothing for the lost generation who haven’t been in school, or in anything, for years. So it is back to rescue strategies. With the hardest-to-reach youngsters, these take more time and more resources. Communication is difficult and mentoring is essential.
Mark Strudwick, chief executive of the PSYBT, said there was a 75% return on his organisation’s investments, a success rate he puts down to the dedication and calibre of his volunteers. Engaging the young, capturing their enthusiasm, analysing their strengths and then staying alongside them is the modus operandi.
Above all, the people who work for the trust, many drawn from business or — like Strudwick — army backgrounds, are used to making quick decisions and taking risks. And this is what the public sector is incapable of doing.
Prince Charles blamed “health and safety” red tape. Young people could get involved in the lifeboat or cliff rescue services, he said, or the armed forces reserve units could be extended to get youngsters on board.
This will sound, to some, like a “bring back National Service” argument but his trust makes the kind of headway in its small-scale manner that the state, for all its money and manpower, can only dream of.
If the executive could harness this “can do” attitude and copy the military-like precision of the trust’s regional networks, NEETs, like older treasures, might be saved for the nation.
