But when it comes to education, politicians are remarkably relaxed about loading wider social responsibilities on to schools. “So, definitely primary schools should be identifying children who are at risk of being Neet. And secondary schools and other services should be intercepting, intervening, supporting and helping those young people to get on a different path.” In fact, if a primary did want to create a “Neet risk register”, the simplest thing to do would be to list the pupils struggling to read. Some other parts of the British state need to get better at doing theirs.