The latest good news attached to Bradford Council’s Get Bradford Working scheme is very welcome indeed.

When it was launched last year, the programme’s aims included the eventual setting-up of an Apprenticeship Agency – essentially a recruitment agency which will cover the whole district and match up job-hunting young people with businesses keen to taken on new staff and train them up.

The latest announcement is that Bradford will get £900,000 from a Government pot of money which will be used to kickstart this section of the ambitious Get Bradford Working project.

Unemployment is a problem that affects all sectors of society and age groups, of course, and a lot needs to be done to help the long-term unemployed and those who have recently been made redundant or lost their jobs back into work as quickly as possible.

But the growing issue of youth unemployment is something that needs to be nipped in the bud for fear it will create a generation for whom work is an impossible dream. That will merely store up problems for the future and put unbearable pressures on the Welfare State as well as creating a whole swathe of people with no motivation, ambition or hope.

The creation of apprenticeships – which the Telegraph & Argus supported when we backed the 100 Apprentices in 100 Days campaign last year – is the first step to getting those so-called NEETS – not in education, employment or training – contributing to society, earning a wage and improving their own sense of self-worth.

Let us hope this latest good news is the shape of things to come to improve the prospects for as many people as possible in the district.