Britain's next top models

"My idea of a role model is my dad, because he is always telling me if a want to be a surgeon I can, but I have to work damn hard." Khan, 13. "For me, I like Jay-Z, because he got himself out the ghetto and now is a successful businessman worth about a billion dollars. Although, I don't like his swell head." Damien, 14. "I want to be like my uncle because he drives Porsche and has got three shops." Lee, 14.

These were just some of the comments that Superintendent Leroy Logan, former Apprentice winner Tim Campbell and I listened to from the pupils of Eastleigh College in Newham, which recently received an outstanding Ofsted report. We were there to hear the government's full response to the 18-month Reach report that has looked into raising aspirations and attainment of black boys and young men. And, as part of that response, to announce the work that Logan, Campbell, the bespoke designer Ozwald Boateng and I will be doing as part of a national role model programme.

The secretary for state for communities and local government, Hazel Blears, gave the government's response, first highlighting the innovative approach they have adopted within the Reach project: "This project has worked well because it has been a real partnership between all interested parties, driven in no small measure from the black community. Our role is to implement the action plan you've recommended."

And, to her credit, she has responded positively to 90% of the recommendations, recognising it's not just money the nation loses - estimated to be in excess of £24bn - but a great deal of the nation's talent. I was particularly pleased that our call to construct a national framework for family-school partnerships has been enthusiastically received by the government. After-school clubs, with a structured family involvement programme including a drive for more black and minority ethnic school governors will ensure that all concerned have a stake in the community's success.

The authors of the Reach report will now want to press Hazel Blears and the government to make good their promises. I hope to be part of that too. My other focus, along with Boateng, Campbell and Logan, will be to find 20 outstanding national role models to tour the country and encourage tens of thousands of black men to recognise themselves as role models. Our collective mantra will be: "Let's encourage the ones that are doing well to do even better, but equally, let's offer guidance and alternatives to those young black men and women who find themselves outside of education, with low aspirations, often being lured into criminality."

What I most like about the overall project, backed by the government, is that it doesn't deny the structural inequalities that hold black boys back, but neither is it shackled by them. At its core it is a manual of solutions in which the black community rightly takes the lead role, supported by government, schools and other interested parties.