– £17.5m investment in Welsh skills

The Deputy Minister Lesley Griffiths called on Welsh employers to support a new initiative and sign up to the new Employer Pledge which is supported by £10m from the European Social Fund.

skillscymru, is the largest ever interactive careers and skills event to be held in Wales. It is part of a major push by the Welsh Assembly Government to aid Wales’ recovery from the global economic downturn by preparing the population for a new higher-skilled era.

This investment is geared to raise the skills of 30,000 people working in businesses and organisations of all sizes across Wales. It is expected that 1000 employers will sign up over the next four years and commit to improving the basic skills of their workforce.

The emphasis will be on results with learners being encouraged to gain recognised qualifications that for many will mark their first step towards further workforce skills development.

“The Employer Pledge is one of the commitments highlighted in Economic Renewal: a new direction and is designed to help employers tackle the costs and wasted potential arising from low levels of literacy and numeracy in the workforce.

The  Employer Pledge Award will be presented to Cartrefi Cymru, a Welsh national charity that provides social care and house-related support for people.

Cartrefi Cymru employs over a thousand staff and works in twelve local authority areas across Wales. It was one of the first social care providers in Wales to be recognised for its pledge to improve the basic skills of its employees.

It participated in the first phase of the Employer Pledge programme in 2006 and by March 2010 over ninety staff had received support within the organisation, with one member of staff progressing to an assistant manager.

It has resulted in huge benefits for the organisation including improvement in staff retention rates. The Award recognises the organisation’s commitment to embed the Employer Pledge within the company ethos.

Read More…

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– CDG press release… signing up 50,000 expert volunteers

14 September 2010

Under strict embargo until 00:01 on 14 September 2010

Tackling unemployment by signing up 50,000 expert volunteers

Ensuring Britain continues to be a civilised and harmonious society means attracting 50,000 expert volunteers to sign up to the fight in supporting the unemployed back into work, according to the charity Careers Development Group’s (CDG) position paper1 launched today2.

The aim of CDG’s expert volunteer initiative is to attract those who, alongside having the capacity and desire to volunteer, have the skills to support and share with the long term unemployed. They would complement the work that welfare to work providers such as CDG and the government undertake.

Examples of expert volunteers include:

retired English teachers supporting those needing basic literacy support

directors and managers helping to build the self-confidence of those who have been unemployed for more than a year

former builders who having sold their businesses and want to help young people learn a trade.

An expert volunteer corps would support the need to increase the transfer of skills and knowledge between the generations if Britain is to avoid a society split between those with jobs or who have enjoyed good careers and those who are struggling to get, or get back, into employment. Effectively this is a transfer of skills and experience from retired or retiring baby boomers to generations X and Y.

Roy O’Shaughnessy, Careers Development Group’s chief executive, said:

“With a full commitment from government and employers, and taking advantage of Britain’s strong volunteering record, this initiative has the opportunity to harness all parts of civil society to change lives, communities and society for the better.

“Now, more than ever, is the right time for the welfare to work sector to encourage those with the skills, desire and time to climb aboard and volunteer their expertise. Those coming forward would be making a real difference to people who need their help.

“We are all responsible for the society in which we live and none of us should turn a blind eye to those who need our support to get, or get back, into work.”

The expert volunteer initiative will be led by third sector organisations and welfare to work providers who together would facilitate and structure the initiative.

Reach, the national skilled volunteering charity, is working with CDG in raising the profile of expert volunteering initiative.

Sarah King, chief executive of Reach, said:

“Volunteering, using their skills and personal life experiences, is a hidden opportunity for thousands of people – they just need avenues to channel the help they can give. The link between remaining mentally active in retirement and improved health and wellbeing is well evidenced.

“Helping the long term unemployed in this way would be a stimulating opportunity for many skilled individuals, whether retired or still building their own careers. It would give them the opportunity to change lives while balancing their own time and life demands.”

To tackle the problem of long term unemployment, a concerted effort from all parties – the government, voluntary and community organisations and the private sector – is needed. It means the public, private and third sectors have an opportunity to cement the Big Society philosophy together.

The CDG summit

CDG will be holding a summit on 14 October 2010 at Central Hall, Westminster, London, to discuss and debate with leading figures in the public, private and voluntary sectors how this initiative can work in practice and how it can contribute to the Big Society agenda.

Tapping into the potential of expert volunteers: A Vision for the future of welfare to work

ENDS

Notes to Editors

1 The CDG position paper, Tapping into the potential of expert volunteers: A vision for the future of welfare to work, is available at http://www.cdguk.org/expert-volunteer-initiative

2 Formally launched at the GovNet partnership conference, Efficiency Through Service Delivery Partnerships 2010, takes place on Tuesday 14 September 2010 at the QEII Centre, London. Details can be found at http://www.govnet.co.uk/service-delivery/overview.html

Roy O’Shaughnessy, CDG’s Chief Executive will be giving a speech on Cementing the Commercial, Community and Government Sectors to the Big Society: Added Value Resource Efficiency and Job Creation.

About Careers Development Group

CDG is a UK charity with nearly 30 years’ experience in helping those who are unemployed find and sustain employment. Many of the people CDG supports have multiple barriers to employment including a lack of recent work experience, disabilities, health problems and lack of relevant employability skills.

CDG helped over 33,000 people into jobs in 2009/10 and works across 29 centres in the UK (London, the South East, the Isle of Wight and the East Midlands).

Further information

Journalists requiring further information should contact Mark Brooks via:

(t) 020 7811 3164

(m) 07766 197727

(e) mark.brooks@cdguk.org

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Newsletter: 16 September 2010

Newsletter 16 September 2010: CDG signing up p50,000 volunteers, £17.5m investment in Wales, Nick Clegg and the poor, Big Society: New Dawn or False hope?

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– NEWS…. Proposals to remove legal aid from benefit claimants

We have heard that Ken Clarke, the Justice Secretary is proposing that welfare claimants will no longer be able to seek legal aid to challenge their benefits levels.

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The current situation

The Legal Services Commission (the LSC) provides funding for advice and assistance for welfare benefits. This advice is means tested and is only available to those individuals with a disposable income of less than £649.00 per month and with less than £8,000 capital.

The sums involved in benefit claims tend to be very small compared to the costs which the LSC have to pay for assisting the claimant. For example, LSC funding will not pay for representing a claimant at a Tribunal hearing; lawyers either attend tribunal hearings for free or they send the client along with a script or they ask the tribunal to consider written representations.

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Some would argue that the main problems with legal aid is that it encourages risk-free, speculative litigation, and fuels a costly compensation culture. The fact that claimants receiving legal aid are not responsible for defendants’ costs if their case is unsuccessful essentially puts them in a no-lose situation. Defendants i.e the state, on the other hand, just can’t win because it is going to be out of pocket whatever happens.

On the other hand however, for many this is the only hope of righting a wrong: by definition, they cannot afford to pay for their day in court.

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– Frank Field; A framework to equalise life chances

A new framework to equalise life chances

The gob-smacking findings (to use that gentle phrase of Chris Patten) was that, as children turn up for their first day at school, they possess a wide range of abilities …… children from families on the lowest incomes were more likely to be towards the bottom end of the range of these abilities. And there they remained when a second set of tests were taken at ten.

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Read the speech here

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– Pathways to Work: THE VERDICT!

The report came out a while ago.. nevertheless….

Some of you will have heard the Chairwoman of the Public Accounts Committee Patricia Hodge MP speaking on The Today Programme this morning.

Patricia praised the sterling job done by JCP in working with the IB client group.

The National Audit Office which wrote the report found that there was no evidence that the programme had performed better or cost significantly less in contracted out areas than in those run by Jobcentre Plus.

….by the way…, this chimes with one of Yes Minister’s recent postings which noted JCP’s success at placing jobseekers into work…..

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The report found that;

• Contractors had universally underperformed against targets set by the Department, …..Question! were the targets correct in the first place I wonder….?

• DWP lacked adequate information on the Pathways supply chain. … DWP Stewardship role raises its head again. see our previous posting on this….

• A third of contracts made a financial loss, … in these straitened times providers of all size can ill afford this …

• The contribution Pathways to Work made to the reduction of 125,000 in IB claimants is unclear. The report however concluded that the contribution is likely to be limited.

• The bulk of the reduction is likely to be due to the medical assessment …. ATOS Healthcare again

Full Report

Executive Summary

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– Big Society: New Dawn or False Hope

The Big Society- New Dawn or False Hope- by Gary Parker, Chair of Future Communities, a social Enterprise based in South London

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Commenting on recent announcements concerning the Coalition governments ‘Big Society’ initiative, the Labour leadership contender, David Miliband described it as ‘ground we should never have conceded to the Conservatives’. To this end at least, there is consensus that social action by individuals and community organisations to improve and develop their local communities has all party support.

However to develop such initiatives and projects will require significant changes in government policy and new ways of working in partnership with the community and voluntary sector, particularly by government departments and civil servants, who will have to undertake a much more supportive role to develop the ‘new localism’ agenda, rather than a centralised and more directive  driven role.

It is still not clear exactly what the ‘Big Society’ initiative will entail in practise, but an informal network called the Big Society Network (BSN) has been formed and is currently holding a series of ‘round table’ discussions in various parts of the country including London, Bristol and Bradford. The BSN is not receiving any public funding, but is talking to various charitable trusts and other funding organisations on how it might develop its work.

Funding is an issue, recently, Croydon Council in South London cut its direct grant budget to community groups by 66%; it is also likely that local authorities, whatever their political leadership, are likely to make significant cuts in voluntary sector grants, in the wake of the pre- budget statement by the Chancellor George Osborne, in October this year. Already some forecasts have estimated that there have been cuts to national community and voluntary sector funding of over £700 million in the current financial year, so new funding streams and sources will need to be accessed or developed in order to develop ‘Big Society’ projects.

So where does this leave the development of the ‘Big Society’ initiative, a number of so-called ‘Vanguard Communities’, were announced by David Cameron in July, which are;

• Eden Valley (Cumbria),
• Liverpool,
• Windsor & Maidenhead
• Sutton,

A range of projects are being developed including:

• Community backed affordable housing in Cumbria,
• Devolved powers to parish councils – Windsor & Maidenhead;
• Volunteer projects- Liverpool
• Community hub for young people in the London Borough of Sutton.

While these projects are being supported in the short term by the DCLG, in the long term, even projects run by volunteers will require some funding in terms of support  and management of  such projects. Given that many agencies who might have supported such projects, such as Primary Care Trusts, Future Builders, Capacity Builders and others are now being abolished or restructured, volunteering, self help and income generation are the only real alternatives. Without some support at local government level the long term development of such projects is open to question in my view.

However the Big Society initiative should not be dismissed purely as a ‘smokescreen’ for public spending cuts, many communities and individuals will welcome the opportunity to develop neighbourhood services and projects, without what many of them see as bureaucratic or centralist intervention by local government and Quango’s. In my view this is a significant initiative and the ‘flag ship’ policy of the new government, which will continue to develop regardless of economic circumstances. How the initiative develops at local level, particularly in disadvantaged areas, were people are unable or unwilling to volunteer or may not have the confidence or skills to do so, remains to be seen.

The strength of this initiative is that if it can genuinely empower communities to take social action, this has the potential to transform these communities and pose some awkward questions for local politicians and local government officers, who for too long have sought to manage community action and development into existing structures and initiatives regardless of neighbourhood circumstances and not always in a true spirit of partnership.

Notes

Future Communities is a social enterprise based in South London, which works at neighbourhood level to fundraise, develop community initiatives and projects and train volunteers and community activists.

For more information email- gary.parker@cntassociates.com

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– Iain Duncan Smith looks to Germany for inspiration

Iain Duncan Smith the Work and Pensions Secretary, is looking at a radical scheme to change the lifestyles of families in which nobody of working age has ever had a job by improving their basic skills.

Iain Duncan Smith is examining a German approach where long-term unemployed families have been encouraged to create a “household culture” with trips to the cinema and evening classes.

The family will be the centrepiece of the Coalitions welfare reforms

IDS has been promoting the “family futures” scheme, pioneered in a town near Dusseldorf, where 1,661 households had three or more individuals who were long-term unemployed.

The welfare cost to the German exchequer was €31m (£25m) a year – and the plan to focus on families brought the bill down by one-third.

The scheme was designed by Maximilien Dorostian; European Director for A4E welfare to Work.

Parents had lost the “working habit” and fear losing housing support or seeing income cut if they got a job. The younger adults often had issues with figures of authority and unrealistic expectations.

The younger members think they should all be the boss in an office with people working for them. It’s because they have never worked and never interacted with people,” he said. “We have to give them this habit so they can have realistic expectations of work.”

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The savings were dramatic despite the initial costs being double those of the scheme targeting unemployed individuals.

By cutting workless households by one-third, the German taxpayer saved €10m a year

One of the drawbacks is that money needs to be spent now to save the Treasury cash later.

The chancellor, George Osborne, has a simple formula for the Department of Work and Pensions – officials must find £5 of savings for every £1 they spend reforming the benefits system.

Using that logic, £800m would be made available if Duncan Smith could find an extra £4bn in welfare cuts demanded by the chancellor this week.

The Guardian

See our previous blog

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– Frank Field MP announces plans to reduce summer holidays and support mothers

The Government’s poverty adviser Frank Field MP has said that the school summer holiday should be shortened in order to improve the prospects of poorer pupils,.

Frank Field has explained that disadvantaged children fall further behind during the extended break because they are not being read to and tutored.

In an interview with The Times, Mr Field called for the school year to be broken into four or five terms with shorter holidays to help poorer pupils who do not receive support at home.

He said: “Long holidays damage those who are already disadvantaged. They drop behind, they are not being read to, or tutored or talked to in the same way. They have often fallen behind by the beginning of the school year.”

The Labour MP for Birkenhead said the six-week break was “out of kilter” with working parents, many of whom struggle to pay for childcare and activities.

Mr Field is expected to present his interim report on “child poverty and life chances” to David Cameron in the next few days.

Mr Field will also recommend that mothers are given up to £25,000 in advance child benefit payments to enable them to stay at home to look after young children.

Associated Press

The Telegraph

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– ERSA Work Programme speed dating

The Employment Related Services Association (ERSA) is hosting a series of Prime Pitch “speed dating” events to assist providers interested in subcontracting opportunities within DWP’s Work Programme to meet up with prime bidders. The Prime Pitch events are designed to bring together a number of prime bidders in the same venues at the same time, and are particularly supportive of smaller, specialist and voluntary sector providers in enabling them to pitch their services to multiple bidders in a single day.

The Prime Pitch events are taking place on the following dates:

London – Tuesday 12th October

Church House, Dean’s Yard, Westminster, London SW1P 3NZ

Birmingham – Thursday 14th October

National Motorcycle Museum, Coventry Road, Bickenhill, B92 0EJ

Leeds – Friday 15th October

The Loft, Cross York Street, Leeds, LS2 7EE

ERSA are aiming to attract as many prime bidders as possible to host a speed dating table at each event, to talk to subcontractor candidates and disseminate their literature. A4e, Remploy, and FourstaR Employment & Skills are amongst the prime bidders who have already confirmed interest in hosting a table. Further prime bidder hosts will be announced in due course.

Alongside ERSA’s membership, the Association of Learning Providers (ALP) and the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO) have also confirmed their support in promoting the events to their membership.

The events will be free for subcontractor representatives to attend (limited to two representatives per provider per event), although pre-registration is required. Each event will involve a separate morning and afternoon session (09.30am to 12.30pm and 13.30pm to 16.30pm). Participants will be regularly rotated between the tables, to ensure that subcontractor candidates get the chance to meet all of the prime bidders that they wish to see.

The Prime Pitch events are being organised on behalf of ERSA by Carley Consult. To register to attend any of the Prime Pitch events, please e-mail Jane Shelley (jshelley@carleyconsult.co.uk), confirming the event(s) that you wish to attend, the names of your representatives, and whether you would prefer to attend the morning or the afternoon session. If you are a prime bidder and would like to receive an order form to host a table at any of the events, please also contact Jane at the same address.

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