The Budget made an additional £2.8 billion available to DWP, on top of the £1.3 billion funding announced in the pre-Budget report, which will ensure that over the next two years we can continue to expand our support to jobseekers through the economic downturn. From early 2010 all 18 to 24-year-olds will be guaranteed an offer of a job (either a new job through the Future Jobs Fund or an existing job in a key employment sector), work focused training, or a place on a Community Task Force. The Future Jobs Fund—worth around £1 billion—will create 150,000 new jobs for long-term unemployed people and will contribute significantly to the guaranteed offer for young people.
The Government are investing £0.5 billion over two years to support people through an expanded range of work and training options, to provide jobs through recruitment subsidies, support to start a business, work-related training and volunteering opportunities. This support includes access to 75,000 new work-focused training opportunities to help customers significantly increase their skills in order to enter work. The training, delivered on a part-time or full-time basis, will support people in progressing towards a full qualification. This extra help was introduced on 6 April and is available to all those who have been out of work and claiming jobseeker’s allowance for six months or more.
In addition, in response to the current economic downturn, the Government have announced that:
Funding of £158 million has been made available through the European Social Fund for the Learning and Skills Council’s Train to Gain programme for people who are newly unemployed or facing redundancy to undertake training linked to opportunities in the local labour market.
Local Employment Partnerships (LEPs) have been made available to all claimants from day one of unemployment.
We have removed barriers to full time training making it easier for long-term unemployed people to get access to new skills in order to compete for the local jobs on offer. The Government have put the funding arrangements in place to enable jobseekers at the six month point in their claim to move to a training allowance in order to benefit from full time intensive training of up to eight weeks, designed to meet employers’ needs.