Launch of Flexible New Deal to tackle long-term unemployment:
Serco to help over 32,000 people into sustainable work across North, Mid and South East Wales.
Serco will today start delivering the Government’s Flexible New Deal initiative in North, Mid and South East Wales, helping 32,000 long-term unemployed people back into work across the region. North Wales Training are pleased to have been approved by Serco as a subcontractor to deliver the Step 2 element of the provision.
The Flexible New Deal, the Department for Work and Pension’s next generation initiative to enable long term unemployed people to secure sustainable jobs, launches on 5 October 2009.. Serco has developed local networks of private, public, community and voluntary organisations to deliver individual support to people. To support people back into work and to help them stay there, they will receive career planning and job search assistance and specialist services such as budgeting for work, debt advice, interview preparation, and top up vocational skills.
The Flexible New Deal is set to replace all previous New Deal and Employment Zone programmes. People who have been out of work for 12 months or longer, will be referred to a one-year mandatory programme of flexible, supported job preparation and job search. Individuals starting work will receive ongoing in-work support.
Serco’s Flexible New Deal programme will ensure those people who are most ready for employment get the right support to help them into sustainable work quickly and cost effectively, while those furthest away from the employment market will receive greater investment and intensive support to meet their needs. In this way it will achieve its goals of helping people into sustainable work, who have been excluded by previous programmes. The strengths of the programme lie in Serco’s overarching infrastructure, technology and case management support, which combine with knowledge, skill and resources of local providers to create individual employment solutions for people who have become excluded from the labour market.
The Flexible New Deal contract is funded through a combination of service fee and performance - based payments, with Serco’s providers paid on a similar basis. This approach will help to drive up efficiency while ensuring value for money.
The impact of Serco’s delivery of Flexible New Deal can already be seen in Rhyl. The creation of a Business Processing Centre in the Rhyl West ward, regarded as the most deprived ward in Wales, has provided employment for 14 local people, 10 of which have made the journey from benefit into employment.
Gareth Matthews, Serco’s Director for Welfare to Work in Wales, said: ““As the recession makes life increasingly tough, we need to give people who've been out of work for a long time every chance to find and retain a job. Flexible New Deal will make an enormous difference to the lives of individuals, their families and their communities. Rebuilding confidence, from the bottom up, starting with someone who has lost their job but wants to work, will help whole communities weather the recession and prosper in the future.
"We have spent the last year meeting people in Wales. The experience and insights of local unemployed people, employers and agencies offering existing help have shaped our response. As a result of what we have heard, we've designed an approach that will reach more local people with the help they need to get back into work. By working closely with local partners across Wales to coordinate services, we will be best-placed to resolve long- term unemployment in Wales
