Success for Argyll and Bute Council's employability team

[Kintyre Forum News]

Argyll and Bute’s Employability Team has proved so successful it has been invited to deliver the UK Government’s new Work Programme across a much wider geographical area. The council is entering a contract with Working Links, one of two Scottish prime contractors commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Based on the team’s experience and expertise, Working Links has invited the Argyll and Bute Employability Team to deliver the Work Programme throughout Argyll and Bute, part of north and west of West Dunbartonshire, the Western Isles and the Highlands, including South West Inverness and Nairnshire.

The new Work Programme will see the Employability Team getting referrals from Job Centre Plus via Working Links in relation to: 18-24s, 25+, ex-incapacity benefit, lone parents, self employed, disabled customers and a range of voluntary customers such as those still on incapacity benefit who want to find a job.

The Employability Team’s current delivery model, ‘Project Craftwork’ has several options and choices for people with a variety of needs. Across Argyll and Bute and West Dunbartonshire people can benefit from workshop training opportunities, in-house training and external work placements. The workshops enable people to gain a variety of skills in areas including domestic trades, such as plumbing, or product manufacturing such as garden sheds and furniture. In Oban the Employability Team has conducted workshops in model boat building to produce a fully functional model of a Calmac ferry, including sound effects and stabilisers. In-house training focuses on social skills such as timekeeping and appearance progressing to learning how to complete a CV, job applications and interview techniques.

Spokesperson for the Third Sector and Communities, Councillor Rory Colville said “This is a fantastic opportunity for the Argyll and Bute Employability Team to roll outits successful delivery model throughout such a wide geographical area in order to assist the long-term unemployed to get back into sustainable employment.

He added, “Over the years the expertise and enthusiasm of the Argyll and Bute Employability Team, working closely with other third sector organisations, has resulted in real change and benefits to vulnerable adults.”

Over the past ten years the council’s Employability Team has successfully delivered Welfare to Work services throughout Argyll and Bute and the Clyde Coast and has been recognised for its high quality service and impressive job outcome figures despite delivering in remote, rural and often fragile geographical areas. At the last full assessment of success rates by the DWP in 2010, the Argyll and Bute Employability Team was in seventh place out of 115 areas in the national league table in terms of jobs outcomes for the current New Deal programme.