CIPD welcome move to long-term solutions for long-term unemployed

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) welcomes government incentives, to encourage voluntary and private firms to offer employment to long-term job seekers. The CIPD also supports the move to give the largest grants to those companies which employ job-seekers for longer than six months, signalling an emphasis on long-term solutions rather than quick-fixes.

Private and voluntary organisations that specialise in employability will play a greater role in preparing the long term unemployed for work and giving them access to jobs. CIPD Skills Adviser, Dr. John McGurk believes this offers the government a promising route to getting the 1.5 million currently on welfare into work.

Dr. McGurk continues:

ìWelfare to work schemes should be based on what works in practice. If the private sector can deliver better outcomes for individuals and employers than Whitehall then we should embrace that change.

ìExisting New Deal providers are already working with the government and helping to get people back in to work. These organisations will increasingly take the burden, incentivised by the government to ensure that people fill the jobs that the economy generates.

ìThe focus however should be on getting people into work and there is nothing wrong with firms profiting from placing people in long term employment. We are glad to see that expansion will be sustainable. The danger of short-term fast-buck operators is something that government is alive to. This agenda is too important to be spoiled by the fraud which occurred in some earlier programmes. Overall this new strategy can only help the government achieve its stated aim of getting 1.5 million back in to work.î