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30/10/03 - Forum aims to help jobless

Cumbria County Council is holding a consultative forum to look at the barriers to finding work faced by many of the jobless in Cumbria. It will also hear about local initiatives to help as many as possible into employment. The forum will also focus in particular on ways in which jobless people on disability benefit in the most disadvantaged wards in West Cumbria can be helped to find work.   

About 100 delegates have been invited to the forum at The Oval, Salterbeck, Workington, on Tuesday, November 4.    

Cumbria County Councillor Les Lishman, chair of the economy consultative forum, said:   

"Worklessness raises a number of issues. The unemployed are often excluded from mainstream society and are at risk of poverty, which can lead to poor health. The social costs can be considerable. 

These effects may be magnified for people with disabilities and they may find it more difficult to get work for a number of reasons.   

But they represent a large untapped labour force and a pool of talent and so the county council is bringing together in this forum a wide range of organisations to try to tackle this problem in West Cumbria. We hope the forum will encourage them to work in partnership with us to tackle this problem."   

Delegates will be attending from voluntary and statutory agencies and organisations which support people with disablities. The Forum will hear about initiatives under way to tackle the problems of widening access to work to all sectors of the community. Topics covered by speakers will include the background to the issue of worklessness and some solutions, help for self-employment, supported employment schemes, barriers into work for people with disabilities, and the services of Job Centre Plus.    

The pilot project to help disabled people into work in the most disadvantaged wards of West Cumbria (Local Public Service Agreement 6 among Cumbria County Council and its partners) will be outlined. 

The delegates will then split into workshops which will focus on the pilot project. They will be asked to consider questions such as what are the barriers holding people with disabilities back from work; how to involve the people benefiting from the project in its design and delivery; what local examples there are of good practice in helping people with disabilities into work; where the gaps are in current provision; how performance can be improved; and what each delegate’s organisation can contribute to the project.   

The forum will also be told how the results of its last session in July have been fed back to the county council and have resulted in amendments to its corporate strategy, which sets the council’s objectives for the year. There is now, as the Forum suggested, one theme concerned with promoting economic wellbeing, instead of two as previously. This has a more general top priority concerned with supporting the local economy and us underpinned by six key priorities such as maintaining and creating jobs, transport and ICT infrastructure and support to the regeneration companies.