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Work & Employment
Welcome to the work pages. These pages are run by WorkNET, a partnership of organisations that all have an interest in employment and mental health, enabling people with mental illness to have access to choice in employment and training, and also in promoting good mental health within business. We also work to develop supports to enable people to retain their jobs through difficult times.
We should all be involved in promoting social inclusion because:
- Common mental health problems affect up to one in six of the general population at any one time. Almost everyone will know someone who has had mental health problems at some point in their lives.
- Only 24% of adults with long-term mental health problems are in work. Although work is not the right solution for everyone, with the right support many more would be able to and would like to work.
- Research involving 1596 employees in a range of companies found that only 20% were confident they could manage someone with mental health problems effectively, yet 70% of managers had had to manage someone with a diagnosed mental health problem.
What's in this for you?
In this section you will be able to find:
- Services that support welcoming access to work and employment support services for people with mental ill-health.
- Events about employment.
- Evidence and policy - What works best for people returning to work and how to improve the services you work in to be more welcoming and supportive to people with mental ill-health.
- Guidance and tools that can help people with mental health problems plan their return to work and for employers to support people with mental health problems in work.
- News - stories about people's positive experiences of employment and employment services in the borough.
If you would like more information about work, social inclusion and mental health, Develop can also offer you:
- Discussion Forum - A place to ask questions, find support and obtain advice about mental health matters, getting work and dealing with issues in the workplace. (Available to registered site users).
- Training and support available on enabling people to return to work and mental ill-health in the workplace (from handling stress and promoting mental well-being through to awareness training about mental illness).
If you would like more information about WorkNET please contact: workNET@developbromley.com
View the national database of work bridge-building projects
Work Choice programme gets go ahead
5th Aug 2010
The DWP has announced that the Work Choice programme is to go ahead as planned with a start date of 25 October 2010.
The Ministerial Statement read:
"The Government is reaffirming its clear commitment to disabled people by launching a new programme to provide support for severely disabled people. The new programme, currently called Work Choice, will be introduced from 25 October 2010. It will sit alongside the Work Programme and will help into work disabled people who face the most complex and long term barriers to employment and who may require high intensity support in the workplace.
Nearly half of all disabled people work and many more want to work but have not had the right support. Work Choice will provide that support for more severely disabled people who want to move into employment. It will replace the existing confusing array of DWP specialist disability employment provision (WORKSTEP, Work Preparation and the Job Introduction Scheme) across England, Scotland and Wales.
Work Choice will greatly improve upon the effectiveness of current provision by tailoring support to the needs of each severely disabled individual to help move them into and stay in long term sustainable jobs.
Reform in this sector is long overdue. In the past, provision has been patchy with a fragmented network of providers. Work Choice will simplify the current overlapping set of programmes and will reduce the number of provider contracts from more than 200 to just 28.
Work Choice has been developed in close consultation with providers, disability groups and disabled people and has widespread support.
Work has been ongoing since the Coalition Government took office to ensure continuity of support. We are making this announcement now to ensure that all providers are able to prepare fully to deliver the programme from October.
We will now proceed to contract with the successful bidders for the Work Choice programme."
Government signals launch of their employment reforms
14th Jun 2010
David Freud and Chris Grayling (above), have launched the Government’s proposals for welfare reform at an event for suppliers in London. The event did not cover the future of specific programmes but set a direction of travel based on the concept of individual responsibility and system fairness. DWP will be contacting prime contractors from Monday to discuss more detailed proposals and a further statement is expected in about two weeks.
Chris Grayling said that the Government wants a radical simplification of welfare to work policy. New longer term contracts would balance risk and reward and allow a return on investment. Payments would be made for sustainable job outcomes over a period of up to three years using the Del-Ame approach. He encouraged providers to form consortia and suggested that they could employ prime contractors who had sufficient capital base to finance delivery chains. Pricing would reflect the challenges and there would be no differentiation on the profitability of helping the easiest or hardest to reach customers. He said there was “a renewed enthusiasm for helping the most vulnerable”.
David Freud stated that “today we hit the accelerator and reforms will be as fast and wide as possible”. He promised a hands-off approach to providers and a black box approach to contracts saying that Government just wanted to pay for jobs. Sustainability would be at the heart of programme policy. Work was still needed on pricing mechanisms but he expected the payment structure to encourage creativity, individualisation and specialisation.
There was mention of revising the work capability assessment, support for self-employment, better incentives to move from benefits into work, a continued commitment towards conditionality and sanctions and even some hints that Jobcentre Plus responsibilities might be transferred in some areas. Jobcentre Plus will have a triage role in the new framework, assessing individual customer needs.
There was no specific mention of Work Choice but the procurement is now expected to go ahead as planned. Certainly, it will be easier to integrate Work Choice into the new Work Programme in the future with fewer prime contractors involved.
Some issues remain to be clarified. While there was recognition of the importance of specialists within delivery chains and a commitment to creating an environment in which they can thrive, it is clear that the Government expects the sector to shape itself. It is hard to see how Government can influence supply chain management if it does not want to get involved in market stewardship. There was also mention of minimising inspection requirements but work will be needed to address safeguarding issues.
Source: British Association for Supported Employment (BASE)
Website: http://www.base-uk.org
Young Persons Guarantee launched by PM
16th Feb 2010
The Prime Minister recently officially launched the Young Persons Guarantee. This guarantees 18 to 24 year olds who have been unemployed over six months an offer of a job, training or work experience.
This is a major part of the Government’s Backing Young Britain initiative to support young people during the recession. The Guarantee will be supported by over 400,000 Government funded training places, internships, work experience places and job opportunities.
All young people will get support from a named personal adviser who will advise them on the options available to help them into work.
From January Jobcentre Plus will introduce dedicated teams providing ‘named Adviser’ support to 18 - 24 year olds including:
• additional flexible Adviser support in the first 13 weeks;
• weekly signing and additional Adviser support between 13 and 26 weeks;
• intensifying the level of Adviser support for 18 - 24 year olds between 6 and 10 months (effectively applying the existing Adviser resource over 4 months instead of 6);
• providing over 100,000 additional opportunities including: Future Jobs Fund (FJF) jobs; work-focused training, internships and routes into work;
From April young people will be required to take up one of the offers by the 10 month point of their claim.
Offers include:
• Jobs options, supported by a £1,000 subsidy for the employer. We have also created thousands of extra jobs in the community through the FJF;
• Training – from short courses to prepare for jobs in particular sectors up to full time courses lasting 3 - 6 months;
• Work experience in the form of internships and places on the Community Task Force.
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