£20m scheme to harness skills of redundant staff

The Better West Midlands project is helping thousands of North Staffordshire employees find new jobs – even before they have been made redundant.

The scheme, run by a consortium of trade unions has a £20 million contract with the Learning and Skills Council to deliver pre-redundancy support.

Better West Midlands evolved from a successful programme developed by the Unity union in Stoke-on-Trent to help out pottery workers about to lose their jobs.

Project manager Lyndon Peach, pictured above, said: "The model we have developed has been recognised as something that really works.

"It's available to anyone who is under notice of redundancy or any group which is under notice.

"We go in to the workplace and everyone receives individual advice and an action plan is drawn up that takes into account what they see themselves doing, how realistic that is, what skills they have and what skills they need.

"After that, if training is needed, then the appropriate courses are sourced and it is paid for by the project.

"It's all focussed on getting them back to work as quickly as possible.

"One of the advantages is that it's run by a consortium of trade unions so we have already built up that trust with them and they see us as a friendly face rather than an institution.

"The other advantage of being unions is we often have early knowledge if there are going to be redundancies even before notices go out. That means we can be very flexible and reactive.

"Very often, though, if there are only a small number of redundancies we don't get to hear about them and it's these people we really want to find.

"As long as they have been given notice of redundancy we want them to contact the project.

"These are the people who often slip through the net."