Wirral Council has been awarded additional funding of £807,140 by The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, John Denham MP to tackle worklessness and promote skills.

The Council will receive this extra funding through the Working Neighbourhoods Fund (WNF) which is designed to support local authorities in developing creative and innovative ways of tackling local worklessness

Wirral Council Leader, Cllr Steve Foulkes said: “This is tremendous news for Wirral.  We have already implemented a number of important initiatives to combat the effects of the recession with our initial allocation of funding such as the highly successful Wirral Apprentice programme, ReachOut and our Business Investment Grants. This additional funding will enable us to undertake additional activity to combat the recession and we will now assess how best to spend this most welcome extra resource.”

Funding is allocated for the period of 2008 to 2011 and allows local authorities to work with partners like Jobcentre Plus, the PCT and Social Landlords to tackle the complex barriers some people face in getting back to work, and working together to prevent negative social impacts and future problems of persistent worklessness.

Wirral Council was initially awarded £28,445,187 from the WNF over three years between 2008 and 2011 which has enabled the Authority to implement The Wirral Apprentice programme which has seen the creation of one hundred new apprentice positions in local companies with Wirral Council paying their salaries for the next 18 months.  The young people also have their training paid for them by the National Apprenticeship Service while they complete an Apprenticeship in their chosen field.

Reach Out is an innovative approach that engages workless households by taking the service to their home.  Reach Out guidance workers knock on doors, engage residents in the familiar surroundings of their own home and provide the support to help residents from Wirral’s most disadvantaged communities back into work.  Reach Out has achieved national recognition in light of its impressive job outcomes with over 2000 people helped into work since the programme’s start including an impressive 458 from April 2009.

Wirral Council has also supported SME businesses through the creation of the Business Investment Grant.  A grant of £4,000 to £20,000 is awarded to companies to help with a specific project which will enable them to safeguard and grow their business.  Companies to benefit from the Business Investment Grant so far include TTH Laundry Services, Let’s Go Publishing, Sign Lights and Wish Trac.

During 2008-2009, 80 companies were assisted in creating or safeguarding in excess of 900 jobs and securing over £17million private sector investment.   This was achieved in part through the services offered by Invest Wirral, Wirral Council’s business support team. 

To further help the Council also introduced the Wirral Business Forum – www.businesswirral.com – which includes free online networking for Wirral based businesses and now has over 700 business members.