Fifteen urban areas across Britain are in line for £32M funding as part of a scheme to give local areas a greater role in getting people back to work.
The 15 areas, which have been chosen as pathfinders in the Cities Strategy, will get direct control of the money from the Government's Deprived Areas Fund after drawing up their own plans and targets to help people get the support they need to find work.
They will also have a role in shaping the delivery of the Government's flagship Pathways to Work programme to help people off incapacity benefit, have access to improved data-sharing, and a greater ability to influence the provision of training opportunities and employment programmes at a local level.
"The City Strategy Pathfinder represents a unique opportunity to pool the support and investment from agencies across the West Midlands conurbation into a single joint strategy,” said David Cragg, director West Midlands Learning and Skills Council and City Strategy consortia lead. “This will mean substantially improving the job prospects of some 250,000 people in the most deprived neighbourhoods and communities, at the same time as offering employers a much better service providing an integrated recruitment and skills package to meet the needs of their business."
Work and pensions minister John Hutton said that the areas would also be eligible to receive additional reward funding if they are successful in meeting their targets to get people back to work.
The 15 Pathfinders, appointed last year, have all set up consortia comprising government agencies, providers, local government and the private and voluntary sector, to work together and pool resources. They will now work with the Department for Work and Pensions to set binding targets by the end of May. The pathfinders are East and West London, Birmingham, Blackburn, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Heads of the Valleys, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, Rhyl, Sheffield, and Tyne and Wear.