Birmingham City Council's joint ICT venture has deployed flexible working practices to transform the job prospects of people living in some of the most disadvantaged areas of the city, it has been announced.

Service Birmingham , the joint initiative between Birmingham City Council and Capita has recruited 126 staff including long-term unemployed, lone parents and disabled people as customer service advisers over the last year.

Service Birmingham, is a joint initiative between Birmingham City Council and Capita.

Some forty of the new staff provide frontline services to the contact centre operation as homeworkers, using flexible shifts to shape their working day around their caring responsibilities.

Deputy leader of Birmingham City Council, Paul Tilsley, hailed the scheme as the successful adoption of the Jobs and Skills Charter, signed last year, in which the council’s employment access team work with local recruitment agencies to help secure jobs for capable local people from groups who traditionally struggle to find work.

Cllr Tilsley said: 'It is important that we do everything to ensure that all people have the opportunity to work, but this is considerably more difficult if you are disabled, have caring responsibilities or have been out of the labour market for some time.'

Service Birmingham has itself pledged to employ an extra 720 people in the Birmingham area by April 2013.Chief executive Stewart Wren said the group was 'delighted by the success of the partnership and the calibre of the people we have recruited.'

Mr Wren added: 'What is so pleasing is that it shows that when people are given the chance to work and contribute they are able and willing to do so.'