THE BRITISH government has awarded a €150 million contract to a Rehab-led consortium to train up to 100,000 long-term unemployed in Wales and the southwest of England to get back into employment.
The announcement of the JobFit contract, which will replace a variety of existing British welfare programmes covering those out of work for more than six months, was made in Gloucestershire yesterday by prime minister David Cameron.
Rehab, through its UK subsidiary, TGB Learning Group, will deliver the programme in all of Wales, along with operations in Gloucester, Bristol and Wiltshire, while Rehab is expected to win more subcontracting deals next week.
Paying tribute to Rehab, Mr Cameron said he was “delighted” that a company from the voluntary sector had reached an alliance with Interserve, with both bringing their “different experiences” to bear.
The JobFit programme, he said, is spending future benefit savings now to meet the diverse needs of those who are “hardest to reach and hardest to place”, such as the young unemployed and those out of work for years.
Rehab Group chief executive Angela Kerins said Rehab, which holds a 51 per cent stake in the deal, has “a strong track record over 60 years in supporting people to achieve the skills they need”.
Over 100,000 people, beginning in June, will get vocational training, skills development and employment-targeted support during the five-year contract announced yesterday.
The 18 companies awarded contracts yesterday, including Rehab, “will get the freedom to design support that actually works, rather than having to do what’s prescribed by Whitehall”, the department of work and pensions said last night.
Much of the payments will be made on results, with the largest payments being made if they manage to get those out of work for many years, or who have never worked at all, into permanent jobs.