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Monday, January 5, 1998 Published at 08:26 GMT

New hope for young unemployed
image: [ A life on the dole is no longer an option for young people in the test areas ]

A life on the dole is no longer an option for young people in the test areas

The Government's new deal to help jobless 18- to 24-year-olds find work gets under way on Monday in 12 trial areas across Britain.

The Chancellor, Gordon Brown, is also understood to be considering an extra investment of up to Ł250m in schemes to help older and long-term unemployed people.

Ministers are also expected to announce further plans to extend elements of the new deal to those aged 25 to 35.

Writing in Scotland's Daily Record newspaper, Mr Brown says the launch of the new deal for the young marks "a new beginning in the war against poverty" but was "just the start".

[ image: Voluntary service is one of the choices available under the new deal]
Voluntary service is one of the choices available under the new deal
Under the scheme, 18- to 24-year-olds out of work for at least six months will be offered four options.

The Government has made it clear that there will be no fifth option of doing nothing. Refusing to join the scheme will lead to loss of benefit.

Young people will first get a "gateway" preparation period of up to four months. A personal adviser will help with work and social skills, basic education, careers advice and problems like homelessness, debt or drug dependency, before being offered one of the four options.

These are:

A job with an employer. Private sector employers will get a Ł60-a-week subsidy for up to 26 weeks. The new deal also contributes Ł750 towards training young people for accredited qualifications.

Six months' work with the Government's environment task force.

Six months' work in the voluntary sector.

Or full-time education or training.

All three work options include training for one day a week, and participants in all four options will continue to get intensive support from their Employment Service advisers throughout their participation in the scheme.

Treasury sources are indicating that Mr Brown is exploring the possibility of investing up to Ł250m into schemes for the older and the long-term unemployed on top of money already announced for welfare-to-work.

[ image: Gordon Brown: looking at ways to extend the new deal to older unemployed people]
Gordon Brown: looking at ways to extend the new deal to older unemployed people
There is speculation that he will announce the extra cash in his March Budget, and that it would come from the proceeds of the Ł3.5bn windfall tax on the profits of privatised utilities, which have not yet all been spent.

In his newspaper article, Mr Brown writes that a modern anti-poverty strategy demands more than simply "compensating" people for unemployment and poverty. What was needed was a new deal for those who could work and a "fairer and better deal for those incapable of working".

Mr Brown wrote that it was a central duty of Government to create work opportunities for all and it was Labour's "New Year resolution" for 1998 to get the long-term unemployed back to work.

Liberal Democrat Social Security spokesman, David Rendel, is warning ministers against rushing too quickly from pilot schemes to nationwide implementation.

He said proper evaluation of the 'new deal' pilot schemes would need six months to see how effective they would be in the long term.

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