The Department for Work and Pensions has released figures from October 2010 until and including March 2013, on job outcomes for Work Choice providers (excluding Remploy).

Matthew Lester, Chair of the Employment Related Services Association’s Disability Employment Forum, commented:

A £1m donation made by a businessman has helped launch the Oldham Youth Guarantee, which has set out to guarantee an apprenticeship, college place or job for every young person leaving school, Manchester Evening News has reported. Norman Stoller, who made the donation and who will also help get local organisations signed up and working towards the guarantee said:

The Department for Communities and Local Government has announced the winners of the 'best councils to do business with' awards. The 10 winners were selected for their innovative procurement practices for small businesses by a panel which included industry experts and local and central government representatives, the department has said.

The winners are:

The Department for Work and Pensions has published its second report on the direct payment demonstration projects. The research report covers the six months in which six pilot areas (Oxford, Southwark, Shropshire, Torfaen, Wakefield and Edinburgh) paid Housing Benefit directly to tenants. The department emphasises that that the impact and consequences remain cautious.

The main findings concluded:

Lydia Finnegan, researcher at Inclusion, asks crucial questions on the privatisation of  the probation service in her latest blog post. 

Last week, plans were announced which will dramatically alter the way probation services are delivered; putting a large proportion out to competitive tender. Attempting to address the fact that short sentence (<12 months) prisoners leave custody without supervision from the Probation Service, Chris Grayling is justifiably demonstrating concern for the prolific short sentence offenders who cycle in and out of prison and incur great cost to the public purse. It seems logical to introduce some form of provision for a group who have the highest rates of reoffending of all prisoners.

However, does the need to rehabilitate this heterogeneous group and reduce the costs associated with them necessitate the privatisation of a large part of the probation service? Is prison the best place to begin the rehabilitation of these non-violent offenders in the first place? How will the new contracted out services differ from those already delivered by offender managers?

The team from GoThinkBig asked what we can do to improve young people's employability at the Youth Employment Convention 2013. See their video below. 

The winners of the inaugural ERSA Employability Awards, sponsored by Interserve Working Futures, were announced last night at a ceremony in central London, attended by Employment Minister Mark Hoban and with a drinks reception sponsored by Specialist Recruitment Partners.