Redundancy - Bedfordshire County Council
The project Redundancy provided a Redundancy Support Coordinator to be the first point of contact with companies at risk of redundancies. To provide Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) and Skills needs analysis to all individuals at risk, providing Redundancy Support Workshop for all those at risk who require it. It provided re-skilling or up-skilling employees with low level skills by sourcing appropriate training based on the IAG process.
To minimise the individual and local economic impact of redundancies by proactively identifying redundancy situations and working with ‘at risk’ employers; Signposting individuals into mainstream provision/ other local and regional support initiatives and deliver the Investing in Communities outputs and help people find new jobs within the local economy; To reduce the negative impacts of redundancy and length of time spent unemployed by providing an efficient and quality employment support service to companies and individual employees.
Through the RSC we were able to work with 17 companies with 13 receiving the full support programme. A total of 309 individuals have received IAG, Training Needs Analysis and Support Workshops with a total of 202 receiving part of that service by choice. 11 individuals completed specific training courses. 20 individuals confirmed, verbally, that they had got jobs following our support.
The Redundancy Support Coordinator (RSC) is the first point of contact for companies who are at risk of making redundancies by early contact through local sources (Redundancy Support Group), local and national news or the HR1 process through our partners Job Centreplus. The full service was offered to support them with the redundancy situation. If the company was larger than the SME of our remit other organisations were contacted to provide their services such as Rapid Response from Job Centreplus and R2R2. If it was an SME then the IAG service is provided to all the individuals at risk of redundancy which will include a Training Needs Analysis. From this a Redundancy Support Workshop was offered to all at risk individuals who wanted it. Specific training was then sourced from local providers to satisfy the individuals’ needs from the TNA.
The IAG service included a Training Needs Analysis which gave valuable information to the Project coordinator for sourcing of appropriate training.
The additional appointment of a Training Coordinator speeded up the sourcing of training once the need had arisen. The value of a sub-regional co-ordinated approach towards supporting companies and individuals in time of economic shock has been most effective in terms of response and provision.
The project provided a service that was proactive and quick to respond to potential redundancy situations which were warmly welcomed by both employers and employees who felt our service was very supportive. The support offered to individuals facing redundancy reduced the time spent claiming benefits and increased their self-esteem and confidence.
Contact for the project is:
Gareth McKenzie
Bedfordshire County Council
County Hall
Cauldwell Street
Bedford
MK42 9AP
Tel 01234-228568
Email garth.mckenzie@bedscc.gov.uk
