This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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New future for employability fund
14/12/2005
Up to £3.1 million is to be made available to help build on the success of a government initiative that helps vulnerable people into work.
From April 2006, future responsibility for developing and delivering New Futures Fund (NFF) type services will transfer from Scottish Enterprise to local Community Planning Partnerships. Highlands and Islands Enterprise will continue to work with local partners to develop NFF services in their area.
Deputy Enterprise Minister Allan Wilson said:
"We are determined to give everyone in Scotland increased opportunities in life, especially the most vulnerable and those living in deprived communities.
"The New Futures Fund has been extremely successful in piloting new ways of supporting those facing barriers such as homelessness and drug misuse into the labour market.
"We want to build on this good work and ensure that services of this type can be made more widely available to those who need it. We plan to do this by transferring future responsibility and funding for building on the NFF to local partnerships, and work with them to ensure the programmes meet local need for the services concerned."
The New Futures Fund (NFF), which was established as a pilot in 1998, is a labour market programme for people aged 15 to 34 facing serious disadvantage in the labour market. Target client groups include those with mental health problems, ex-offenders, the homeless and drug misusers.
Managed by and funded through Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, NFF is delivered by organisations with expertise in their client groups. In setting up NFF, the objectives were: to develop news ways of working with the client group and to provide more comprehensive and sustainable provision by building successful aspects of NFF into mainstream services.
Funding is currently in place for NFF projects until the end of March 2006. From then on, responsibility in the Scottish Enterprise area for integrating existing NFF projects into the local service infrastructure will transfer to local Community Planning Partnerships (CPPs). The Executive is making funding of up to £3.1 million available each year to CPPs until 2008 to support this activity. This is equivalent to the current costs of NFF. It will be for CPPs, working with local employability partnerships, to determine the future role - and funding - of existing NFF projects in the light of local priorities.
In the Highlands and Islands funding will remain with Highlands and Islands Enterprise. Building on NFF projects will be the responsibility of the local employability forum in each area. These will be established following the launch of the Executive's Employability Framework.
The Executive's Employability Framework, currently under development, will outline how key agencies should work together to deliver services for the people who need a high level of support to move into the labour market, including those currently provided for by New Futures Fund.
Community Planning Partnerships - Community Planning is a process which helps public agencies to work together with the community to plan and deliver better services which make a real difference to people's lives. The aims of Community Planning in Scotland are:
- making sure people and communities are genuinely engaged in the decisions made on public services which affect them
- a commitment from organisations to work together, not apart, in providing better public services