tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34128264.post6035660545160281599..comments2024-03-25T12:55:40.911+00:00Comments on Caron's Musings: Nick Clegg offers hope with £1bn Youth ContractAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04988201531739344840noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34128264.post-91129687326495109792011-11-25T18:52:12.919+00:002011-11-25T18:52:12.919+00:00Tris; I'm a member of the lost generation of t...Tris; I'm a member of the lost generation of the early 1980s - approaching fifty and still looking for my first job. I agree with everything you've written, but practical solutions are required...my suggestion is to make the local authority the employer-of-last-resort for people once they've been unemployed for a set period of time.Leehttp://peakwalking.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34128264.post-37951779856715281522011-11-25T16:14:42.274+00:002011-11-25T16:14:42.274+00:00As a person who has worked for about 15 years in ...As a person who has worked for about 15 years in the "back to work" business, and in particular recently with 15 and 16 year olds looking for a start in life after school, I'm always interested in any new scheme the government, whether ours or the one in London comes forward with.<br /><br />My main worries about this pretty expensive package is that employers will (as Nick said) be tempted to exploit the situation.<br /><br />It is, with respect, all very well to have the deputy prime minister say that he will act if he finds any case where this is happening, but in honesty, every scheme I have seen has employers who use it.<br /><br />The trouble is that no one reports it. At every level people are just happy to have another placement. Whether it is the agency that the government pays by results, the Jobcentre, the DWP, or indeed the cabinet minister responsible, IDS or NC.<br /><br />Everyone wants the placements, everyone wants the numbers in their area to be reduced. At the top, a million young unemployed is a national disgrace, and clearly an embarrassment to the Tories in particular, who did the same thing last time we had the misfortune to have to live under their beneficence.<br /><br />My second worry is that staff, on targets, will be pressing kids to do things that they simply aren't interested in. I've watched people do it and I've had lads come and tell me that the staff are trying to get them, for example, to join up, and they don't want to but they are scared of what the JC will do if they turn it down.<br /><br />These are people's lives, not figures, statistics. Margaret Thatcher hid the unemployed on sickness figures. The Tories have form!<br /><br />But under Labour it was the same. Targets, targets, targets... and to hell with the kids.<br /><br />I hope that, a t the most vulnerable time of their lives, these children (because that's really what they still are) are treated with care and compassion, not dumped into places they hate to satisfy some target driven functionary.<br /><br />I generally welcome the moves, but after years of experience I am very suspicious of themAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com