| The PACE — Partnership Action for Continuing Employment — response team, whose members include Scottish Enterprise LECs, Jobcentre Plus, local authorities and other agencies, possibly including representatives from Careers Scotland, HM Revenue & Customs and trade unions, is poised to put in place locally-developed contingency plans which can be adapted quickly to suit particular situations.
PACE is a Scottish Executive initiative for partnership working which ensures local public sector agencies deal with potential/proposed large-scale redundancies quickly and effectively.
A spokeswoman for JobCentre Plus said today, “While we can’t speak specifically on individual cases, in cases where there is a large-scale redundancy situation it is possible the PACE team would be sent in to deal with the situation.
“Several different agencies work together to assist, offering people advice on benefits available, financial advice, alternative employment or training or becoming self-employed.
“People affected by redundancy should get in touch with JobCentre Plus as quickly as possible to receive all kinds of advice and also there may be some benefits available to them immediately.”
The key aim of the PACE response team is to get people made redundant into alternative employment or training as quickly as possible.
The team provides an ability to manage “local crisis” pro-actively, and provides a co-ordinated response to large-scale redundancies.
Support is tailored to individual needs and circumstances, and includes financial advice and support — benefits advice, welfare rights, money advice and debt counselling, as well as redeployment support — job search and matching, vocational guidance, identify needs to meet job availability.
They will also point the way towards self-employment opportunities — small business start-up support via Business Gateway. |
