23 November 2007
London's five Olympic boroughs will experiment with an employment programme aimed at entire families, under government plans to devolve tailored services.
The East and Southeast London City Strategy Pathfinder — one of 15 Whitehall-funded CSPs trying new ways to get unemployed people off benefits and into work — will operate the scheme until 2009.
Louise Woodford, programme director at the London Development Agency, which is overseeing two CSPs in the capital, told Public Finance that the initiative would complement government plans to tailor New Deal programmes to the needs of the long-term unemployed.
'New Deals already exist for lone parents, but until now there hasn't been a package aimed at people in low-income households. Many families still live in poverty, even where one parent is employed full time. This will target them.'
The LDA initiative will operate across the five boroughs affected by the Olympics development — Greenwich, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest.
PFnov2007
