[guide.chat] news remploy 1700 closures
- From: vanessa <qwerty1234567a@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "GUIDE CHAT" <guide.chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2012 13:14:30 -0000
7 March 2012 Last updated at 19:39
Remploy plans factory closures with 1,700 job losses
Minister for Disabled People Maria Miller: Money used should 'support the
individual'
Remploy - which provides work for people with disabilities - is planning to
close 36 of its 54 factories, putting more than 1,700 jobs at risk.
Minister for Disabled People Maria Miller said the sites could be closed by the
end of the year as they were not financially viable.
Labour called the decision "the wrong plan at the wrong time".
Remploy factories were established 66 years ago as part of the creation of the
welfare state.
Remploy workers are employed in enterprises that vary from furniture and
packaging manufacturing to recycling electrical appliances and operating CCTV
systems and control rooms.
Losses
The government says "non-viable" Remploy factories should close, with the
money, part of a £320m annual budget for disability employment, re-invested
into other schemes to help disabled people find work.
The government will reduce its current subsidy to Remploy from the beginning of
the new financial year so that we cease funding factories which make
significant losses year after year?
Maria Miller
Minister for Disabled People
It follows an independent review conducted by Liz Sayce, chief executive of
Disability Rights UK, into the way in which the government spends its
disability employment budget.
Her report recommended that government funding should focus on support for
individuals, rather than subsidising factory businesses.
She recommended the cash should be diverted into the Access to Work fund, which
provides technology and other help to firms for the disabled, whose average
spend per person is £2,900.
The Department for Work and Pensions said about a fifth of that budget was
currently spent on Remploy factories, but added that almost all of the
factories were loss-making and last year lost £68.3m.
Speaking to the BBC, Ms Sayce said she hoped that some of the loss-making
factories could be returned to profitability.
"I think it is really important that those factories should be given a chance
to show if they can be viable," she said.
"I really think there should be good business support, and if somebody has got
a good idea for how to turn something around and make a success of it, really
go for it, good luck, and I really hope that works.
"Because the more that any compulsory redundancies can be avoided the better."
Case study
Les Woodward, 58, a wood machinist at the Remploy factory in Swansea, and a
Remploy national convener, described the decision as "absolutely devastating".
"Angry is too small a word," he said.
"It's all part of the government cuts agenda.
"It's got nothing to do with looking after disabled people, there's no rhyme or
reason to it.
"There are 54 Remploy factories employing 2,000 disabled people.
"All that is going to come out of this is that 2,000 disabled people are going
to be added to the unemployment figures.
"Where am I going to get a job? Living in Wales, there's no jobs going.
"I can't see how they're going to help me get a job - they'd be better off
trying to get other disabled people in work."
'Not sustainable'
Remploy factories in Wales will be among those hardest hit, with proposals to
close seven of its nine factories, affecting up to 272 staff.
In a Commons statement, Ms Miller said the government would reduce its current
subsidy to Remploy from the beginning of the new financial year.
She described the announcement as "difficult but important".
"The current system is not using the money we have available most effectively,
the current situation is simply not sustainable," Ms Miller added.
She went on to say that every Remploy place currently costs £25,000 a year,
compared with £3,000 per person under the Access to Work scheme.
An £8m fund is being set up to help those affected find alternative employment.
In response, the shadow minister for the disabled Anne McGuire said making such
a decision on the basis of a "report by an individual is frankly not
acceptable".
She added: "There are tens of people, in each of the constituencies where these
factory redundancies are going to be made, chasing every job."
'Wrong plan'
Earlier, Liam Byrne MP, Labour's shadow work and pensions secretary, said: "It
is frankly outrageous that the government has tried to smuggle out the news on
the day of the Parliament's celebration of Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee.
"Quite simply this is the wrong plan at the wrong time. Unemployment is going
through the roof. Back to work schemes are sinking under the weight of
spiralling unemployment.
Mark Goldring, Mencap: "I think it is right that people with disabilities get
involved in the wider economy"
"In 2007, Chris Grayling said in Parliament: 'Let me assure Remploy and its
employees that the next Conservative Government will continue the process of
identifying additional potential procurement opportunities for them and the
public sector workforce'.
"Now we know the truth. People with disabilities will never trust a word they
say again."
Phil Davies, national secretary of the GMB union, said the government's
announcement was "an attack on the most vulnerable members of our society".
He added: "I never thought that I would live to see the day that an
organisation set up to provide sustainable employment for disabled people being
shut down."
The 36 Remploy factories due to close are: Aberdare, Aberdeen, Abertillery,
Acton, Ashington, Barking, Barrow, Birkenhead, Bolton, Bridgend, Bristol,
Chesterfield, Cleator Moor, Croespenmaen, Edinburgh, Gateshead, Leeds,
Leicester, Manchester, Merthyr Tydfil, Motherwell, Newcastle, north London,
North Staffs, Oldham, Penzance, Pontefract, Poole, Preston, Southampton,
Spennymoor, Springburn, Swansea, Wigan, Worksop and Wrexham.
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