The Welsh Liberal Democrats have always supported the ReAct and ProAct schemes of the Welsh Assembly Government as a means of retraining and reskilling workers whilst helping employers avoid redundancies. Under ReAct scheme, workers who have been made redundant in the previous six months become entitled to join re-skilling courses up to a total value of £2,500.
Our problem has been with some of the claims made for the schemes such as the proposition that further education colleges can access the money to make up for cuts in their budget. Not true.
We also have a problem with the excessive bureaucracy of the schemes, which we believe can put employers off and the fact that they appear to be the only weapon in the Welsh Government’s arsenal to tackle the recession, a problem underlined by the failure of the Economic Minister to get a grip on his job.
This morning’s Western Mail has another snag that illustrates the lack of joined up government between Cardiff and Westminster on this issue.
The paper says that unemployed workers who take advantage of the Assembly Government-backed training initiative aimed at combating the recession are likely to find their benefits cut:
A description of the scheme on the Assembly Government’s website states: “Support is available for eligible applicants to increase their skills and remove barriers to learning, or returning to work.
“In order to ensure that this training provides the best possible chance of finding new employment, all applicants will need to have their training needs assessed by Careers Wales.
“Careers Wales will also advise on suitable training courses and training venues.”
Under this part of the scheme the following financial support is available, it says:
100% of training costs to acquire new skills, up to a maximum of £2,500; help with the cost of special equipment required for training; reimbursement of travel costs to training courses, overnight accommodation costs, where appropriate a contribution towards the cost of materials for training and reimbursement of childcare costs.
But even though workers have had their applications to join ReAct courses authorised by Careers Wales, some have been told that if they take up the offer of a place, they will find themselves disqualified from receiving state benefits.
There is an urgent need for Ministers from both governments to get together to arrange for ReAct to have the same dispensation from Jobseeker Allowance rules as other training schemes so that Wales can get the full benefits of this investment.
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