Issue - meetings

Cabinet received the joint report of the Cabinet Members for Housing and Regeneration which sought approval to direct funding of up to £160,000 from the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) in 2013/14 to support Council tenants into paid employment. 

The report explained that employment was the clearest route to raising household incomes and was central to the Government’s welfare reforms of making work pay.  It was proposed that a pilot ‘payment by results’ mechanism would be established during 2013/14 with the Job Shop service, facilitated by the Council’s Regeneration Division.  The £160,000 was based upon 200 tenants supported into employment at a cost of £800 each.  It was intended that the pilot period would be used to assess impact and to develop a more sophisticated funding mechanism for future years.

Cabinet agreed:

(i)  Up to £160,000 in HRA monies be made available in 2013/14 on a pilot basis to support the Council’s Job Shop service, based on evidencing 200 tenants into work; and

(ii)  A more detailed proposal for 2014/15 and future years be worked up over the pilot period and brought back before Cabinet which better reflected the level of difficulty in helping some groups of people into work and the need to keep people in employment.