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WELSH ASSEMBLY INIATIVES

The Welsh Assembly Government has introduced two new schemes to help workers who are redundant or threatened with redundancy.

ReAct offers training funding for people who:

* are currently under notice of redundancy; or
* have become unemployed in the last six months as a result of redundancy and
* are currently unemployed and
* have not been in continuous employment for 6 weeks or more since being made redundant.

The funding can cover a range of costs, for example:

* 100 per cent 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

ProAct helps if employers are experiencing financial difficulties.

ProAct seeks to provide an alternative to making staff redundant by supporting short-time working and retraining during the days not being worked. It may be able to offer support to enable apprenticeship places to continue. The scheme is being piloted between January and March 2009, mainly with the automotive sector, and is expected to be expanded in April 2009 to cover a wider range of sectors. The service to support apprenticeships is already available in all sectors.