Warrington Borough Council has been approved by DWP to act as a Gateway for any organisations who do not have the required 30 placements required for the scheme, but want to be involved.
Overview of the scheme
The new Kickstart Scheme is a £2 billion fund to create a significant number of high quality 6-month work placements aimed at those aged 16-24 who are on Universal Credit and are deemed to be at risk of long term unemployment.
The funding available for each placement will cover 100% of the relevant National Minimum wage for 25 hours per week, plus the associated employer National Insurance contributions.
Employers will interview applicants and select the best candidate(s) for the role(s) in the usual recruitment manner.
Bids must be for a minimum of 30 job placements. If you are unable to offer this many placements, WBC can act as the Gateway for this.
You can offer a number of placements over the duration of the Scheme. The last cohort will be accepted in December 2021.
Who can apply?
Employers from all industries across the private, public and voluntary sectors can get involved. The placements must not replace existing or planned vacancies or cause existing employees or contractors to lose or reduce their employment.
The roles must be a minimum of 25 hours per week for 6 months and paid at least the National Minimum Wage for their age group.
No extensive training should be required prior to the placement.
You MUST have a payroll system to be eligible.
What is included and how you will be reimbursed?
- National Minimum Wage to cover 25 hours per week for the duration of the placement – 6 months;
- You must pay for the placement through your usual payroll system;
- You will be reimbursed in 2 payments, in arrears (this is currently being reviewed) at month 4 and 7;
- DWP will be checking salary payments through the HMRC Real Time Information System and will release monies to the Gateway automatically at month 4 and 7; (under review)
- You will then send an invoice to Warrington Borough Council after the first 3 months and then again after the 6 month placement for the payments to be reimbursed;
- DWP may contact you or the young person during the job placement to check how the placement is going, what employment support is being provide and to make sure the young person has the best experience from the scheme.
Wraparound support – what is it?
This is in addition to the experience the young person will gain from yourselves under the scheme and must include, as a minimum:
- Employability Support
- CV Writing / Completing Application Forms
- Interview Skills & Techniques
- How to behave in the World of Work
- How to apply for jobs and where to find them
- Workplace behavior/etiquette
- Possible progression into a suitable outcome at the end of the placement.
DWP will pay an additional £1500 for this support per placement and again, checks will be made throughout the placement to ensure this is being provided.
Warrington Borough Council can offer to provide this wraparound support from our experienced employability officers and will take £1000 per placement for this - we will then pay you the outstanding £500.00 for letting us do so, of which you don’t have to do anything additional for this payment.
Next Steps
Please complete the Expression of Interest form with as much detail as possible and return to:
Jackie Emson jackie.emson@warringtonandco.com
Please note there will be a process DWP are working through to do employer checks prior to approval. Please be assured we will contact you as soon as we hear to proceed with your recruitment. You may be asked at this point to provide full vacancy details or some additional information.
Thank you for wanting to be part of the Kickstart Scheme and offering a young person the opportunity to gain some valuable experience during their placements. Thank you for choosing us to be The Gateway in supporting you to do this.