The chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced a £2bn ‘kickstart scheme’ to help young people get jobs! Your business can join in and help a young person gain some invaluable work experience by offering them a work placement at your company.
The Watford Chamber team are being proactive and plan to be one of the very first intermediaries to be up and running and delivering this service. We have learned a great deal more about the programme, here are some key points for your information:
- The Scheme is aimed at those aged 16 to 24 who are on Universal Credit and are deemed to be at risk of long term unemployment.
- Funding available for each job will cover 100% of the relevant National Minimum Wage for 25 hours a week, plus the associated employer National Insurance contributions and employer minimum automatic enrolment contributions.
- Placements must be for 6 months.
- Placements should support the participant to develop the skills and experience they need to find work after completing the scheme.
- You will need to provide job descriptions for each of the job placement. This should include details of hours/pay/location etc.
- Once placement submitted, you will be contacted by the young people who have been matched to your job placement. The candidates will be sourced via the Job Centre. We are still clarifying if other routes are permitted.
- You will pay them via PAYE and will be refunded as above at approx. month 3 & 7 of the placement.
- They can work more than 25 hours and you can pay them more than the min wage (you can only claim 25 hrs and min wage etc).
- The earliest they can start will be 1 November 2020, subject to process with DWP. We don’t know how long it will take for them to send you candidates.
- The programme is due to run for 1 year.
- We are seeking confirmation of when specifically you will receive the £1500 grant.
