Under the £1 billion scheme, 160,000 wage subsidies worth up to £2,275 over six months are available to employers who recruit 18 to 24 year olds who are claiming benefits.

So far, so good. These are tough times for employers, and even tougher ones for young people desperate to climb onto the jobs ladder.

This week it emerged that an employer wanting to take on a young (disabled) person though Work Choice, the Government`s specialist disability employment programme, cannot attract one of these wage subsidies.

As a result, an employer might have a choice of two young people; the one without a disability comes with a chunky wage subsidy, the one with a disability doesn’t.

ERSA’s chief executive Kirsty McHugh argued that it was `a major oversight by the Government not to include young disabled jobseekers in the Youth Contract.`

The press, understandably, have had a field day with what is generally perceived as a ‘mistake’ and an ‘embarrassment’ for ministers. ‘Disabled jobless to miss out on Clegg help’, one headline proclaimed.  ‘A programme for disabled people has been excluded from a government scheme to reduce youth unemployment, leading to accusations of discrimination’ is the general tone.

The employer subsidy scheme which forms part of the Youth Contract scheme is being administered through the Work Programme. Of course, the original intention of the Conservative Party in its election manifesto in 2010 was to have one single work programme which subsequently became the blueprint for, helpfully enough, the Work Programme, so you can see the logic of the subsidy being pinned onto Work Programme activity.

But a series of considerations combined to see the Work Programme launched in 2011 not as a single, all-embracing DWP employment programme but as one of two programmes running side by side. That`s because, as we know, the long planned for Work Choice went live in October 2010, eight months before the Work Programme was ready to roll out of the development stage.

As a specialist disability programme, Work Choice is dwarfed in size by its £5 billion cousin, the Work Programme. It was designed in a very different way to the Work Programme and is aimed specifically at using a supported employment model to help people with a learning disability, physical disability, sensory impairment or severe and enduring mental health condition to find and keep paid employment.

Work Choice contracts were awarded for a five year period, and here’s the question: Will Work Choice, as a specialist disability employment programme, be recommissioned after 2015? Or at the first opportunity, will ministers roll Work Choice activity into the Work Programme which, after all, was intended to be the sole employment programme out there?

There are many of us who believe passionately that it is vitally important to preserve a specialist disability service as part of DWP`s armoury. We believe that the way the Work Programme was designed, funded and implemented makes it unsuitable to support the needs and meet the employment aspirations of many disabled people who face very different challenges to non-disabled jobseekers and have support needs which the Work Programme cannot meet.

The word-of-mouth evidence after one year of the Work Programme (since there is no performance data in the public domain as yet) is that it`s not working very effectively for people with support needs, and that it is most appropriate for those people closest to the labour market and needing relatively little input from providers. But how easy will it be to win over ministers who were adamant before they came into office that a single employment programme was what was needed and would work best?

Our hope has to be that the decision-makers remain open to the evidence and to the arguments that the Work Programme cannot meet the needs of `everybody`, simply because a learning disability, for example, creates support needs that are too specialist and too specific to be supported in the same way that an out-of-work experienced accountant or bricklayer in Wolverhampton might be helped to find a job.

In responding to this week`s story about Youth Contract wage subsidies not being available to disabled Work Choice customers, a spokesperson for the DWP said: `Disabled people can already access the wage incentive through the Work Programme, the same as everyone else.` The spokesperson went on to suggested that, `We have not ruled out extending this to cover other specialist employment programmes such as Work Choice,` so there`s hope yet, although it`s a worrying thought that, in addressing the challenge of youth unemployment, the route into work for many, many disabled young people offered by Work Choice wasn`t originally on the radar.

If the Youth Contract coverage is extended to young disabled people on Work Choice, it would surely be a helpful indication that the Coalition Government could, on reflection, learn to live with, and love, a two programme approach that gives people with disabilities the specialist help they clearly need to find and keep the right job.

Written by Paul Wilson, Business Writer at Pluss

I’ve just been taken on in the new role of Public Relations Officer for Pluss, meaning that I’ll be helping to ensure that the organisation stays in the media with great stories and celebrations of all we do.

Learning about how Pluss works, who everyone is and all the different facets of such a complicated and large business has been a daunting prospect at times. I’ve spent days travelling to meet teams in other areas, each of them with their own nuances and styles. The teams have all been very welcoming so far and hopefully everyone at Pluss will help support me to find the great stories that really showcase what we do.

I’ve visited Project SEARCH at Derriford hospital, Future Clean based in Plymouth and plan to see so much more in the next couple of weeks. I’m going to get my car cleaned at the weekend as a mystery shopper: so don’t give the game away!

I’ve been networking hard and already met some great contacts. I have also read many new publications that I’ll be focusing on as well as local, regional and national media.

With awards for Future Clean, the Express & Echo’s Business Awards as Best Employer and a Queen’s Award for Vi-Spring in Plymouth it seems that recognition for Pluss is really high at the moment and I’ll strive to ensure that this continues.

I think it’s important for me to write this as I can imagine so many people who aren’t involved with Pluss don’t fully appreciate the breadth and enormity of work undertaken here; it’s truly fantastic. It can’t be taken for granted the ultimate difference that is made to people’s lives.

Yesterday I visited Barnstaple and helped take two case studies of chaps we’d supported to secure paid permanent work in roles and within a team they both loved. They were the happiest guys I’ve met in a long time and were hugely appreciative of the work that had been done to help them. I finished my day with the biggest grin; hopefully there are many more happy days ahead for me with Pluss.

Written by Jayne Mills, PR Officer at Pluss.

DownSouth are a group of parents and carers in the Torbay, South Hams and Teignbridge areas of South Devon who support families of children and adults with Down’s Syndrome. The group, which is affiliated to the Down’s Syndrome Association, supports parents so they are equipped to give the best possible help to their children with Down Syndrome that will enable them to lead full and normal lives as citizens – and to have some fun along the way.

Pluss sponsorship programme is aimed at supporting small, local organisations whose work complements Pluss` own vision and values by empowering disabled people to succeed. DownSouth are certainly achieving that goal.

They meet each Tuesday evening in Paignton and on Saturday mornings in Totnes, and together they fundraise to pay for social opportunities and resources for their children, invite speakers and hold open meetings to discuss all kinds of issues affecting families with the goal of lobbying for improvements in services and raising people’s awareness about Down’s Syndrome in the community.

Mark Hodges from Pluss, who championed the DownSouth submission for an award, has no doubts about the value of the work that the organisation does. `DownSouth’s work has helped to improve services, develop speech and language groups, and promote the presumption that people with Down’s Syndrome make good employees, not to mention the value of their social events. `

Jim Payne, Non-Executive Director on the Pluss board, presented the Pluss Sponsorship Award to DownSouth on Tuesday 1st May at Paignton Library.

For more information on DownsSouth visit www.downsouth.org.uk or phone 07972 789095

The competition was tough with worthy fellow nominations including Bovey Castle and Crealy Adventure Park. There were over 112 entries, with approximately 40 shortlisted and a total of 12 categorey winners.

It was a fabulous night hosted by the very funny David Fitzgerald (Fitz on Radio Devon).  The exceptionally eccentric Christine Hamilton presented the awards accompanied by a key note speech that none of us will forget (the terms ‘out there’ and ‘jaw dropping’ sum it up quite accurately!!)

Many references were made throughout the evening to the difficult economic times we are operating in – particularly with last weeks announcement of a double dip recession. The winners, including Pluss were commended for showing determination, innovation and creativity despite these difficult times, with particular praise going to our micro Social Enterprise, Future Clean.

Pluss are so delighted to get this recognition and we had a wonderful evening networking with lots of other great companies.

So, to the Express and Echo and all the judges of the Business awards, a big big thank you!

Click here to view coverage.

The struggle to help people with learning disabilities live unremarkably normal lives as an accepted part of their communities has been a long and not always an easy one. That`s why the way in which the media chooses to portray this section of society remains important. There`s still work to be done to make the casual mockery (or worse) of someone with a learning disability unacceptable. In recent years the fate of Fiona Pilkington and her learning disabled daughter, and of David Askew being hounded to his death on a Manchester housing estate, is testament to that.

When it does happen, when learning disability somehow squeezes its way into the television spotlight, I find myself holding my breath. Will the way it`s done help, or hinder, those individuals, families and organisations who are striving to help people with learning disabilities build ordinary lives – lives with jobs, houses, relationships, friends.

This last week saw the airing of Derek, a one-off prime time comedy drama shown on Channel 4 written by and starring comedian Ricky Gervais. I can`t remember the last time a TV drama of this magnitude featured a man with a learning disability as the central character, and for that reason I held my breath once more.

Derek is employed by a nursing home. The drama could have been remarkable. It could have been ground-breaking. What it was was cringe-worthy. What we got was a desperate caricature of every delinquent schoolboy`s impression of learning disability. One example? Derek takes a worm to a pond to give it a drink, falls in the water, panics, strips naked and runs through the nursing home naked.

I know that Ricky Gervais didn`t mean the character to be offensive to people with learning disabilities. I know this  because he`s said so. He`s gone further and insisted that in fact the character he created didn`t even have a learning disability. `Derek is a fictional character and defined by his creator, me`, he has said. `If I say I don`t mean him to be disabled, then that`s it. A fictional doctor can`t come along and prove me wrong.`

So that`s okay then. Except that I`m pretty sure that most people who watched the programme, including me, went away assuming that we watched a drama about someone with a learning disability, but a grossly caricatured one and one that can`t help but to have done damage to the idea that people with learning disabilities can, for example, be regarded as capable, competent employees. If that was my take, what`s the CEO of an average business going to be thinking?

It doesn`t help that Ricky Gervais, brilliant comedian that he is, is a limited actor. This was no Dustin Hoffman playing the mesmerising autistic brother of a young Tom Cruise in Rainman. And it`s also true that Gervais has `previous` when it comes to disability. In fact it`s possible to believe that Derek was his well-meaning attempt to make amends for previously using the word `mong` casually for comic purposes on Twitter, a word that eventually, after the concerted high profile campaigning of parents of disabled children, and after enormous damage was done to his professional reputation, he apologised for using.

The world will move on. No one died as a result of the making of this film, memories will fade, but I can`t help feeling that here was a missed (prime time) opportunity, the kind that doesn`t come along very often.

The need to take such opportunities was driven home to me when I read Caitlin Moran`s review of the programme in The Times over the weekend. Moran is the reigning newspaper columnist and TV reviewer of the year. She`s smart and sassy and felt almost as uneasy about `Derek` as I did. But here`s a weird thing. In her full page piece she used the phrase `mental disability` over and over again to describe Derek. Did she mean mental illness or did she mean learning disability? What the hell is a mental disability? Not only that, but the phrase then got past the sub-editor and the Review editor, made it into the final piece and then got used in the banner headline for her article. We have such a long way to go yet to make learning disability an ordinary part of community life.

Many years ago, I remember being a big fan of a US prime time network comedy series called The Cosby Show. Bill Cosby played an amiable, easy going doctor, a consultant I seem to recall. The show revolved around his big middle class family, mainly in their big house, pursuing their middle class dreams and worrying their middle class worries. It was a fairly formulaic affair (albeit an incredibly funny one) except for the one thing that made it hugely game-changing in terms of the impact it had on American cultural life – something that was never referred to once throughout the history of the show`s airing, something that sat unobtrusively in the background of every single episode, slowly changing the way that Americans allowed themselves to think about each other. It was this. The Cosby family were black.

What we really need on television as it endeavours to reflect back at us who we think we are, is a Cosby Show approach to learning disability.

It reflects remarkably well on Pluss that this is the only scholarship awarded to an application from the UK, and one of just four across the whole of Europe. Focussing as it does on the transition of young people with learning disabilities from education into employment, it is in large part a tribute to Pluss` longstanding focus on the transitions issue, currently exemplified by our Project Search initiative in Plymouth.

The award is, in effect a travel scholarship. As part of the submission, Pluss identified a number of innovations and examples of good practice in the German education system, highlighting two special schools (one in Heidelberg, the other in Schwetzingen) which Pluss proposed to visit in order to compare and contrast the German and English approaches to the transitions agenda.

The application proposed exploring, as a result of the visit and the intelligence it yielded, whether we can measure, in a systematic way, that a young person is moving `closer to the labour market` in the months and years before the `Place & Train of supported employment takes place. Or to put it another way, what measurable prior steps that could serve as an individualised map are likely to give `Place & Train` the best possible chance of success.

Both of the schools in Germany that we contacted expressed enthusiasm for the proposed visits and were happy to lend their weight to the application Pluss made to EUSE.

The visit is now likely to take place in the autumn. As well as fact-finding meetings with the two schools (and their staff and students), the visit will also include discussions with one of Germany`s leading supported employment providers and members of the German national federation.

The award includes a commitment to produce a report after the visit to be submitted to EUSE and published on the BASE website by December.

 Written by Paul Wilson, Pluss Business Writer.

We are so delighted to have hosted the most fantastic open day yesterday at our new site in Bridgwater – our new workshops, showrooms and offices look so professional, modern and I think all of us felt justifiably proud.

The new site offers employment for 27 disabled people including nine who are taking part in Pluss’ Traineeship programme, which provides six months in-house paid training for people to develop skills, confidence and ultimately find long term sustainable employment in the community.

The official opening and ribbon cutting was carried out by Somerset County Council’s Cabinet Member for Community, Cllr Christine Lawrence. Christine also sits on our board of directors.

The doors were then thrown open for over 50 guests, customers and the local media to see what we do – and we were delighted with the interest and enthusiasm shown by everyone who attended.  

Cllr Lawrence, said: “I’m thrilled to be opening the new Pluss Bridgwater offices with all the opportunities for employment that it will offer people with disabilities in Somerset. I wish them every success and I’m delighted that the last six years of Somerset County Council and Pluss working together have resulted in such a fantastic facility being built here. The new site has a real wow factor and the difference it is making to so many peoples lives is really evident here today”

The Huntworth offices replace a previous Pluss base in Bridgwater’s Northgate, and will give us the space we need to fulfil our aim of the Bridgwater department being self-sufficient within four years. Our departments include engineering, portable appliance testing, mobility aid services, and print and graphic design departments competing for contracts.

A really big thank you to Marie and her whole team for making the day such a vibrant success.

Just like Pluss` work, Exeter Otters places an emphasis on helping members to develop the skills that promote independence, personal development and team work, and the club actively encourages non-disabled family members to join in too.

Exeter Otters have been in existence as a wheelchair basketball club for over thirty years. It is a sport than can be played by people with or without physical disabilities, and by people of all ages and experience. What helps to make it a fair sport is the use of a system which classifies players according to their different degrees of mobility and balance in a wheelchair. The points system classifies a player without a disability at 5 points through to someone with a significant disability at 1 point. When the Otters play their fixtures in Division 1 South of the National League, they must ensure that the players on court at any one time don’t exceed a total of fourteen and a half points.

Gary Page from Pluss, who plays for the Otters and who nominated the club for a sponsorship award, recognises the good work being done. `The club involves all ages and disabilities from all over Devon & Somerset` says Gary. `We actively encourage disabled people to achieve. We are open to all levels of ability, and the only stipulation we make is that the person must be able to push a wheelchair as power chairs are not permitted to play.  I have a weakness on one side of my body, and the feeling I get from achieving a long range shot or a sneaky pick manoeuvre is hard to describe, apart from wanting to jump up and scream “YES!”.

With three members of the GB junior team in their squad, the Otters are currently riding high. And a new kit, courtesy of the sponsorship award from Pluss, can only add to the feeling of optimism around the club. Club Secretary Paul Bounden says `We’re so appreciative that Pluss has very kindly awarded us this sponsorship money for new playing kit. The kit that we currently have is getting on a bit and is need of replacing, so this donation couldn’t have come at a better time.`

The cheque was awarded by Pluss board member, Jill Read.

For more information on Exeter Otters click here

The not for profit organisation runs an open-access printmaking studio available to everyone from beginners to professional printmakers, as well as going out to work in schools, community centres, hospitals and art groups. And Double Elephant’s Print on Prescription printmaking scheme provides a creative and social outlet at the studio for people who have experienced mental ill-health.

Pluss’ sponsorship programme is aimed at supporting small, local organisations whose work complements Pluss` own vision and values by empowering disabled people to succeed.

Double Elephant offers a valuable service for people at an early stage of their recovery, providing friendly and welcoming weekly sessions to enable people to learn new skills, be inspired by creativity and be supported in their learning. Crucially, participants get to share social time with others in a safe environment that can see them grow in confidence and self-esteem. As a result, participants can and do progress toworkingindependently on their own artistic projects, aiming towards exhibiting their work publicly.

“Printmaking is extremely popular and we have a waiting list of participants” explains Clare Mclaughlin, Double Elephants Business Development Director.

 “The long-term goal is for participants to learn creative skills and grow in confidence. We have a seven year track record of positive outcomes for participants with mild to severe mental distress. We also run regular outreach printmaking workshops atExeterandEast Devon’s Pyschiatric Unit, Eating Disorders Unit and supported accommodation and outpatient units.

Erik De Bie, the Pluss employee who nominated the organisation for the award and who is himself is involved in supporting Double Elephant, is also in no doubt about the value of the Print on Prescription project. “Printmaking is a truly accessible art form” Erik says. “It needs no prior experience or skill, and it’s accessible to all ages and backgrounds including those people managing health or disability issues.  Many of the participants face real social isolation either as a result of their illness or because of financial pressures caused by their condition, and the weekly session at the studio is sometimes the one social activity they undertake.”

Double Elephant will use their sponsorship award to help fund the ongoing work of Print on Prescription. As a result, even more people are likely to gain a sense of pride in their achievements and see their confidence grow thanks to the work of Double Elephant. And you can have that in print!

The Cheque was presented today by Pluss Board Member, Councillor Bernard Hughes.

For more information visit www.doubleelephant.co.uk

All Stars is a theatre group for performers with disabilities and the award will help to fund their next production.

All Stars have been run for many years by co-founders David & Jan Halifax. It’s a theatre group with a difference as it’s been developed as a way to enable people with all kinds of disabilities to show off their performing ability. The group use community venues for their rehearsals and regularly perform their shows to packed-out venues.

It’s clear that everyone involved with the All Stars is succeeding. Each member is supported to build up their confidence and self-esteem and to have fun, and no matter how profound people’s disabilities are there’s an important role for everyone in their productions. In fact, All Stars are helping to develop the same sets of skills that Pluss itself is keen to encourage in people aspiring to paid work.

The only funding to run the group comes from ticket sales and from the fundraising efforts of families, friends and supporters. And to keep the show on the road, there’s hours of costume-making and prop design by a small army of supporters who know what the All Stars means to its performers.

Jill Didymus from Pluss, who is one of those supporters and who nominated All Stars for the sponsorship award, is delighted about their win. `After years of watching people develop self confidence and much needed independence under the watchful eye of the All Stars team, it’s great that Pluss can support the cause.`

What’s clear after the sponsorship award from Pluss is that next time they’re out on the stage the All Stars will be shining even more brightly.

The award was presented by Pluss Board Member, Jill Read. There will be three other charitable donations – Downs South, Exeter Otters wheelchair basketball club and Double Elephant CIC. Watch this space.

To find out more about All Stars visit their website: www.allstarstheatregroup.com  or email dhalifax@blueyonder.co.uk