Young people and the recession: 'Future Jobs Fund' fails to impress

Today the Labour government launched the 'Future Jobs Fund' : £1bn of public money which is set to 'create' 150,000 jobs.

"We are determined not to lose a generation of talent because of the recession," said work and pensions secretary, Yvette Cooper MP, announcing the scheme.

Sounds great, doesn't it. Except that it isn't - particularly if you are a young person looking for work in Reading.

This cash will be a drop in the ocean when as figures released in June showed there were 900,000 people aged 18-24 out of work, a rate of 16.6%. This is the highest youth unemployment has been for 15 years.

The number of job vacancies has also fallen to 420,000: it's lowest level since 2001.

Go beyond the spin and you find that as with most carrot Labour government dangles in front of councils - like money for play areas - local authorities are expected to compete against each other (and other bodies), sorry, 'bid' for a share of the cash.

Some facts about FJF:

• In the first round 182 bids were received by the government of which 117 have been successful.
• This will apparently create up to 47,000 jobs (well short of the number needed).

• Of these 117 bids, 62 are local authority led. The others are from a mixture of public bodies, third sector organisations, social enterprises and private companie

According to the LGA, jobs that get created should ''last at least six months, should benefit local communities, and be able to get underway quickly. Funding of up to £6,500 per job is available, and all successful local partnerships will have to develop a work and skills plan by April 2010.'

I am aware that Reading Borough Council submitted a bid but it appears that it was unsucessful this time with the closest benificiary being Hampshire County Council. If you are looking for work that you move to Hampshire however - it could take months for this money to filter through and jobs to be created! You can read the full list of which councils were successful here

Dig a little deeper and you find that the South East 'pot' of money to be shared around 6 local authorities is anyway only expected to create a paltry 3,300 jobs.

Simply doling out scraps of cash from the centre to a lucky few of local authorities and being highly prescriptive about how that money should spent seems to me to be wrongheaded.

How does Whitehall know best about how jobs can be created? Local councils are far better place to judge what works in their area.

If, as Lib Dems believe, local councils were given more control over their finances they themselves could decide to create jobs or support small businesses create jobs locally. That's because Lib Dems trust councils and councillors to know what's best in their area, and they are directly accountable to local people. Simple really.

Neither Labour or the Tories have bitten the bullet and reformed local government finance, however, and both spent years centralising and taking powers away from directly-elected councils and councillors.

As Vince Cable observed in an article published back in February 'it is far better to borrow to invest in capital projects creating jobs today and assets for the future rather than to borrow to keep people out of work'.

What Gordon Brown's government is offering to people out of work today is a far cry from Roosevelt's groundbreaking New Deal in the 1930s which was built around the three Rs: Relief, Reform and Recovery.

One bit of good news, following my recent campaign to highlight problems faced by the many young people looking for work in Reading I am told that the date for the next credit crunch summit - with a particular focus on young people affected by the recession will be 13 October.

The meeting will be held at 2-30pm at the Civic Offices.

If you are a young person or you work in an organisation working with young people I would strongly encourage you to attend and make your voice heard on this issue. Or, why not drop me a line with your views on what we can do to help young people find work.

The economic hardship facing many young people in this country is severe and the government response to that should be both compassionate and effective.

What we are seeing from Gordon Brown's government is neither at the moment.

 I'll leave you with some words from Roosevelt's famous 1932 address on the New Deal which I think encapsulates very well the sort of vision we need (and which contrasts with what we are getting from GB):

"My program, of which I can only touch on these points, is based upon this simple moral principle: the welfare and the soundness of a Nation depend first upon what the great mass of the people wish and need; and second, whether or not they are getting it. "