Following the announcement by the Chancellor regarding the ending of the Future Jobs Fund I thought it would be worthwhile sharing information we have received from the DWP.

While the FJF is finishing the DWP will honour grant awards which have already been made. This means that existing FJF jobs will continue to run for the full 6 months ie if you have already recruited someone they will stay employed by you for the 6 months. Their will be no impact on the funding you receive from us.

The DWP have also confirmed that they will honour the jobs we were awarded as Extension jobs and our Tranche 7 bid. This means that we will be able to offer FJF jobs up to the referral deadline of 31 Mar 2011.

They have also confirmed that they will not fund our Supplementary Bid which we submitted for an additional 1,464 jobs.

It is obviously very disappointing that the Future Jobs Fund is not continuing as it was a highly successful initiative which was popular with employers and employees. The initiative also demonstrated the range of jobs that the sector has and the significant community benefit that we provide.

Over the next few weeks we will be hoping to influence Government and Scottish Government thinking on the contribution the sector can make in Scotland both to job creation but also to economic recovery. We hope that you will work with us to help us shape ideas and thinking about the shape of future initiatives for unemployed young people.