Jobcentres undergo modernisation to ready for the rush...

Kay Smith
Updated:

More workers may soon be encountering something they hoped they would never see - the inside of their local Jobcentre Plus.

It will be of little consolation after losing your job, but Jobcentre Plus centres have undergone a £1.9billion modernisation, with the aim of making them better equipped than in the last recession to help people find work.

The centres also give redundancy support for employers and employees, as well as offering a range of help, from writing a CV to complete retraining courses for new careers.

grace and stephen ross

New lives: Grace and Stephen Ross both found jobs after redundancy

Stephen Ross, 35, and his wife, Grace, were made redundant last December after 18 years as spot welders at a wire products factory in Glasgow. They went straight to their local Jobcentre Plus and began checking vacancies daily on Jobs Point screens.

Grace, 37, says: 'It helped us deal with the shock of finding ourselves redundant. We had a mortgage to pay and we just wanted to get back to work as soon as possible.'

The couple had to phone a national clearing system to be booked in for a new jobseeker's interview. They were then told they were entitled to contributions-based Jobseeker's Allowance - a weekly benefit for the unemployed of up to £60.50 -- because they had a record of at least two years of paying Class 1 National Insurance contributions. But the allowance was only for up to 182 days.

If they had not found work at that stage they could have gone on to income-based Jobseeker's Allowance - a means-tested benefit for those with no more than £16,000 in savings.

At their interview, Grace and Stephen were given a day and time when they had to sign on fortnightly and present a detailed record of their attempts to find a job. But they say their experience was positive. 'Staff were very encouraging whenever we had interviews and we were contacted between appointment times if any suitable vacancies came up,' says Grace.

After five months and many interviews, both found permanent jobs - Grace as a domestic in a special needs school and Stephen with Glasgow City Council's cleansing department.

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