What are the Issues?

Cornwall Works has become established as the umbrella for welfare to workforce activity in Cornwall and has brought together providers, agencies and organisations that impact on the welfare to workforce agenda, joining up provision, filling gaps, developing key links between health and employment interventions and working with the Voluntary and Community Sector.  Cornwall Works is working to address:

• Over 37,000 jobless people in Cornwall of working age claim benefits
• 27,300 claim benefits due to ill-health
• Jobless offenders are more likely to re-offend than those who gain work
• They are 13 times more likely to have been in care
• "When I was 16 I was classed as a priority but now I am 19 they don't give a toss"
• In Cornwall two out of five jobseekers say lack of transport is a barrier to getting a job
• Disadvantaged people are more likely to have multiple needs and to rely on several services
• When services do not work together people suffer
• An offender in Cornwall can have a heroin addiction needing £150 a day.........requiring an annual income of £70,000
• In 2001 18,000 children in Cornwall were living in Poverty
• Debt, mental health and drug and alcohol abuse are reported as key barriers to work by employment advisers in Cornwall
• 1 in 7 of all hospital admissions in Cornwall are due to alcohol
• You are less likely to be in work if you are a lone parent, over 50, a member of a minority ethnic group or have a disability
• "I really wanted to do that work experience thing but my dad told me to stay on the dole and said he would kick me out if I did it"
• One in five people in Cornwall paying cash for their shopping would not know if they had been given the correct change
• In Cornwall it costs £630 a week to keep a family in Bed and Breakfast
• In Cornwall The Dept of Work and Pensions Pay £800,000 in working age benefits each working day
• On average 18.3% of working age people in Cornwall claim "out of work" benefits
• In deprived neighbourhoods this rises to 50%
• "I started work and it was great but my mum wanted me at home.....then she took an overdose to make me stay"
• A person who has received Incapacity Benefit for 6 months has a 50% chance of remaining on that benefit
• 4 years later
• Once incapacitated for 12 months the average duration of stay is around
• 8 years........ and you are more likely to retire or die than to go back to work
  
  Please click on the links to the right of the page to find out more, email us info@cornwallworks.org.uk or ring us on 01872 355015