BOLTON today signalled its determination to make a success of Chancellor Gordon Brown's "welfare to work" initiative.

Key organisations in the town will get together to make the most of the opportunity to help find jobs and training for unemployed young people.

The scheme - to be funded by a £3.5 billion slice of the £5.2 billion windfall tax on privatised utilities announced in yesterday's Budget - is due to be introduced nationally next April.

It is aimed at 250,000 young people nationally who are between 18 and 24 and have been unemployed for more than six months.

The latest statistics - from April - show that there are 560 people in this category in Bolton, 226 in Bury and 899 in Wigan, which includes Leigh, Tyldesley and Atherton.

Private sector employers will be paid £60 a week for six months for taking on young people under 25 who have not worked for six months or more.

The emphasis will be on quality training and work experience.

In Bolton the details will be sorted out by the Government's employment Service with the help of partnership organisations such as Bolton Bury Training and Enterprise Council, Bolton Council, Bolton and Bury Chamber of Commerce and local colleges. Under the scheme the young, long-term unemployed will be offered a choice of six months with a private employer, voluntary work, membership of an environmental task force or further training and education.

One of the key organisations in town, the Bolton Strategic Partnership, already has "welfare to work" on the agenda for it's next board meeting on July 15. "People in the town are keen to make this work," said co-ordinator Karen Harris.

Mr Richard Bingless, Chief Executive of Bolton, Bury Training and Enterprise Council said: "The welfare to work package, including the new deal for young people announced by Gordon Brown is a radical intervention.

"The TEC is excited at the prospect of playing a role in this initiative aimed at ridding communities like Bolton and Bury of the blight of long-term, unemployment."

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