Some of you may have seen white smoke issuing from Saboohi‟s office this morning at about 11.00am. It was not a precursor for bonfire night, nor the election of a new pope. It was the completion of the drafting of a bid for an LDA ESF co-financed Jobs Plus programme that would bring an award £9.75M for delivery. SCOLA has been the lead body on the bid in the process securing and co-ordinating the input of partner organisations. To get to this level in the process SCOLA had to pass two initial exploratory stages. These narrowed the field to twenty. If SCOLA is successful at this level we will progress to the final 3. The final outcome will then be determined at interview.
To complete the bid involved responding to 40 questions. This produced some 65 pages of material that had been devised, revised and refined. The final bid document with attachments amounted to 2767k bytes when sent. Writing it involved long hours of intense concentration, imagination and creativity. We were not experts when we started but have learnt a great deal on the way. Any of you who have tackled bids will be able to understand what a gargantuan task this has been. Saboohi‟s fizz combined with Jan‟s calm and Barbara‟s ability to juggle with 20 things simultaneously keeping track of them all and still answering the phone with aplomb. Jenny Sims provided tremendous support as ever together with a judicious pinch of insanity when required. There were no raised voices, little panic, some discreet tearing of hair and a lot of mental forced marches. We were also very well supported by colleagues (former SCOLA employees) at Eco Actif and RACC. What has been significant is the total lack of ego. The focus has been on securing the bid and on how to support the unemployed through its outworking.
The programme would operate what we have styled a Regional Employment Consortium across 9 London boroughs: Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Kingston, Lewisham, Merton, Richmond, Sutton and Wandsworth. The objective is to steer 9000 people into the project with an expected outcome that 2000 will be in sustained employment for 6 months, and 1,650 of these for a total of at least 12 months. 550 will be expected to enjoy career progression to a higher status and/or better paid post. The target group is people who have been unemployed (not necessarily on benefits) for 12 months or longer. This includes lone parents, people on incapacity benefit, people who have been in reha-bilitation programmes or perhaps in prison for a while.
Whether we secure the bid or not has been the key focus. However, in the process SCOLA‟s profile has been raised immensely across the 9 boroughs. We have encountered some very interesting organisations which are doing very interesting work that could lead to future collaborative projects.
Statistics show that there are a large number of people who need help to return to employment or to find work for the first time. Even if we do not secure the bid, SCOLA has a role to play in their lives. We do not have to have been unemployed ourselves to understand their position, but we do need to do some real work in clarifying their needs and developing creative solutions. We need to develop our work with others in doing this. And we need to know that there are hard times ahead.
We will know by the end of the month if we have been shortlisted for interview...so watch this space.
Saboohi Famili - Principal
To complete the bid involved responding to 40 questions. This produced some 65 pages of material that had been devised, revised and refined. The final bid document with attachments amounted to 2767k bytes when sent. Writing it involved long hours of intense concentration, imagination and creativity. We were not experts when we started but have learnt a great deal on the way. Any of you who have tackled bids will be able to understand what a gargantuan task this has been. Saboohi‟s fizz combined with Jan‟s calm and Barbara‟s ability to juggle with 20 things simultaneously keeping track of them all and still answering the phone with aplomb. Jenny Sims provided tremendous support as ever together with a judicious pinch of insanity when required. There were no raised voices, little panic, some discreet tearing of hair and a lot of mental forced marches. We were also very well supported by colleagues (former SCOLA employees) at Eco Actif and RACC. What has been significant is the total lack of ego. The focus has been on securing the bid and on how to support the unemployed through its outworking.
The programme would operate what we have styled a Regional Employment Consortium across 9 London boroughs: Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Kingston, Lewisham, Merton, Richmond, Sutton and Wandsworth. The objective is to steer 9000 people into the project with an expected outcome that 2000 will be in sustained employment for 6 months, and 1,650 of these for a total of at least 12 months. 550 will be expected to enjoy career progression to a higher status and/or better paid post. The target group is people who have been unemployed (not necessarily on benefits) for 12 months or longer. This includes lone parents, people on incapacity benefit, people who have been in reha-bilitation programmes or perhaps in prison for a while.
Whether we secure the bid or not has been the key focus. However, in the process SCOLA‟s profile has been raised immensely across the 9 boroughs. We have encountered some very interesting organisations which are doing very interesting work that could lead to future collaborative projects.
Statistics show that there are a large number of people who need help to return to employment or to find work for the first time. Even if we do not secure the bid, SCOLA has a role to play in their lives. We do not have to have been unemployed ourselves to understand their position, but we do need to do some real work in clarifying their needs and developing creative solutions. We need to develop our work with others in doing this. And we need to know that there are hard times ahead.
We will know by the end of the month if we have been shortlisted for interview...so watch this space.
Saboohi Famili - Principal
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