Equal Access To Employment In Glasgow

A New Deal for Welfare: Empowering People to Work

The Green Paper on Welfare Reform, entitled "A New Deal for Welfare: Empowering people to Work", was published by DWP in January 2006. It sets out proposals for radically altering the welfare system in the UK for the foreseeable future. The Green Paper invites comments up to the 21st April 2006 and gives the opportunity to contribute our views as a city to what would be most helpful in supporting Glasgow's continuing regeneration.

Equal Access organized a series of events to raise awareness of the Green Paper proposals, to stimulate discussion and to gather views on the proposals. These included:

• Meeting of c 80 people from c 55 voluntary sector organisations with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (hosted by the Glasgow Group of MP's, 10th March 2006)
• Consultation with participants in the Wellbeing Initiative (8 people, 17 March 2006) and members of the Scotia Clubhouse (12 people, 24th March 2006).
• Consultation with c 80 people, both frontline staff and service users, from c 40 organisations across Glasgow (22nd March 2006).
• Meeting of c 20-25 senior staff from locally based thematic delivery agencies (31st March 2006)

Equal Access agreed to publish the results from the discussions as well as feed them into the process of writing a city wide response to the Green Paper.