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Economic Inclusion

Programme Total	2007-08	2008-12
Programme Budget (£M)	8	22
Key DTI Targets
Employment Support (units)	3,940	18,825
Business Support (units)	525	2,520
Total Leverage (£M)	10	45
Skills (units)	4,375	20,905

Economic inclusion describes the process of overcoming the barriers that prevent people from participating fully in the workplace. This is important to the success of the region’s economy.

Achieving sustainable economic growth in the North East depends on an inclusive region which enables and encourages everyone to make a contribution to economic life. To do this, we will help reduce levels of worklessness through targeted interventions, reduce barriers to participation and maximise the contribution of important sectors to economic inclusion, in particular health, culture and the voluntary and community sectors.

Successful regions are those which:

Get the biggest contribution to the economy from their people
Welcome and ensure new people and businesses settle permanently
Are able to respond quickly to increasing global competitive pressures

Success in a rapidly changing world depends upon developing new and more dynamic ways of working, while creating and maintaining high levels of employment.

Compared to other parts of the world and many European countries, the UK has one of the richest mixtures of people from different ethnic backgrounds and it is relatively open to migrants from overseas. This has consistently been a key part of its economic vitality. Economic inclusion therefore remains a major competitive advantage for the UK economy.

North East England, however, has lower levels of ethnic diversity than other UK regions, and less involvement by people from such backgrounds in the economy. So it has more to gain than any other English region by promoting economic inclusion.

If employment levels in the region were at the average for the UK, the North East would have another 80,000 people in work – or 5% of the workforce. Recent employment levels have risen significantly. This reflects the impact of economic success and of measures to help people move into employment, such as the New Deal. Despite this progress, at the same time the number of people who are not in work and are claiming benefits related to ill health or disability has remained well above the national average.

The main focus of the work of the Economic Inclusion Team is:

Helping people overcome any barriers that prevent them from working
Engaging with deprived communities and understanding their problems
Promoting equality and diversity, and overcoming any disadvantages related to gender, gge, disability and race
Using the voluntary and community sector wherever possible to help overcome barriers

The Economic Inclusion Programme is supported by an Economic Inclusion strand of activity.

Supporting Documents and Downloads