PRIME Initiative

PRIME has released the results of its year-long outreach project on South Tyneside. The project was designed to find out whether putting a PRIME enterprise worker on the ground would help people start up in business.

The answer is yes, but the project also produced more evidence of the problems that people face when trying to move into self-employment after a period of worklessness. In particular nonsensical delays in being allowed to start on test-trading schemes , and uncertainty about when benefits would end when trying to start a business were strong disincentives to try.

Nonetheless, several people went ahead anyway. Christine, dismissed from her job because of ill health at the age of 51, was back within a year with her own catering business, which now employs three people. She encountered problems moving from Incapacity Benefit to self-employment, with mixups over her entitlement while attempting to test trade to prove the idea. Fortunately she was sufficiently confident to move into full trading just as it looked like her IB would be cut.

South Tyneside, which is situated on the south bank of the river Tyne downstream from Newcastle where it meets the sea, was chosen for the project because it has plenty of workless 50-somethings, many of them former industrial workers. The area also has a good range of business support provision and colleges offering often-relevant courses.

One of the key tasks for the outreach worker was to make people aware of what was available, and to help them work the system so they got on the right course or programme while keeping the Jobcentre happy.

You can download the full report from the link below.