Fury over four-week job promise

Training providers are to be paid £300 for getting jobless 18- to 24-year-olds into part-time positions that last just four weeks, under the government's "young persons guarantee" to jobs and training, CYP Now can reveal.

In other welfare to work initiatives such as the Flexible New Deal, providers have a target to get unemployed young people into jobs lasting six months. The Future Jobs Fund also provides a minimum of six months work.

But guidance published by the Learning and Skills Council last week outlines shorter-term targets for the Routes into Work training element of the guarantee.

Providers give young people on the scheme one or two months of employment training, before working with Jobcentre Plus to get participants into jobs that last at least 16 hours a week for a minimum of four weeks.

As long as the four weeks of work begin within 13 weeks of the end of training, providers are paid £300 for each young person for securing a "successful job outcome".

Joyce Moseley, chief executive of youth charity Catch 22, criticised the guidance saying: "Many young people we work with struggle to keep their head above water. Offering them something so peripheral is damaging."

Ben Robinson, chair of young people's campaign group Youth Fight for Jobs, added: "This is appalling, but in line with the other policies Labour is claiming will help unemployed young people. The Future Jobs Fund provides mostly minimum wage work placements."

Paul Warner, director of employment and skills at the Association of Learning Providers, suggested a standardised minimum-length work guarantee should apply across all youth employment initiatives.

"It is not a good use of public money to have conflicting programmes," he said. "Jobcentre staff are a little bemused by all the programmes."

A spokeswoman for the Department for Work and Pensions said the guidance for training providers is not a direct reflection of how long government wants the jobs to last. She said: "Routes into Work jobs are permanent jobs and we hope they will provide the basis for long-term employment."