Remploy, the country’s leading provider of employment services for disabled people, has announced plans to quadruple the number of people it helps into work over the next five years.
The ambitious programme involves a major transfer of resources from loss-making factories to supporting more than 20,000 disabled people into jobs in mainstream employment every year.
Proposals put to the trade unions involve the closure of 32 factories and reductions in management and central overheads. A further 11 sites will merge with another Remploy factory nearby.
Under the proposals, Remploy Electronics would concentrate PCB manufacture in its Bolton and Barking sites; cable and wire harness work would continue in Southampton; and the group would gain an additional site in Edinburgh to support electromechanical assembly. The Edinburgh factory already specialises in electronics work but is not currently within the Remploy Electronics group. It is proposed that the Medway site closes.
Remploy Electronics continues to invest in equipment and training to ensure its workforce is well equipped to provide a high quality contract manufacturing service to all its customers.
Around 2,270 disabled people and 280 non-disabled employees are affected by the changes. In total Remploy employs more than 6,500 people and operates 83 factories across Britain.
No disabled person will be made compulsorily redundant and any disabled person who wishes to continue working can do so, on their current Remploy terms and conditions, but with another local employer.
As part of the programme, Remploy will be opening facilities where disabled people will have access to a range of services and support to prepare them for work in mainstream employment. By the end of 2007, the company will have opened 20 town centre recruitment branches.
The company would expect to be in a position to implement the final plan towards the end of the year.
29th May 2007