The Kickstart Scheme: How to Access Funding Through 3SC

3SC are looking for partners who want to access funding through the Kickstart Scheme but do not have a minimum of 30 placements in their organisation so are unable to access funding by themselves.

What is the Kickstart Scheme and how can you access the funding?

The Kickstart Scheme is a new £2 billion government fund that will pay any employer of any size across the private, public and third sector to create quality 6-month work placements for young people aged 16 to 24, claiming Universal Credit and at risk of long-term unemployment.

The Government will fully fund each Kickstart job paying 100% of the relevant National Minimum Wage for 25 hours a week, plus associated employer National Insurance contributions and employer minimum auto-enrolment pension contributions. A £1500 grant per placement is also available to help with set up costs and to enable young people to develop new skills to help them move into sustained employment once their Kickstart funded job ends.

To be eligible, all job roles:

Must be new jobs.
Must be a minimum of 25 hours per week, for 6 months.
Must pay at least the National Minimum Wage for their age group.
Cannot replace existing or planned vacancies.
Cannot cause existing employees or contractors to lose or reduce their employment.
Cannot require people to undertake extensive training before they begin the job placement.

Applications are for a minimum of 30 job placements and if your organisation has more than 30 placements you can submit your application directly, but if your organisation has less than 30 job placements you must partner with other employers to meet this minimum number through a Kickstart Gateway.

A DWP Kickstart Gateway is an organisation who has proven expertise in supporting small and medium businesses to access funding and in supporting young people at risk of long-term unemployment to build their skills and access and sustain job placements.

3SC is a Kickstart Gateway

3SC has qualified as a DWP Kickstart Gateway and are on the DWP published list. We are looking for employers who want to become part of a 3SC partnership where we will act on your behalf and access Kickstart funding for you.

3SC build partnerships of primarily small and medium sized third sector organisations to enable them to access funding that they would not be able to access by themselves. Over the past 11 years we have delivered over 27 major Government contracts enabling our delivery partners to successfully access more than £70 million.

As well as supporting more than 13,413 people into work we have worked with our delivery partners to help 8,353 young people access and sustain job placements, training and development opportunities. This includes working with the National Housing Federation where we placed and managed 6000 unemployed young people in 6-month job placements in Housing Associations under the Future Jobs Fund Programme and Jobs Growth Wales where we placed 650 young people in lasting employment opportunities with a wide range of employers.

3SC have the proven expertise not only to be your Kickstart Gateway but to offer a wrap-around package of support, networking and advice for all employers in our partnership.

We will:

Gather information from you about the job placements you are offering.
Use this information to submit an online application on your behalf and pass on information to enable the right young person to be matched to the right job.
Pass on the relevant payments made by DWP to you, for example, the young person’s salary.
Share our expertise with you to help you onboard and train young people employed through the scheme, for example, supporting those with particular challenges including disabilities.
Provide employability support and training directly to young people employed through the scheme.
Offer networking, training and business development opportunities to the employers in our partnership.
Help you to sustain the opportunity by offering advice on accessing apprenticeships and the Apprenticeship Levy.
Offer you a bespoke, personalised approach with support through a single contact.
Use technology to make the process seamless and easy to navigate.

You will interview, recruit and employ your new team member in the same way as normal.

KickStart – How To Access Funding Through 3SC

To join our Kickstart partnership or to find out more please contact Gareth Snaith on 07436 530042 or contact us at Kickstart@3sc.org

Gareth Snaith, Contract Performance Manager, 3SC