Pluss were absolutely delighted to scoop the prestigious ‘Employer of the Year’ award at Fridays Express and Echo Business Awards.

The competition was tough with worthy fellow nominations including Bovey Castle and Crealy Adventure Park. There were over 112 entries, with approximately 40 shortlisted and a total of 12 categorey winners.

It was a fabulous night hosted by the very funny David Fitzgerald (Fitz on Radio Devon).  The exceptionally eccentric Christine Hamilton presented the awards accompanied by a key note speech that none of us will forget (the terms ‘out there and ‘jaw dropping’ sum it up quite accurately!!)

Many references were made throughout the evening to the difficult economic times we are living in – particularly with last weeks announcement of a double dip recession. The winners, including Pluss were commended for showing determination, innovation and creativity despite these difficult times, with particular praise going to our micro Social Enterprise, Future Clean.

Pluss are so delighted to get this recognition and had a wonderful evening networking with lots of other great companies.

So, to the Express and Echo and all the judges of the Business awards, a big big thank you!

We have now integrated the blog into our website, please find it here http://www.pluss.org.uk/blog/

Gloucester Jobs Fair took place last week.  It was sponsored by Pluss and supported by the local MP Richard Graham.

With these type of events you are never sure how they are going to be and this was a great success. The Gloucester team of Stuart, Paul and Karen were a great help, helping to run Pluss’ exhibition stand, meeting the customers and chatting to the employers who were exhibiting.

There were a good range of employers which included Asda, EDF Energy, NHS, Unilever, Glevum Security, Gloucestershire CC, Gloucester City Homes. Other support agencies were there including Working Links, Prospects Training, JHP Employment, Gloucester Deaf Association, Action for the Blind, Access to Work and Job centre plus.

The MP Richard Graham put in a good shift, speaking to the customers, employers and helping out serving tea and coffee. He said this was the third Jobs Fair that he had supported and this was by far the best.

On all levels we had good value for our money, raising our profile with customers and employers and most importantly we hope to find many customers jobs.

Problems with Europe`s economies may be dragging us towards a double dip recession, but there`s a move afoot to have us measure more than money or trade to calculate how well we`re doing as a nation.

It may just be coincidence, but a time when our prospects of economic growth are at their weakest for a generation, the prime minister wants to use the country’s happiness (or GWB – general well-being) as an alternative measure of `success` to GDP. In fact, from April, the Office of National Statistics will ask 200,000 people a series of questions about their anxiety, happiness, satisfaction and the extent to which they see their lives as `worthwhile`, and the first results are due in mid 2012.

Individual happiness is something we all aspire to but how much value is there in trying to measure it for an entire nation?

Well, it is true that the regular economic growth we were accustomed to until the crash of 2008 didn`t do anything in itself to increase people`s `contentment` or `happiness` levels. Perhaps as a result of this, we aren`t the only ones trying to work out other ways of measuring progress. President Sarkozy has asked a Nobel prize winning economist for help with a French system, and as we speak over two hundred universities, including Cambridge, have research institutes or courses focussing on how to maximise happiness for individuals and society at large.

Of course, people who work for, and with, `not for profit` organisations have long been used to considering these kinds of questions. For many of us employed by social enterprises, social firms, voluntary sector agencies or charities, there is often an additional pay-off in knowing that our contribution is measured in more satisfying and meaningful ways than making a bigger profit for shareholders.

If we`ve learned anything in the last three years it`s surely that wholly unfettered markets aren`t always a good thing, and an exclusive focus on profit at any cost doesn`t always improve the lot of mankind.

As the arguments rage over whether there really is an alternative for the economy other than belt-tightening and austerity, a group of economists, academics and political thinkers have spent six months coming up with `Plan B – a good economy for a good society` which finally saw the light of day this week. It advocates, amongst other things, kickstarting the economy with a new Green New Deal, a financial transaction tax to curb dangerous capital flows, and a switch to judging the economy not on growth but on a work-life balance focussed more on economic security, social stability and job satisfaction.

In encouraging individuals to prioritise wellbeing over wealth, I wonder if the same lesson might be applied in a small way the country as a whole. These days, the state is, to a large extent, a commissioner rather than a deliverer of services. Maybe, in striving to make the bottom line about more than a two dimensional focus on minimising cost or maximising profit, the agencies of the state should develop an increasing focus on the non-financial value that accrues from the awarding of Government contracts.

Wouldn`t it be great if the Green New Deal became a reality, and the way that the contracts which were awarded to achieve its aims were allocated against a range of criteria that extended beyond price and included the social value being brought to the table by organisations wanting to deliver them, including those not driven by profit, those anxious to reinvest profits into services and those whose involvement in delivery promoted the public good in a variety of ways that lie off the balance sheet. That way we`d have a Big Society that worked to everyone`s advantage. And that would surely make us all happy.

Written by Paul Wilson, Pluss Marketing Communications.

In June 2011, the Department for Work and Pensions published ‘Getting in, staying in and getting on: Disability employment support fit for the future’. Undertaken by RADAR Chief Executive Liz Sayce, the review recommends changes to Government policy to better support disabled people into work.

Pluss’ have now submitted their response to the Sayce Review. Click here to view Pluss response to Sayce Review Consultation.

You can read the full Sayce review by clicking on ‘ Getting in, staying in and getting on:Disabilty employment support for the future.’

Pluss were delighted to attend the launch of Disability Works Uk at the House of Lords last week.

Disability Works UK is a new consortium that brings together eight of the  most experienced disability support organisations to deliver specialist employment services across the UK: Action for Blind People, Advance, Leonard Cheshire Disability, Mind, Mencap, Pluss, Scope and United Response.

Martin Davies (Pluss CEO and Chair of DWUK) attended along with Kate, Bethany, Ian, Gary and Geraldine from Pluss. None of us had been to the House of Lords before and so we were all very honoured and excited.

From the outside it is such a beautiful building with a buzzing atmosphere – even down to the many campaigners that have their temporary homes right outside this amazing institution- we all agreed how important it is to live in a country where people are free to promote their views so publicly and safely.

As we went in we all had to go through security ( a little like an airport) which just added to the excitement. Once inside the rooms were grand – we had drinks and canapes whilst networking, overlooking the River Thames.

The launch was very well attended, with CEO’s and senior management from several of the members, partners and agencies.  Speeches were given by Lord Low (to whom we can thank for the venue),  Martin Davies and the Employers Forum on Disability.

However it was Pluss’ very own Kate and Bethany who really stole the show with their speeches (…and  I really dont think I’m being biased!).

These two highly intelligent and capable ladies, each with very different experiences of disability, delivered the most inspiring speeches. They told their stories with  honesty and candour, and their words served as a chilling reminder of the unbelievable and outright discrimination people with a disability still face in these modern times.

However, they also spoke with humour, warmth and served as a real motivation – a  “kick up the backside” if you like (Bethanys words!) – to remind us how important good quality, specialist support is to people who face the most complex barriers  to employment. We have a tough job to do – but boy! did they remind us why we must succeed!!

We were delighted to play an important part of such a cracking event and we wish DWUK every success as it moves forward!

Written by Geraldine Scott-Smith, Marketing Manager at Pluss.

This week I visited Dundry Nurseries in Cheltenham along with Rod Burnett, our Social Enterprise Manager.

The Nursery has been a commercial enterprise since 1947 run by the Evans family; it is now run by Chris Evans who has turned over a lot of his land to students with learning disabilities.

It started 9 years ago when a group of disabled students visited Chris to find out what his job was about. Chris saw that the whilst the students were out of the classroom they were engaging with him and it has grown since then to 150 students attending every week.

Chris starts his day with staff in the nursery and for the rest of the day he is with the students The funding that Chris receives from the Local Authority is zero, he does it because he gets a buzz out of helping these students and you can see how the students engage with Chris and the benefits they derive from being there.

They have several projects on the go; horticultural, looking at growing shrubs on a commercial basis, woodworking on a small scale with bird boxes etc, recycling of plastics and cardboard, developing a retail unit within the nursery and they are looking at developing a theatre.

Rod really was excited after looking round the site and, like me, wants to help Chris develop it further. Chris is visiting Pluss shortly so watch this space

Are we all more or less the same, or each uniquely different? Are each of us easy to sum up in a few words, or the complex result of our backgrounds and upbringing, our experiences and dreams, our inner and outer lives?

This is usually the stuff that philosophers (and writers) sit in darkened rooms and grapple with, but every now and then they can suddenly seem like questions that are very relevant to our daily lives – even in the everyday world of `welfare to work` services.

The psychoanalyst Darian Leader has a new book out this week. It`s called `What is Madness?` Its proposition is that it is unhelpful, and sometimes dangerous, to separate the human world out into `mad` and `not mad`, to reduce and simplify the causes of `madness` and, as a result, to simplify its remedies.

Darian argues that we`re all on a continuum, that madness is a part of each of us and that `everyone is trying to cobble their lives together as best they can`. He hopes that, above all else, a recognition of this could help to take away some of the remaining stigma around mental ill health. It feels like an affecting, plausible and very human philosophy.

I met Darian in August at the Edinburgh Festival when I appeared on stage alongside his partner, Mary Horlock. Darian was relaxed, thoughtful, easy-going. There was no obvious sign that he spends each and every day working with a series of individuals who are in deep psychological distress.

One of the targets Darian takes aim at in his new book is the current fashion for industrial-scale CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), especially when it`s seen as a quick fix to get people fit for work. `Six sessions and you`ll be cured` sounds to him too simplistic and reductive. And of course this kind of approach could only be uniformly effective for everyone if we were all similarly hard-wired – if we really were all the same, easily summed up in the same way, all easily mended with the same few taps to the head.

Last week I was in Sheffield on behalf of Pluss attending a DWP event. Its aim was to brief organisations about Stage 2 of the tender process for its Innovation Fund which wants to trial what are (hopefully) innovative programmes for young people not in employment, education or training (or who are in danger of ending up in that NEET category).

The original specification encouraged projects targeted at, amongst others, young people with learning disabilities. In response, Pluss put together a genuinely imaginative pilot involving a consortium of several special and mainstream Devon schools which won through to the shortlisted second stage. At last week`s event, however, DWP revealed a payment model for the Innovation Fund which is to be based on a restricted number of outcomes based largely on qualifications which are beyond the reach of most people with a learning disability (whose trajectory to work is clearly going to be different to the one prescribed by the Innovation Fund).

The model assumes that anyone with aspirations to work will need those qualifications, and isn`t flexible enough in this instance to acknowledge the very different support needs of people with learning disabilities. With regret, we`ve had to withdraw our bid; our attempts to do things differently simply won`t fit into the commissioning framework on offer.

It has left me reflecting on the merits of the supported employment model when it`s delivered really well by a skilled practitioner working one to one with someone who wants to work. It aspires to be a personalised service. It sees the customer holistically as an individual. Like the approach which Darian Leader advocates in his new book, it doesn`t try to put people in boxes. It recognises each person as a unique and complex individual who might need something different from his or her neighbour in order to recover, or move on, or realise their aspirations.

There is a simple mantra knocking around the supported employment world which says `Equal Opportunities` means treating everybody differently. It`s a slogan based on the notion that people are wonderfully different from each other, and that what works for one person may not work for another. It`s a belief that demands that we listen to the customer, client or patient and hear what they say. And it requires each person`s package of support precisely to fit their unique set of needs. If personalisation means anything, it`s surely this. I`d like to think that, at this point, Darian would say `Here here`.

Written by Paul Wilson, Pluss Marketing Communications

These ladies work in the RBS centre in Plymouth as Customer Service Advisors.

With the announcement of the call centres closure  next year, Pluss offered the employees an opportunity to undertake a qualification to enhance their chance of gaining employment.

Each of the ladies pictured have achieved a level 2 Customer Service qualification supported by the Pluss.

In total 25 members of staff took up the offer, with qualifications ranging from Business Administration and Customer Service Level 2, up to Business Administration at Level 3. A large number of staff also took the opportunity to update their Literacy and Numeracy qualifications at the same time.

Congratulations to all RBS staff for the effort each has put into achieving their qualifications.

Pictured (L to R) Jo Mcloughlin, Rebecca Burd, Yvette Green and Marie Pullyblank of RBS and John Bragg of Pluss (in the middle).

Social Firms UK is looking for a new Chief Executive Officer.

Social Firms Uk is a highly dynamic small charity and respected umbrella support organisation for Social Firms and Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs).

Positive and strategic thinkers are required in this ever challenging environment. Social Firms and Work Integration Social Enterprises are rooted in the rapidly growing social enterprise sector and as one of the national support agencies we have a huge and vital job to do.

Apply if you’ve got the right attitude, skills and the flair of an entrepreneur and a leader, and if you believe in the principle that everyone should have the opportunity to be employed, irrespective of their disability or disadvantage.

Social Firms UK is an equal opportunities employer and particularly welcomes applications from individuals from under-represented groups.

To receive an application pack please call 01737 231365 or email dcunliffe@socialfirmsuk.co.uk .

To discuss the post further, email Sally Reynolds (outgoing founder CEO) on sreynolds@socialfirmsuk.co.uk with a phone number and she will call you back.

Deadline for applications that must be received by email is 5pm on 7th October 2011. Interview dates will be 13th and/or 14th October.