Cumbria Strategic Partnership

Following the success of the approach used at the Calling Cumbria events in 2008, the Deep Dive - Understanding Worklessness was started in 2009. 

This approach has used the methodology of Total Place to learn more about the barriers to work which are experienced by people in Cumbria who experience long term worklessness, and then idenity and agree recommendations and actions by partners in Cumbria to remove these barriers.

During the summer and early autumn of 2009, senior figures from within major Cumbrian public and private sector organisations took part in various focus groups which targeted specific groups of unemployed people. The stories and experiences of the long term unemployed, those who had recently come into employment, employers, migrant workers, BME unemployed, people with health issues, and offenders have been extremely valuable and were gathered together in an interim report which was shared with the full CSP in November 2009. 

The themes identified in this report together with the ideas that emerged from discussions on 5 November 2009 are currently being refined into a final report on the Deep Dive which seeks to make robust recommendations to CSP partners.