C-Day, or Closure Day looms for Selby miners. SIR GRAHAM HALL, chairman of Yorkshire Forward looks at how help for them is accelerating.

AS the closure of the Selby Coalfield complex draws ever-nearer, Yorkshire Forward has been supporting the UK Coal workforce to re-train and find new careers, once their jobs come to end within the next six months.

We are helping to provide the miners with free careers guidance, so that they can look at the skills they already have, and job options available to them.

Training is funded through the Jobcentre Plus Rapid Response Scheme, which deals with re-training in major redundancy situations.

The success of the Selby Taskforce has meant that five out of six of the miners that have left the coalfield already have found new jobs or started their own businesses.

But that still leaves about 1,200 people who want help in finding future sustainable employment. We are giving this highest priority.

At each mine site (there are four within the Selby complex) there is a Pithead Information Point (PIP), manned by various agencies, and available daily to discuss any issue that the workforce has, including training, benefits, debt and financial management, CVs, interview techniques etc.

There is also an urgent need to ensure that the members of the workforce who are still under the impression that the mine will not actually close, are offered as much help as possible.

Several advice workers have been recruited from the existing workforce at each mine site. Their task: to get people who have not yet sought help, advice and training, to do so.

To complement all this, Yorkshire Forward part-funded a careers fair, alongside the Learning & Skills Council, North Yorkshire at the Riccall Regen Centre, near Selby.

We were delighted with the attendance at this two-day event, with local MP John Grogan on hand to give his full support and taking time to talk to both the miners and the standholders.

Potential employers at the event included First York, City of York Council, The Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, the police, Jarvis and Driver Hire.

First York was delighted with the turnout, and was completing applications on the day from people interested in passing their PSV licence and becoming bus drivers. They would have been satisfied with half-a-dozen applications, but within the first three hours, received 16!

For those who do not want to look for jobs just yet, there were stands manned by providers of help, training and advice, including Jobcentre Plus, CISWO (Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation), Barnsley College and Future Prospects.

Overall the fair was a great success, and it was good to see Selby employees there who had not been spoken to previously. As Linda Newby, the Jobcentre Plus representative, reported, this is good news, as we want to ensure that all the men have access to any of their training requirements, as well as answers to benefit queries.

The more we make ourselves accessible to them, the more likely they are to talk to us when their need is greater.

We are now looking at running a third careers fair for March/April 2004, to be timed to coincide with the closure of the complex.

Updated: 10:05 Tuesday, October 28, 2003