The Shaw Trust has had confirmation from the Department of Work and Pensions that the Work Choice programme will go ahead and that the contract awarded to it by the previous government would stand.

Work Choice will run alongside the Work Programme, the government’s main scheme for helping people into employment.

The announcement means the charity will be the prime provider of Work Choice – a specialist scheme for helping disabled and severely disadvantaged people into work – in 16 areas and a sub-contractor in a further six regions.

Sally Burton, Shaw Trust chief executive (pictured), said she was delighted at the news.

“We know it was a key decision to sign off outside of the proposed Work Programme.  Client groups within specialist disability programmes are not directly comparable with those on other employment programmes.”

The Trust aims to support up to three times as many people under the new Work Choice as it did under its predecessor scheme Workstep.