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INJURED troops should be offered employment in Remploy factories, says a new report on how to make the threatened centres viable again.

It calls for the organisation to get back to its roots. Remploy factories were set up 66 years ago to give work to soldiers injured in the Second World War.

The Department of Work and Pensions plans to pull funding for the network and spend the money to help disabled people into mainstream jobs.

However, the Consortium of Trade Unions wants a new partnership with the Ministry of Defence to set up rehabilitation stints at Remploy to help ease injured soldiers back into work. It estimates that since 1997 more than 20,000 service men and women have been injured serving their country.
It adds: “​To the trade unions’​ knowledge, fewer than 50 have been offered a job on a Remploy site.”​

Other ideas from the unions to make the Remploy network a modern and competitive operation include turning the sites into community hubs, leasing space to business start-ups and community groups. The study drawn up by GMB and Unite unions is called A New Approach for the Sustainable Employment of UK Disabled People.

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