PUBLIC sector chiefs hope to help more than 11,500 long term unemployed people in two East Lancashire towns back to work by better co-ordinating their efforts.

Blackburn with Darwen Council has been awarded £320,000 to spend over the next two years to improve the way the local authority and other bodies like Job Centre Plus, and the Department for Work and Pensions co-operate to help people into work.

The council is just one of three in the North West, alongside Manchester and Liverpool, to be piloting the project, aimed at raising employment rates to 80 per cent of the working age population.

Council chiefs said the funding for the project was good news as the more people working in the borough the better for everyone.

The borough currently lags behind the national average rate, which is 74.3 per cent, with only 65.9 per cent of men aged 16-64 and women aged 16-59 in work.

Of the 140,000 population about 83,000 are deemed to be of working age.

Coun Andy Kay, executive member for regeneration, said the initiative meant that different agencies would no longer just give advice about what services they could provide but also about what other organisations in the borough could do.

The services provided by all agencies involved, which also includes Connexions, will be rebranded as Blackburn with Darwen Workroutes.

It forms part of the Government's agenda to reduce the unemployed, especially among those who had been on incapacity benefit for a long time.

Coun Kay said: "We will now be able to address individuals' needs with one strategy rather than it being piecemeal through the various organisations."

Tory opposition leader Coun Colin Rigby said he too welcomed the new strategy.