Heywood based Real Deal workforce made redundant

At midday on Friday 16 June, New Heart for Heywood NDC Partnership were informed that the entire workforce of Real Deal, the community employment agency based in Market Street Heywood, had been made redundant. Later that day, a spokeswoman for the Board said that the decision had been taken to close the organisation.

Real Deal have been running one of New Heart for Heywood's major change programmes, the Community Employment Project, for the past year. In late February, the company faced a financial crisis and the resignation of its Chief Executive, Sally Bonnie, shortly followed by her deputy. They appealed to New Heart for Heywood for support and, after consulting its partners, it brought forward some funds, from next year's project allocation, to help Real Deal through a difficult period. "One of the reasons for doing this was that Real Deal had made a good start on delivering our project and we wanted to support a community-based charity that was making a difference to the lives and prospects of NDC area residents and the wider community of Heywood," said Vicki Devonport, New Heart for Heywood Chief Executive.

Real Deal appointed interim chief executives, Lindsey Guy and Chris Starkey, Lancaster-based specialists in running community organisations, who worked with Real Deal's management team to design and carry out a recovery plan. The scale of the financial problems the organisation faced necessitated some tough decisions, such as making half the staff redundant and reducing the premises to one base in Heywood. Real Deal's costs had previously been twice its income, so decisive action was needed to ensure both the organisation's future and effective delivery of its work, including the Heywood NDC project as a top priority.

The recovery plan looked like it was working, but last week: quot;A bolt from the blue hit the organisation," commented Janet Lawrence, Company Secretary. quot;A huge Inland Revenue bill from the previous year, which we thought had been paid, turned up. Real Deal do not have the finance to cover this and the Revenue will not allow us to spread the payments, but even if they could it is doubtful that we could afford that either. This makes the recovery plan unworkable, so we took financial advice and were told that the charity was not viable. With deep regret, Real Deal's Board met on Friday and decided to close. This comes as a bitter blow to the current staff team who have worked so hard to turn the charity around and continue its worthwhile work. The Trustees want to convey their thanks to the present staff and state clearly that they bear no responsibility for the demise of the organisation."

New Heart for Heywood also regrets the closure of Real Deal, which leaves a substantial gap in its programme.  The partnership will be discussing options for commissioning further community employment projects at its Executive and Partnership Board meetings over the next ten days. "New Heart for Heywood deeply regrets the closure of Real Deal and current redundancies. No one said regeneration was going to be easy," said Vicki Devonport, New Heart for Heywood Chief Executive, quot;it usually takes the proverbial #39;blood, sweat and tears' to get the changes needed for communities like Heywood; but working in partnership will win in the end. A resilient community needs to be able to take the knocks as well as celebrate success. As a partnership we will look at the reasons for the failure of this organisation, learn the lessons and apply them to commissioning new and better work in the future."