To what extent are government initiatives helping the highly skilled unemployed get back into work

Not much it seems.

Perhaps the newly proposed measures will actually come into effect quickly enough to make an impact on the rising unemployment rate. Either way, Job Centres round the country don't ask you what educational background you have and will only point you in the direction of jobs within a certain industry as opposed to specific roles. They fail to take each individuals circumstances into account which is surely resulting in a less than favourable re-employment rate.

I'm not sure if pairing job centres with recruitment agencies is going to have much of an impact on employment for highly skilled job seekers because there are already 10 applicants to each available position (or there abouts). The agencies are probably making as much money as is possible already in the current market simply because applications are so over subscribed.If the amount of jobs available are decreasing it only stands to reason that recruitment consultants will be losing their jobs too and with a decreased work force and an increased workload (how many applications can one consultant look through each day?) throwing more applicants at them probably isn't advisable

With the ability to fill a position ten times over will additional candidates who arrive with sign on booklet and job seekers diary in hand be treated as a priority? Of course they should, since claiming benefits strains our economy further but then again so does whatever the government is prepared to pay these recruitment agencies for the privelage of their services.

Next time you are at the job centre ask about the options for highly skilled professionals and see what happens. I doubt they'll even know what you are talking about.

If worst comes to worst however, you can always resort to this.