Deputy Business Editor Dan Jenkins looks at an organisation that helps people into work and meets some of its employees.

THE shop floor at Remploy, in Spennymoor, County Durham, is just like any other factory - noisy and busy. But its workforce is rare in the North-East, as every employee is registered disabled.

Each has a story to tell - some more incredible than others.

Take assembly worker Timmy Tong, for instance. He has learning difficulties, but his talent for rollerskating led to a small role in the 1970s film Rollerball, which starred James Caan.

And washing machine engineer Gary Taylor's right arm was severely damaged in a car accident, but he became so proficient with his left that he is county darts champion.

Remploy was established at the end of the Second World War as a national network of factories to provide work for the ex-servicemen and women who came home badly injured.

Bob Warner, group chief executive, said: "It was set up principally for disabled war veterans, so most were physically disabled.

"Today, around half our workforce are people with learning difficulties."

The group is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. The Spennymoor site opened two years after the first factory, in 1947. For many, it has provided a job for life - Barry Fulcher and Jackie Mudd, for example, have more than 80 years between them. The Government pays Remploy a £115m annual subsidy and the factories turn over another £180m.

Mr Warner said: "The subsidy covers the extra costs of employing people with disabilities, as we operate from so many sites.

"You could run our entire operation commercially from 15 sites."

Barrie Webster, who has run the Spennymoor site for the past three years, said: "We are very much founded on orthodox commercial principles.

"We effectively compete on a level playing field with all of our competitors and have developed strong bonds with various blue-chip companies in the region.

"We make adjustments to take people's disabilities in our stride and, ultimately, you don't notice those disabilities."

Nationally, the organisation has contracts to supply household names that include Ford, Lever Brothers and MG Rover.

The workforce of 88 at Spennymoor traditionally relied on out-sourced assembly work, mainly from the neighbouring Smart and Brown plant and the Electrolux factory.

Smart and Brown is long gone and a lot of the component contracts have been offshored to developing countries, where labour is much cheaper.

But the factory has found niche markets that can provide more than enough work and has diversified into the lucrative recycling market.

It works with retailers Dixons and Comet, repairing old washing machines.

They are serviced and sold to low-income families through charity shops, at a starting price of about £45.

Mr Warner, said: "We have been predominantly a manufacturing business and we have suffered over the last five years like the rest of manufacturing.

"We have tried to move more into the service sector, with the likes of the white goods recycling."

In April, the division will be expanded to include recycling home computers.

It has a contract to take PCs from the Department for Work and Pensions and the Inland Revenue. They will be overhauled, then returned.

Mr Webster said: "Organisations such as Government agencies and banks often want to move equipment to different sections, but they can have sensitive information on the hard drives.

"These organisations need someone like us they can trust to clean the equipment thoroughly, so they can send it back to another area, knowing there is no chance of security being compromised."

Remploy in Spennymoor still has contracts with several national household names, including one assembling divan beds for a well-known soft furnishings group. Its electrical sub-assembly division produces more than 150 types of lighting boards for illuminated signs used by local authorities.

Mr Webster said: "The way that manufacturing has gone, our contract service has had to specialise in items that are either too bulky and costly for firms to ship in from far-flung places, or we offer a bespoke service that is fast and flexible."

This flexibility can be seen in the order book. Only last spring, workers were producing about 130,000 strimmer blades for garden centres, 360,000 moulded corners to protect central heating radiators and more than 500,000 components for Christmas crackers.

Its field of operations has changed during the past decade to such an extent that the jobs it provides represent a fraction of the number of disabled people it supports.

It helps thousands of people with a range of physical and mental disabilities to find work every year.

Mr Warner said: "This year we will recruit about 300 into our business and help about 3,500 into other businesses.

"Attitudes have changed. People want choice and, generally, they choose what we term the open working environment.

"The nature of the work we do will change and we will continue to evolve, as we have over the last 60 years.

"We will do more training at the factories, so they become somewhere not just employing people, but training people for the general economy."

The first floor at Spennymoor is given over to one of these training centres. Since it opened in 2003, it has helped 400 disabled people find employment outside the factory.

It has good links placing trainees with large organisations such as BT, Sainsbury's and Asda.

Mr Warner said: "In the past, Remploy was accused of employing people in the factories and not doing a lot of training.

"Now we do personal development and basic skills. Local colleges come in and teach people basic maths or how to read.

"That has made a real difference to the lives of people who have very often been failed by the education system."