UNEMPLOYED people in some areas of Teesside will be helped back to work by a £500,000 scheme - while those in others will miss out.

When employment chiefs heard that the region was in line for the government's Action Team for Jobs, they assumed it would benefit a large portion of the jobless.

The Working Links Local Management Board, which was charged with delivering the scheme, nominated Loftus, Lockwood and Skinningrove in east Cleveland, as well as Thorntree and Pallister in Middlesbrough.

But the Department for Education and Employment (DFEE) has rejected the suggestion, telling the board to spend all the cash on introducing the scheme in Middlesbrough.

Dave Walsh, leader of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, said that if anything, east Cleveland needs the scheme most.

"We are obviously not happy about this. People in east Cleveland live right out in the sticks and they really have problems.

"Those living in cities are far better off."

While the scheme, due to operate from this October to September 2001, has few specific guidelines, it is expected to involve employers as well as the private and voluntary sectors in finding work for those with the bleakest prospects.

Coun Walsh said that the decline of traditional industries has forced East Clevelanders into this category.

"Employment is based on Skinningrove engineering works, Skinningrove Steel Works and Boulby Potash, but a lot of that has been whittled away over the years," he said.

Now Coun Walsh and Ashok Kumar, Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland MP, have written to the DFEE and the MP Malcolm Wicks on the issue