The North East is an area that has always grappled with high unemployment. When I was a director of Jobcentre Plus in the 1990s and early 2000s, we managed to get unemployment figures down, although recently they have started to rise again with the recession.

Many job centres have been closing across the region as part of a long-term strategy to merge with benefits offices. Advisers were stretched to serve people efficiently.

People think of the North East as having a good industrial base but in many parts of the region that’s not the case. Outlying rural areas such as West Durham, Northumberland and Teesdale are isolated. Unemployment is high and many people are on very low incomes.

For people living in those rural areas getting in to the nearest job centre can be difficult. Many do not have cars and so have to travel for about ten miles on buses.

Many of us take the internet for granted but most of these people do not have access to a computer or the web. In his Digital Britain report, Lord Carter of Barnes estimated that 17 million people are excluded from the internet — a third of the adult population. When so many vacancies are advertised online, not having access to the internet is a serious disadvantage.

We tried many schemes to get people back into work while I was the regional director of the job centres, working with local employers including Nissan, Fujitsu and Siemens.

One of the most successful has been a pilot scheme in Sedgefield to install iStop Kiosks. The people running the kiosks got agreement with One North East, the regional development agency (RDA), to fund the project with a grant to place all the job centre vacancies on the kiosks, with contact information for making an application.

The kiosks were placed in post offices and convenience stores in outlying areas so that people could look for work themselves.

The pilot was very successful. Being able to search for jobs yourself is empowering — people looking for work felt more in control of their destinies because they could choose which vacancies to apply for. When they visited the job centres they felt that the advisers were more in control.

iStop has now put job points in more than 60 post offices and convenience stores across the region. It estimates that each point receives 14,000 visits each month. The feedback we have had is that a lot of people have found jobs using them.

The RDA has invested £3.5 million in technology and ongoing support for the kiosks. They have a retail side as well — people can buy things on them. iStop is talking to the Department of Health about putting health information on them.

Fewer people coming to job centres means that our advisers can concentrate on advising them rather than handing over benefits money. It means they can give more personal careers advice — the long-term unemployed need counselling and support.

Other local authorities have now signed up — Central Bedfordshire and Cornwall, which also have problems with unemployment.

In the recession, people who have been out of work can very quickly get back into work as long as they are placed in front of an opportunity quickly.

• Before he retired, Vincent Robinson was the regional director of Jobcentre Plus for the North East

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