Employability services: Supported Employment and Individual Placement and Support reviews - responses

Ministerial foreword

Employability services have a key role to play in supporting delivery of our four missions, particularly our ambitions to grow Scotland’s economy and eradicate child poverty. We have always been clear that we want devolved employability services to contribute to tackling labour market inequality through addressing structural barriers people experience around entering and sustaining employment. We know that these challenges are pronounced for disabled people, who continue to be less likely to be employed than non-disabled people. 

Since the implementation of our local delivery model for employability services in April 2022, we have seen progress in relation to the reach of disabled people through No One Left Behind. 2023 to 2024 saw 25% of participants identify as disabled, compared to 17% in 2022 to 2023. We have also seen increases in the number and proportion of people with learning difficulties, learning disabilities and autism access No One Left Behind services.

No One Left Behind creates the flexibility for Local Employability Partnerships to provide support tailored to the needs of the individual, with continuing support once a disabled person enters employment. We welcomed the findings and recommendations of the reviews of Fair Start Scotland Individual Placement and Support, and of Supported Employment provision. These reviews were conducted against the backdrop of a changing employability landscape in Scotland, with activity already underway to implement our No One Left Behind approach jointly with Local Government.

With the closure of Fair Start Scotland, and the move to deliver employability support locally, in partnership with Local Government we are committed to learning from past implementation and best practice. We have carefully considered the findings of these reviews and used the recommendations to shape our thinking on the provision of employability support moving forward. That is why we have agreed, jointly with local government, that from summer 2025 all Local Employability Partnerships will have a Specialist Employability Support service in place. This will be focused specifically on providing support for disabled people and those with long term health conditions through qualified keyworkers with maximum caseload sizes.  

We also recognise the key role that health partners play. Alongside enhanced provision locally, we will continue to work closely with Public Health Scotland, Allied Health Professions, and Health Boards to improve awareness of the wide range of support available, establish improved referral mechanisms and better align the resources of health and employability locally.

I would like to thank those who supported the work of these reviews, and who have been working with us to develop our approach to supporting disabled people and those with long term health conditions through devolved employability services. Wider stakeholders will continue to have an important role to play in this activity, and we will commit to ensuring we engage widely over the coming months.

Tom Arthur, Minister for Investment and Employment