Transitional employment services - phase 2: evaluation

1. Introduction

1.1 Policy Background

The Scottish Government Transitional Employment Services (TES) commenced on 3 April 2017 and accepted referrals until 9 March 2018. TES comprised of two separate services:

• Work First Scotland (WFS) service – a voluntary service supporting disabled customers who are assessed of being capable of working at least 16 hours within 26 weeks. WFS Providers offer up to 12 months of support split equally between up to six months pre-employment support and six months in-work support. WFS was expected to support up to 3,300 customers.
• Work Able Scotland (WAS) service – a voluntary service for people with a long-term health condition in receipt of Employment Support Allowance and within the Work Related Activity Group (ESA WRAG) and assessed to be able to work for at least 16 hours a week within 12 months. WAS provided a total of 12 months support, with a balance of pre-employment support and in-work support as appropriate to the individual customer. The service was expected to support up to 1,500 customers.

While many of the core design features of WFS and WAS are similar, it should be recognised at the outset that they serve quite distinct target groups. In particular, the prevalence of mental health conditions among WAS customers is more than twice that of WFS. Alongside a much higher prevalence of other long-term conditions, WAS customers have health conditions that more often limit their ability to undertake day-to-day activities and more often suffer from multiple health conditions. This means that direct comparisons between the services are not helpful as they are not comparing like-with-like.

TES was established following the devolution of responsibility for some employability services under the Scotland Act 2016 and allowed for The Scottish Government to design and deliver its own employability services for disabled people and those at risk of long-term unemployment.

The Scottish Government consulted widely on how an employability system should be delivered. The findings outlined that a Scottish approach to employability should deliver:

• A strong focus on those who need specialist support
• A holistic approach designed to address the broader needs of the customer to support them into employment
• Customer choice and control over the process
• A clear focus on entry into sustainable employment
• Help to support customers who are at risk of losing their job due to a change in their health condition.

The WFS and WAS services have enabled the Scottish Government to develop Fair Start Scotland, launched in April 2018, by putting in place supporting infrastructure that includes performance management structures, IT development, data monitoring and effective strategic and operational communications with JCP and DWP. The transitional period has also helped in the design and delivery of Fair Start Scotland by embedding principles of dignity and respect in service design, and will continue to do so in future iterations of employability services in Scotland.

More recently, the Scottish Government has published No One Left Behind: Next Steps for Employability Support in Scotland^[7], which sets out the next steps to deliver more effective and joined-up employability support. The approach identifies that more effective integration and alignment of support, which address the wide range of barriers some people can face when seeking employment is required. This will involve:

• Flexible, person-centred support aligned with existing funding streams service as part of a new local delivery model (starting with Activity Agreements and the Scottish Employer Recruitment Incentive in Spring 2019);
• is more straightforward for people to navigate;
• is better integrated and aligned with other services, particularly with health, justice and housing provision;
• provides pathways into sustainable and fair work;
• is driven by evidence, including data and the experience of users; and
• supports more people – particularly those facing multiple barriers – to move into the right job, at the right time.

1.2 Scope of the Evaluation

In September 2017 Cambridge Policy Consultants and IFF Research were commissioned by the Scottish Government Fair Work Employability and Skills Directorate, along with delivery partner Skills Development Scotland (SDS), to undertake a process and outcome evaluation of the WFS and WAS transitional employment support services.

The aim of the evaluation is to provide a robust, independent evaluation of the delivery process and outcomes of both WFS and WAS. More specifically, the evaluation focusses on the following research questions:

• How well has the service delivery process worked across both services?
• What do high quality services look and feel like for customers?
• What difference does the service make to customer outcomes?
• What difference does the service make to employers?
• How are these services (WFS and WAS) different from previous employability support?

The evaluation research was designed in two phases. Phase 1 carried out December 2017 to March 2018 focused on how Providers had implemented their services, the extent to which this met customer needs and whether this made a difference to their outcomes. The Phase 1 interim evaluation report was published in August 2018^[8].

Phase 2 of the evaluation, undertaken December 2018 to February 2019 focuses on the employment impacts of WFS and WAS and is the subject of this report. The fieldwork in Phase 2 included the following:

• A telephone survey of 591 customers split as: n=417 for WFS and n=174 for WAS. The sample for this survey was the same as that drawn for the wave 1 telephone survey between December 2017 and February 2018 so that the survey could explore the change in circumstances and attitudes among respondents over a longer time period^[9].
• Case studies with customers who moved into employment post-support service (11 case studies). These were done to explore any issues they faced in starting work and the role of Providers in helping them overcome these and sustain employment. A further nine case studies were undertaken with customers who were referred to Providers but did not start or dropped out of provision very early in the process to better understand their reasons for not joining the service. Thirteen case studies were with WFS customers and the remaining seven with WAS. Discussions also covered whether customers' health condition had changed and what, if any support they had sought. Case study customers started on the service between 1 November 2017 and 31 January 2018.
• Case studies with 17 employers on their experience of employing customers from both services. To avoid revealing that individual customers benefited from service support, these interviews focused on the employers' relationships with service Providers and their experiences of employing customers in general. Six of these employers had been interviewed during Phase 1 of the evaluation so these interviews were able to draw out how working with Providers had evolved over time.
• Workshops with 47 'non-users' who were recruited by two community organisations who were part of the supply chain in different CPAs. The workshop attendees were of working age but had not signed up for support from either service. A key finding from the Phase 1 evaluation was the relatively high proportion of eligible people who chose not to participate in either service. These non-users were recruited on our behalf by community support organisations who provide support services for people with health conditions or disabilities, on the proviso that discussions were anonymous and we did not seek to catalogue individual characteristics^[10].
• A review of WFS and WAS management information to compare the characteristics of customers to the Phase 2 telephone sample and service outcomes to date against the survey findings.