Fair Start Scotland: evaluation report 4 - year 3 overview

7. Values and principles

The Fair Start Scotland service is built upon the Scottish Government's key values for public services, namely:

• Dignity and respect
• Fairness and equality
• Continuous improvement

Year 3 FSS participants who joined the service after July 2020 and who took part in the telephone survey were asked whether they were aware that FSS was voluntary. Nine in ten (90%) of these participants knew the service was voluntary, 5% thought it was mandatory and another 5% did not know.

As shown in Figure 10, Year 3 FSS participants that took part in the telephone survey had positive views on how the FSS support they received aligned with the values of FSS, with 95% agreeing that they felt they were treated with dignity and respect. More than eight out of ten agreed that the support took account of their individual needs and circumstances (82%), that they felt they had choices about the support they received and could set their own goals (84%), that they felt the service offered support to improve their general quality of life and wellbeing (83%), and that they felt they were in control of their progress (84%).

Source: D13: To what extent do you agree with the following statements about the support you have received. Base: All 2020 cohort (644)

There were several differences in attitudes about the service related to ethnicity. Those from minority ethnic groups were less likely to feel positive compared to participants from non-ethnic minority groups about several aspects of the support:

• That the support took account of their individual needs and circumstances (74% for those from minority ethnic groups compared with 85% for white participants)
• That they were in control of their progress on the service (72% compared with 86%)
• That they had choices about the type of support they received and could set their own goals (74% compared with 86%)

Further, male participants were more likely than female participants to feel the service offered them support to improve their general quality of life and wellbeing (86% compared with 80%).

Satisfaction with FSS support (as represented by the five statements in Table 10) have consistently increased over the three years of FSS delivery for each of the five statements and increases have reached statistical significance for three of these statements:

• Being treated with dignity and respect (agreement increased from 92% in the first year to 95% in the third year of FSS delivery)
• Being offered support to improve general quality of life and wellbeing (agreement increased from 78% in the first year to 84% in the third year of FSS delivery)
• Feeling in control of progress on the service (agreement increased from 79% in the first year to 83% in the third year of FSS delivery)

Interviews conducted with FSS participants as part of the case studies indicated that FSS participants felt that their needs were listened to and that the support they received was adapted to their needs. One FSS participant reported that they could be honest with their Fair Start Scotland adviser about the types of work they wanted to do "without feeling fussy", and the support they received was tailored to this goal – "they actually listened to what I wanted".

FSS participants who took part in qualitative interviews discussed how they perceived the approach of FSS key workers as supportive and encouraging, professional, attentive, humane and focused on the individual needs of the person.

"It was like about me and what I wanted to do and things like that, so [my key worker] looked for jobs that could be right to me, that I might like. Just like looking for different jobs and obviously asked like what I was interested in."

- FSS participant

"[The key worker] put me on a course that I was interested in, and I told her about it and she put me on the course...[The key worker] also gave me confidence when I was at my lowest point wanting to give up. She gave me confidence [that] I could do this...She was very supportive"

- FSS participant

"If [I] was anxious or nervous or anything like that I felt like I could... talk about [it]. If you're feeling anxious or if you're nervous or things like that...So it was professional but also you can talk about the natural human feelings...like, 'I do feel quite nervous about this'...or 'I'm not too sure how this is going to go'...It was comforting knowing that you know you're talking to a human."

- FSS participant

What worked well?

A clear majority of participants rated the values and principles of FSS highly with the vast majority of respondents stated that they were treated with dignity and respect by FSS. Furthermore a significant majority felt that the service took account of their individual needs and circumstances and had improved their general quality of life and wellbeing. It is also worth noting that there have been statistically significant improvements against these measures across the three years of delivery.

The vast majority of respondents were also clear that FSS was a voluntary service.

What were the challenges? / How could we improve?

Despite overall results being very positive there were however variations in participants views of the service depending on their demographic characteristics. In particular individuals from ethnic minorities somewhat less likely to rate the service as highly as males and white individuals. This is a recurring finding and suggests that further work regarding communication and tailoring of support to meet the particular needs of groups with specific barriers to employment may be required.

What is Scottish Government doing?

The commissioning of external specialist training on diversity and disability awareness has been specifically designed to help both service providers and the Scottish Government develop enhanced knowledge and understanding of the particular needs of some of our most vulnerable participants.

We will use the recommendations from the training to inform our continuing work with specialist support organisations, for example Values Into Action Scotland, CEMVO and Radiant & Brighter, as part of our test and learn approach to drive specific improvements in service delivery for ethnic minority and disabled participants.

In addition, it is anticipated that by giving participants the opportunity to join Fair Start Scotland more than once will also ensure that those who may have had to leave Fair Start Scotland previously due to personal circumstances now have access to further employability support.