No One Left Behind: employability strategic plan 2024 to 2027

Joint Foreword

We have been through an important period for devolved employability services in recent years, and we are pleased with the progress made to simplify the landscape in Scotland. Since April 2024 all new referrals to devolved employability services have been supported through our No One Left Behind approach and we have welcomed the commitment from all involved to continue driving improvements to support better outcomes for the people and communities across Scotland.

Since the Scottish and Local Government Partnership Working Agreement for Employability was signed in December 2018, we have worked in partnership to deliver our shared ambitions for place-based, person-centred employability support in Scotland. This has seen us move from a collection of discrete national and local programmes, to a single, all-age offer of support.

It is clear that we continue to experience challenges, including levels of child poverty that are too high, rising economic inactivity, and lower rates of employment for disabled people. We are confident that employability services have a crucial role to play in addressing labour market challenges.

We have set out in this plan our strategic priorities between now and 2027. Through these priorities we are committing to work together to continue to improve Scotland’s employability services, to deliver for those facing structural barriers to employment, and to work across boundaries in supporting people to access sustainable fair work.

We are also determined to learn from the evidence generated from previous employability provision delivered by both spheres of Government and to drive activity forward in relation to our joint priorities. As part of this, we are pleased to use this plan to announce that delivery of specialist employability support for disabled people will continue to be a part of our employability offer, with provision to be in place across the country by Summer 2025.

In developing this plan, we have welcomed the input from partners across the wider public, third and private sectors through our National Discussion events held in 2023. As we move forward, effective partnership working will continue to be a critical element of the Scottish approach to employability at both a national and local level, and our commitment to leveraging expertise across sectors through a mixed economy of provision remains crucial to our overall approach.

We have committed to refresh the Partnership Working Agreement for Employability in the coming months, which will reflect the progress under No One Left Behind, as well as wider developments in the relationship between Scottish and Local Government. The principle of mutual trust and respect at the heart of the Verity House Agreement and the maxim of ‘local by default, national by agreement’ will continue to inform our work around employability. To date, we have implemented a delivery model which empowers Local Employability Partnerships to plan and commission services, allowing decisions to be taken closer to participants, and enabling local labour market conditions to more closely shape the provision on offer.

With a focus on continued joint working at a strategic and political level, we can create the environment for service redesign that makes a lasting impact for those who face inequalities and remain furthest from Scotland’s labour market.

Tom Arthur Minister for Employment and Investment

Councillor Maureen Chalmers COSLA Community Wellbeing Spokesperson