No One Left Behind: next steps for employability support

Employability Support At A Local Level

Scotland's local authorities play a key role in the development and delivery of employability services to address the needs of local labour markets. In conjunction with Community Planning partners, Councils ensure that local employability provision incorporates key objectives and support in the areas of Health, Justice and Housing specifically tailored to meet the needs of local communities.

Action 2

By December 2018, working collaboratively with Local Government partners, we will develop a joint Action Plan that will identify and address emerging employability themes. The Action Plan will include a focus on improving integration and alignment of employability provision within local communities to improve employment outcomes for local residents.

We recognise the significant provision Local Authorities contribute to the employability agenda across Scotland. In recognition of this, and with support from Scottish Local Authorities Economic Development Group ( SLAED), Convention of Scottish Local Authorities ( COSLA) and Society of Local Authority and Chief Executives ( SOLACE), a team of local government employability experts embedded in the Scottish Government Employability team will work with local authority employability leads in each of the 32 local authorities in Scotland to develop a more coherent understanding of existing local employability service delivery. This will highlight existing best practice in local delivery, and reflect the existing strengths, programme delivery and partnerships in local areas. We will build on this to assess, identify and agree opportunities for better alignment and joining up of local and national service delivery.

The main themes of this work will include:

• articulating and communicating the strengths in local programmes and partnerships;
• identifying opportunities to better integrate and align employability provision;
• identifying opportunities for co-location, outreach and sharing of services;
• identifying areas of good practice around local programmes, local delivery models and local approaches;
• identifying areas where the fit between national and local policy and programme delivery can be improved; and
• ensuring the development and delivery of emerging devolved employability services is complimentary to and enhances existing local provision.

We will work with local authority partners to develop and publish a local/national government employability alignment plan by the end of 2018.