Scotland's Devolved Employment Services: statistical summary November 2022

Footnotes

1. Employment support programme: equality impact assessment - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

2. This is a result of a change made to the service during April to June 2021. See 'Who are the people that have joined FSS?' section on page 5 and Fair Start Scotland (FSS) Background Information for more details of how this affects the counts in this publication.

3. Since the first COVID-19 lockdown FSS has mostly been delivered over the phone or online, with face-to-face interaction paused. This has impacted the collection of equalities data. We have been working with FSS service providers to ensure response rates are maximised. For more information, see the Data Quality section in the Background Information. With effect from 01 April 2022, service providers have adopted a hybrid delivery model with a combination of face-to-face and online delivery.

4. Disability is defined by two questions: i) Do you have a physical or mental health condition or illness lasting or expected to last 12 months or more? ii) Does your condition or illness reduce your ability to carry-out day-to-day activities?

If the answer to the first question is "yes", and the answer to the second is either "yes, a lot" or "yes, a little" then the participant is disabled as defined by the Equality Act (2010).

5. Data for disabled participants in year 3 showed a lot of change throughout the year, as both data completeness and people identified as disabled decreased immediately after the first COVID-19 lockdown in the first half of the year.

6. Participants joining FSS can report one or more long-term health conditions.

7. Other condition reflects any long-term health condition not specified under the long-term health conditions reported in the supplementary tables and as displayed in figure 2.

8. Gender was unknown for less than 0.5% of participants, these have not been displayed in Figure 3.

9. The early leaver rate is calculated for the 39,151 starts on FSS who joined from April 2018 – September 2021, including the 1,339 re-joins to the service during this period, as we have the most complete data.

10. LTHC is an abbreviation of Long-Term Health Condition.

11. Reasons for leaving the service early, based on the findings from an online survey of FSS early leavers, are summarised in The Scottish Government's evaluation of the third year of the service Fair Start Scotland Evaluation Report 4: Overview of Year 3 (www.gov.scot) (p29).

12. LTHC is an abbreviation of Long-Term Health Condition.

13. The job start rate is calculated for the 39,151 starts on FSS that joined from April 2018 – September 2021, including the 1,339 re-joins to the service during this period, as we have the most complete data for this group.

14. The 3 month job outcome rate is calculated for the 35,928 starts on FSS that joined from April 2018 – June 2021, including the 689 re-joins to the service during this period, as we have the most complete data for this group.

15. The 6 month job outcome rate is calculated for the 32,507 starts on FSS that joined from April 2018 – March 2021 as we have the most complete data for this group.

16. The 12 month job outcome rate is calculated for the 27,084 starts on FSS that joined from April 2018 – September 2020 as we have the most complete data for this group.

17. Data on lone parents was collected from the launch of FSS in April 2018. Data on age of youngest child and number of dependent children was additionally collected from late 2019 and we worked with providers to implement and improve the collection of this data for the remainder of year 2, resulting in better quality data for year 3 onwards. As a result, the percentage of parents increases over time, but this is likely to be a result of data collection changes rather than changes to the number of parents supported.

18. The Scottish Government has identified a number of 'priority family groups' at risk of child poverty, further information can be found at Tackling child poverty priority families overview - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Please note that the data presented in this publication and the supplementary statistical tables differs in some aspects from the priority family group definitions due mainly to its focus on participants rather than family units. For example, the data covers participants accessing FSS support that are disabled parents but does not include families with a disabled child, therefore differing from the 'families with a disabled adult or child' priority family type.

19. The job start rate is calculated for the 7,305 parent starts on FSS that joined from April 2018 – September 2021 as we have the most complete data for this group.

20. The 3 month job outcome rate is calculated for the 6,373 parent starts on FSS that joined from April 2018 – June 2021 as we have the most complete data for this group.

21. The 6 month job outcome rate is calculated for the 5,401 parent starts on FSS that joined from April 2018 – March 2021 as we have the most complete data for this group.

22. The 12 month job outcome rate is calculated for the 3,815 parent starts on FSS that joined from April 2018 – September 2020 as we have the most complete data for this group.

23. There was a decrease in the year 1 total from previous publications as this was previously derived from year 1 aggregate data that was collected during that period. Since then we have developed year 1 data and combined it with data currently collected, which has allowed us to provide more detailed information for year 1 participants, including their achievements. As a result of combining year 1 data and Management Information changes the start dates for some participants changed.

24. Age was unknown for 44 participants receiving support, these individuals are not displayed in Figure 10.

25. The guidance for collecting data issued to Scottish local authorities specifies that disability status should be recorded as defined by the Equality Act (2010). Further information can be found at Definition of disability under the Equality Act 2010 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

26. Gender and age were unknown for less than 0.5% of participants, these have not been displayed in Figure 11.

27. Parental status was not collected from participants in year 1. Parental Employability Support funding was made available from February 2020 onwards.

28. Gender and age were unknown for less than 0.5% of participants that were parents, these have not been displayed in Figure 13.

29. Shared Measurement Framework: Employability Shared Measurement Framework published | Employability in Scotland

30. Currently not all data items presented here are fully aligned to the SMF recommendations. Data collection activity will align to the recommendations from 1 October 2022 and our statistics will reflect those in due course.

31. The flexibility of the No One Left Behind approach allows people to come in and out of support as often as is needed, so the time between the initial start date and that to achieve certain progression outcomes can vary considerably.

32. The 3,178 people that entered further or higher education or training also includes some people that were in school.

33. The 313 parents that entered further or higher education or training also includes some people that were in school.

34. The Scottish Government's local area case studies from the evaluation of the first year of Fair Start Scotland can be accessed at Fair Start Scotland: evaluation report 2 - year 1 overview - local area case studies (www.gov.scot)

35. Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)