Scotland's Devolved Employment Services: statistical summary May 2019

Work Able Scotland (WAS)

Work Able Scotland (WAS) is a devolved employment support service for those with a health condition, managed by Skills Development Scotland. It is one of two voluntary transitional services put in place before Fair Start Scotland was launched and aimed to deliver support for up to 1,500 people with a health condition. WAS participants could receive up to a maximum of 12 months support in total, whether for pre-employment support and/or in-work support, or any combination of both. 

Information on how we measure each stage of the participant journey through WAS can be found in the Background Information section of this publication. Tables 90 to 99 in the accompanying Excel tables refer to WAS data. The first evaluation report regarding WFS and WAS was published in April 2018 and can be found here.

How many people joined?

2,058 people were referred into WAS between 3 April 2017 and 9 March 2018. As a result 1,095 people (53%) joined the service. 516 of these people left the service early. By 29 March 2019, 157 people had sustained employment for at least 6 weeks and 83 had sustained employment for at least 26 weeks. 

Figure 9: Participant journeys on Work Able Scotland, up to 29 March 2019

From the information we gathered about individuals achieving short and sustained job outcomes on Work Able Scotland, we know:

• More males than females achieved job outcomes. 58% of short and 53% of sustained job outcomes were for males. This reflects the fact that more males (57% of participants) than females (44%) joined the service. 
• The highest proportion of people joining the service were aged 35 to 49 (35%). This age group also has the highest proportion of people achieving short (38%) and sustained (36%) job outcomes. 
• The highest proportion of job outcomes were associated with people with long-term mental health conditions. 49% of conditions reported by those with short and 52% of those with sustained job outcomes were mental health conditions. 46% of conditions reported by people joining the service were mental health conditions. 
• The distribution of types of long-term health condition for those achieving short and sustained job outcomes, and those joining the service, were broadly similar.
• The highest proportion of job outcomes (61% short and 63% sustained) were achieved by people only reporting one long-term health condition. 60% of people joining the service reported one long-term health condition. 
• 3% of participants achieving short job outcomes reported being from minority ethnic groups. A similar proportion of those joining the service also reported being from minority ethnic groups. However, the number of participants from minority ethnic groups joining this service are small - so exercise caution when using these figures.