Employability & Skills Scotland

1. Employability & Skills Scotland • Hazel Mathieson • Head of National Operations • 18th September 2013

2. Intended Outcomes from EF • Improved efficiency from new model for commissioning of pre-employment provision • Improved positive progression from nationally funded employability training towards and into employment • Provision focused on client need and responsive to local labour market demand • Participants better able to demonstrate their skills to employers

4. Progress to date • From June, EF Starts have been steadily increasing. • Split by Stage at end of P4 • Stage 2 – 24.5% • Stage 3 – 46.6% • Stage 4 – 28.8% • Split by age at end of P4 • 16/17 – 61.8% • 18-24 – 19.5% • 25+ - 18.7% • Just over 10% of total starts to date are College starts. • Many new providers have taken time to source premises/staff. • Too early to comment on outcomes/outputs. • Some issues identified with suitability of referrals.

5. Review of referral process • Support referral organisations in Core Skills Assessment • Work with referral organisations to identify what works • Share best practice • Feed into the EF formative evaluation

6. Local Provider Forums • Across the country mixed picture • Some limited in scope and membership • Some in need of revival • Some areas have never had one • Picture is improving

7. Why Have a Provider Forum? • Enable providers to network • Share best practice • Share expertise • Keep up to date on employability policy developments • Improve outcomes for participants • Improve quality of provision across the board • Ensure that provision fits with pipeline • Support partnership working • Review performance

8. Membership and who leads? • All organisations delivering learning and employability provision • Local Authority • SDS • Department of Work and Pensions • Local Employability Partnership • All training providers including • Private sector • Third sector SDS will offer support to, initiate/revive/re-invigorate but ... The LEP must take ownership

9. Certificate of Work Readiness • A qualification, developed by SDS, to help young people prove to employers that they are work ready • A minimum of 190 hours work experience for the young person to complete and additional time spent with a training provider to develop their skills • Made up of 5 SQA units including the SDS customised “Practical Work Place Skills” Unit • Employers being central in assessing the young person throughout the work experience • SCQF Credit Rated

10. Key Points for Review of Commissioning of EF (Internal & External) • Good Example of partnership working • Clearer demand from LEP’s required – but very useful exercise • Timescales too tight. • Earlier clarity on policy guidelines for a new programme. • Potential “conflict of interest” in decision making process – need more transparency. • Introduce funding which is not annual. • Further training/briefing for all involved.

11. Challenges Going Forward • Improving understanding of local needs/opportunities e.g local prospectus, Regional Skills Assessments going forward. • Need to understand impact of work programme leavers on EF. • Sharing information • Conflict of interest.

12. Questions