The employability system in Scotland is undergoing a transformation, as indeed it has been doing so since the publication of A New Future for Employability Support in Scotland in 2016. In March 2018 the publication of the No One Left Behind Strategic Document which outlined the need for a better aligned and integrated employability support system. Fair Start Scotland the first devolved employment service commenced in April 2018, with the award of nine contracts lasting up to five years.

In November 2018, a Review of Employability support in Scotland was published and outlined a three phased approach to implementing an all age, person centred, needs led approach to change including a move to increased local governance of resources. In December 2018, Scottish and Local Government signed a ‘No One Left Behind' Partnership Agreement to support the shared ambition of transformational change in Scotland’s employability support system.

In April 2019 Phase 1 of No One Left Behind was implemented when Activity Agreements and the Scottish Employer Recruitment Incentive ceased as national programmes and this investment was available to Local Authorities to develop alternative approaches with partners to meet local needs. In March 2020 Covid 19 had a significant impact on the joint programme of work and the response to the consequences of Covid 19 on the economy and service delivery disrupted the initial programme of work delaying the pace of change. National and local responses to the health and economic impacts also lead to unplanned activities as efforts were temporarily diverted and new ways of working were embedded alongside new and additional measures to deal with the disproportionate impact on individuals and communities. The implementation of Phase 2 transferring national investment in Employability Fund and Community Jobs Scotland to local governance arrangements initially scheduled for April 2021 was delayed. The Minister for Just Transition, Employment and Fair Work on 5th October 2021 confirmed further implementation of No One Left Behind from April 2022, with the ceasing of two national programmes Community Jobs Scotland and Employability Fund, investment will be transferred to No One Left Behind.

A refreshed and updated Joint Delivery Plan was published in November 2020 to reflect the additional challenges in the labour market and provided a sharper focus to the Workstream deliverables and the critical path which would enable the work programme to get back on track. In addition the Young Person's Guarantee was established and the employability delivery element was through the already established approach to No One Left Behind. To assist with the local governance arrangements a Local Employability Partnership Framework was developed to provide national coherence and local flexibility to assist with the Strengthening of Local Partnerships. 32 Local Employability Partnership Self Assessments were undertaken to help increase the effectiveness and functionality and readiness to implement Phase 2 of No One Left Behind and a National Overview of Local Partnership Self Assessments was published assisting the creation of 32 Local Improvement Action Plans supporting the place based approach and improving local co-production, co-commissioning and stakeholder engagement.

To support the effective design and delivery of person centred, needs led approaches the Local Employability Partnerships (LEPs) are supporting the implementation of the Scottish Approach to Service Design and actively helping to develop national frameworks such as a customer charter and minimum service standards which support local flexibilities.

As part of the critical path this National Delivery Plan Framework will enable national coherence and support LEPs to design and deliver employability support that allows local flexibility, collective leadership, and shared commitment to effectively implement the policy intent of No One Left Behind.

Tackling labour market inequalities and supporting those at risk of being left behind to move closer to and into fair, sustainable jobs is the core purpose of the local delivery plans. The LEP will build on the strengths of existing national and local services, to better align funding and to improve the integration of employability services with other support to ensure that services are designed and delivered to meet the needs and aspirations of service users. The delivery plan will be co-produced and will help to inform the local commissioning approach and any additional requirements from a nationally available framework.

To drive forward and implement the shared ambitions and actions of No One Left Behind the Delivery Plan will ensure the right support is available in the right way at the right time and will:

• Incorporate the Scottish Approach to Service Design to co-produce an all-age employability support service that is person-centred, more joined up, flexible and responsive to individual needs.
• Involve service users throughout the planning, commissioning, and delivery process
• Utilise agreed available data to inform decisions, identify priorities and support the design of interventions
• Align with other employability resources locally to improve opportunities and outcomes
• Align and integrate with other support services to foster a “no wrong door” approach for service users
• Address structural inequalities faced by key groups in our society to support the development of a fairer, wellbeing, inclusive economy
• Align as appropriate with regional and national approaches
• Include the delivery of the Young Person’s Guarantee

The Delivery Plan Framework is suggesting a 3-year proposition recognising timing is essential to enable constructive co-production and that planning is essential to enable the incremental and sustained transformation required incorporating the consequences emerging from the impacts of COVID-19 Brexit, changes to European Structural Funds, phased implementation of No One Left Behind and unforeseen changes in the labour market and wider economy. The national Framework therefore provides for local assumptions over time with annual operational plans.

This Framework will ensure that the delivery plan highlights:

• The approach the LEP intends to take to provide employability support services in the locality between April 2022 and March 2025.
• The actions identified to strengthen effectiveness and functionality of the Local Employability Partnership.
• Joint working and collaboration providing the basis of a better understanding of need and demand to inform service design and delivery.
• A reduction in duplication, inefficiency and conflicting interventions when designing solutions improving integration and alignment.
• How employability support services have been informed by service users
• How the provision of employability support will be co-ordinated locally involving a range of stakeholders and agencies that currently provide employability support services within the locality.
• The approach to performance management and continuous improvement
• Allows for the amendment of plans based on emerging labour market demands and service user feedback

North Ayrshire’s Local Employability Partnership

The North Ayrshire LEP was re-established in 2017 and tasked with overseeing and guiding employability provision in North Ayrshire.

The LEP’s Improvement Plan included an action to improve its capacity to oversee the devolving of additional employability service through No One Left Behind funding.

The LEP is chaired by North Ayrshire Council, meets every 6 weeks, and is attended by the following partners:

• North Ayrshire Council – employability and skills, business development, children/families/justice, community learning & development and education
• Department For Work & Pensions
• Skills Development Scotland
• Ayrshire College
• TACT - Third Sector Interface
• Ayrshire Chamber of Commerce

This membership is under review, and we intend to invite further representatives, initially from health and will continually review this, to ensure we can deliver the most appropriate services to our priority groups. We will also ensure we are able to fully appreciate demand and be able to plan ahead for skills shortages and this will require ongoing development.

The North Ayrshire Local Employability Partnership (LEP) will report to the Community Planning Partnership (CPP) board. The LEP will utilise intelligence from the Provider Forum, chaired by Skills Development Scotland and the Practitioners Forum, Chaired by North Ayrshire Council to inform activities and priorities. Operational Delivery Groups, with a focus on the priority groups will be established from the LEP and local organisations to report to the LEP and maximise expertise and knowledge to identify gaps, opportunities and develop specific proposals and recommendations. This partnership structure and governance will deliver transparency and accountability in ensuring citizens of North Ayrshire receive the best service and resources are used most effectively, where the greatest need exists, ensuring no one is left behind. A new Ayrshire Regional Strategy is being developed which will consider future partnership deliver and governance.

The Operational Delivery Groups will create actions plans from these objectives, will report on progress, and will include wider partnership representation with a clear focus on improving outcomes for service users.

Priority Groups: 16 to 24 year olds who are care experienced, Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) or at risk of being NEET on leaving school.

1. Deliver North Ayrshire's Young Persons Guarantee of a job, training, education or volunteering for the priority groups
2. Ensure effective tracking arrangements exist
3. Increase participation rates

Priority Groups: parents (lone parents, disabled family member, 3+ children, minority ethnic, child less than 1 years old, less than 25 years old) Long term unemployed individuals (12 months +).

1. Deliver suitable provision to engage and progress priority groups
2. Reduce unemployment/inactive rates
3. Reduce family poverty rates

Priority Groups: Disabled people and people with long term health conditions.

1. Deliver suitable provision to engage and progress people with disability/health condition
2. Close the disability employment gap
3. Raise the number of disabled people gaining a qualification

North Ayrshire Local Employability Partnership reports to Community Planning Partnership biannually.

The Scottish Government complete a survey and a National Overview of Local Partnership Self Assessments was published assisting the creation of 32 Local Improvement Action Plans supporting the place based approach and improving local co-production, co-commissioning and stakeholder engagement. The following key improvements have been identified, from the survey results, for North Ayrshire:

1. Develop a Delivery Plan
2. Report to CPP Board bi-annually
3. Through the 3rd Sector Interface, effectively engage with 3rd sector organisations
4. Establish a Provider Forum
5. Create a risk register

Use evidence and community engagement to inform service design.

• North Ayrshire Council - employability & skills, business development, education, children/families/justice, community learning
• Department for Work & Pensions
• Skills Development Scotland
• Ayrshire College
• TACT - Third Sector Interface
• Ayrshire Chamber of Commerce

Our vision is aligned to the North Ayrshire Community Wealth Building vision to create a fairer and more inclusive local and regional economy that delivers economic, social, and environmental justice for the citizens of North Ayrshire.

This will be achieved through the Community Wealth Building Ambition to Enhance local wealth and create fair jobs and maximise the potential of all places through working in partnership with communities and businesses.

The key aim is to improve skills for employment and reduce unemployment for citizens of North Ayrshire.

Objective 1: Improve the engagement of citizens with good quality and appropriate education and skills services.

Objective 2: Reduce, significantly, long term unemployment and low incomes in working households.

• The current unemployment level of 5.7% will reduce
• The current employment rate of 67.8% will increase
• The number of citizens with no qualifications 8.8% will reduce

• Young People (16 to 24 year olds who are care experienced and Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEET) or at risk of being NEET on leaving school)
• Disabled people and people with long term health conditions
• Parents (lone parents, disabled family member, 3+ children, minority ethnic, child less than 1 years old, less than 25 years old)
• Long term unemployed people (12 months+)

Our vision is aligned to the North Ayrshire Community Wealth Building vision to create a fairer and more inclusive local and regional economy that delivers economic, social, and environmental justice for the citizens of North Ayrshire.

This will be achieved through the Community Wealth Building Ambition to Enhance local wealth and create fair jobs and maximise the potential of all places through working in partnership with communities and businesses.

The key aim is to improve skills for employment and reduce unemployment for citizens of North Ayrshire.

The objectives are:

• Objective 1: Improve the engagement of citizens with good quality and appropriate education and skills services
• Objective 2: Reduce, significantly, long term unemployment and low incomes in working households

What Success Will Look Like:

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Reduce unemployment

The current unemployment level of 5.7% will reduce

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Increase employment

The current employment rate of 67.8% will increase

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Increase qualifications

The number of citizens with no qualifications 8.8% will reduce

Local Operational Context - Key facts and figures:

North Ayrshire covers an area of around 886 sq.km (mainland 441 sq.km, islands 445sq.km) and has a coastline of 225km (mainland 67km, islands 158km). The main settlements are Irvine, Kilwinning, Ardrossan, Saltcoats, Stevenston, Beith, Dalry, Kilbirnie, Largs, Dreghorn, Springside, West Kilbride, Seamill, Fairlie, Skelmorlie, Brodick and Millport.

National Records of Scotland produce various council area demographic data, the North Ayrshire profile can be viewed.

Information on the North Ayrshire labour market can be found on the NOMIS website at Labour Market Profile - Nomis - Official Labour Market Statistics.

The Scottish Government published the latest version of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) on 28 January 2020. The SIMD uses a range of socio-economic data to calculate deprivation across small areas known as data zones. There are 6,976 data zones across Scotland each with an average population of around 750 people. Of the 186 data zones in North Ayrshire 52 are in the 15% most deprived in Scotland, an increase of 1 since the index was last published in 2016. Further information can be found on the Scottish Government website at Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2020.

The Ayrshire Growth Deal supports the vision for Ayrshire to be ‘a vibrant, outward looking, confident region, attractive to investors and visitors, making a major contribution to Scotland’s growth and local well-being, and leading the implementation of digital technologies and the next generation of manufacturing’ Ayrshire’s potential as a world class business location. A range of regional projects, both revenue and capital offer a wide range of opportunities. This will be supported by the development of an Ayrshire Economic Strategy and an Ayrshire Skills Investment Plan to inform future skills needs.

Employability Service Standards published.

The Service Standards will focus on the following key areas:

The North Ayrshire Customer Charter is based on the 7 key principles:

• A system that provides flexible and person-centred support
• is more straightforward for people to navigate
• is better integrated and aligned with other services, in particular, although not exclusively with health provision
• provides pathways into sustainable and fair work
• is driven by evidence, including data and the experience of users
• that supports more people - particularly those facing multiple barriers - to move into the right job, at the right time

All North Ayrshire delivery partners will sign up to the charter to offer a consistent quality of service provision, customer experience and to deliver the aim to improve skills for employment and reduce unemployment for citizens of North Ayrshire.

A survey was completed to involve service users which included participants and practitioners and inform the design of future services. These surveys were disseminated by LEP members to their services users and networks to glean a range of views from all.

The results were collated will be used in the design of future services, detailed at Service User Experience within this Delivery Plan.

No One Left Behind aims to support those facing structural inequalities in the labour market. To deliver the principles, plans must ensure connectivity with other local services and policy priorities aligned to the National Performance Framework. The key policy drivers which connect with the ambitions and delivery priorities of No One Left Behind include:

• Tackling Child Poverty
• Addressing the Gender Pay Gap
• Closing the Disability Employment Gap
• Addressing Race Employment Gap
• Promoting and Embedding Fair Work
• Delivering the Young Person’s Guarantee
• Delivering on The Promise
• Supporting Community Wealth Building
• Supporting Public Sector Reform
• Supporting Place Based Approaches

North Ayrshire has a range of training provision and delivery of employability support and service with approximately 20 local delivery partners, including public, private and third sector organisations as well as Ayrshire College who offer a wide range of vocational qualifications.

An analysis of this highlights there is a raft of provisions at stage 1, 2 of the pipeline with gaps at stage 3. The Council contracts end to end delivery to the Third Sector which provides a flexible, responsive, and agile solution to meeting the needs and demands of funders, participants, and employers. This current infrastructure to be used to support delivery of the plan in the short term, continuing the provision, which is already embedded within communities, is well known, trusted and delivers outcomes for people who need the support. As gaps in provision emerge the LEP will commissioning services as required which meet needs and eliminate duplication.

The North Ayrshire LEP has links with key, local services and will ensure effective links are developed with health, housing, DWP and Justice to reduce duplication and complexity in the local support offer.

In addition, there is a local data dashboard produced by Glasgow City Region for use across Scotland which will provide timely information and provide comparative data with other areas.

A survey was conducted offering access online and paper based which was disseminated by all LEP partners and promoting across all services. The survey was completed by school pupils ready to transition (58%) and unemployed individuals (42%), of the unemployed cohort 58% had been unemployed for more than 2 years. The survey results stated 70% of the respondents know what support is available to help them access training and find a job with 72% currently seeking employment or training however 72% were not engaging with any provider offering employability support. Travel to locations throughout North Ayrshire to access provision was not highlighted as barrier and an even spread of responses was received for each area so there was no preferred location or town. The responses for type of support were 34% would attend a training course, 14% a recruitment event, 11% a job club, 9% an Apprenticeship hub and 16% reported they do not require any support.

A survey of practitioners was completed to collate feedback from frontline practitioners which was disseminated to staff and wider networks by LEP partners. The survey results stated that 88% of respondents had a good knowledge of employability services and provision with 68% stating there is enough provision to support the people they work with. There was very positive feedback on the partnership, networking, and communication across North Ayrshire between all the partners and the key priority group identified by 56% were those who were over 25 years old, and gaps existed within engagement and vocational training, specifically sector-based programmes linked to employers/jobs.

The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) is a relative measure of deprivation across 6,976 small areas (called data zones). If an area is identified as ‘deprived’, this can relate to people having a low income, but it can also mean fewer resources or opportunities. SIMD looks at the extent to which an area is deprived across seven domains: income, employment, education, health, access to services, crime, and housing.

• There are 29 unique data zones that rank among the bottom 5% of data zones in at least one domain.
• There appears to be some overlap between the prevalence of employment, income, and health deprivation.
• 7 data zones rank among the bottom 5% for all of employment, income, and health.
• Saltcoats Central (S01011240) has the most domains that rank within the bottom 5%, with bottom 5% results in 5 (overall, income, employment, health, and crime) out of 8 categories (seven domains plus the overall domain).
• 8 data zones have 4 domains that rank within the bottom 5%, 2 have 3 domains that rank within the bottom 5%, 6 have 2 domains that rank within the bottom 5%, and 12 have 1 domain that ranks within the bottom 5%.

• North Ayrshire has the 3rd lowest employment rate in Scotland (67.8%). The number of people in employment in North Ayrshire increased by 1.4- percentage points since the previous data release (April 2020 to March 2021).
• North Ayrshire has the 2nd highest unemployment rate (5.5%) in Scotland. The number of unemployed people is down by 0.3-percentage points since the last data release.

• North Ayrshire’s economic inactivity rate (28.3%) is the 3rd highest in Scotland, Shetland is highest at 35.0%

• North Ayrshire has the 7th lowest Male employment rate in Scotland (70.6%); the rate is up 1.6-percentage points on the previous data. The Scottish rate is 74.4%.
• North Ayrshire has the 3rd lowest female employment rate (65.3%); the rate is up by 1.3-percentage points on the previous release. The Scottish rate is 70.1%.

• The youth (16 to 24) claimant count has fallen -0.4%pts to 6.5% in October, down from 6.9% in September.
• The 25 to 49 age group continues as the age group with the highest claimant count rate among the demographic groups, at 7.3%.
• From June 2020 to August 2021 the 16 to 24 claimant count rate had persistently remained higher than the rate for those aged 25 to 49; potentially it could be that the reopening of the economy has disproportionately benefitted the sectors and employment opportunities sought out by the 16 to 24 age group, i.e., potentially in the hospitality sector.
• The 25 to 49 age group accounts for 56% of claimants in North Ayrshire. The 16 to 24 age group accounts for 18% of claimants (aged 50 to 64: 25% of total claimants; aged 65+: 2% of total claimants).
• Males account for 60% of total claimants; this ratio is consistent (between 59% to 63%) across all age groups.

Time series data prepared by Skills Development Scotland details comparative North Ayrshire data on participation rates for 16 to 19 year olds. Over the past three years, headline findings from the Annual Participation Measure are:

This data indicates that North Ayrshire’s positive participation rate remains below the Scottish average and the unconfirmed statuses are higher than the national average.

North Ayrshire Council’s aim is to build back our local economy through an inclusive and green economic recovery. The Council has shown real economic leadership with the launch of our Community Wealth Building strategy in May – the first of its kind in Scotland. The strategy sets out a new economic model focused on wellbeing and inclusion.

• Ayrshire Growth Deal, About the Deal
• Skills Development Scotland North Ayrshire
• Ayrshire College College Reports
• Inclusive Growth Diagnostic

Statistics show that in 2020-21 North Ayrshire had significant challenges in relation to levels of economic inactivity, with associated lowest employment rates in Scotland. An award-winning Inclusive Growth Diagnostic completed shows that priority groups for support should be:

1. Young People
2. Disabled people/those with health issues
3. Females
4. Parents
5. Long term unemployed
6. People living in 0 to 15% SIMD Areas

There are a range of sources of evidence for North Ayrshire detailed within the labour market analysis.

The Shared Measurement Framework aims to create a coherent approach to measurement across employability support and is one of the key deliverables required to fully realise the principles of No One Left Behind. This framework will play a key role in enabling the development of a North Ayrshire approach, which is ‘driven by evidence, including data and the experience of users’, and will support a shift from separate approaches to measurement for different employability programmes, to a coherent view of what is working for people at a national, local and individual service level.

Stage 1 and 2 – most programmes/providers delivering a service at this stage. Engagement depends on referrals from other agencies for example DWP, with no community engagement or targeting specific geographies.

Stage 3 – Services at stage 3 are intermittent and limited in linking with employers. CEiS Ayrshire are delivering defined vocational packages that support a sector-based approach to employers, which is working well to deliver job outcomes. Given relatively buoyant jobs market currently more focus on this stage is required.

Stage 4 – The majority of services/ key workers deliver a job matching service. However, only CEiS Ayrshire have volume targets into work per year (circa 500 per year) and have a dedicated team linking with employers and building specific vocational programmes to match participants with employer demand. ERIS: Kickstart have been available so this will leave a gap in provision and the offer needs to be developed and consideration to all age provision.

Stage 5 – There is a gap at this stage - all employability and skills services do follow ups with participants moving into work with CEiS having the largest volumes.

There are gaps within each of stage:

• Feedback from the LTU programme suggest IT, especially transactional IT (uploading info etc) is a major weakness for older client group.
• Employability fund will leave a gap for training allowances for 16 to 18 year olds not claiming benefits. This is something that needs to be addressed to encourage this age group – specifically those leaving school with no progression – to engage with programmes.

All ages covered but focus on 16 to 24 year olds, partly driven by funding but leaves a gap for older people, longer term unemployed.

Young people, disabilities, Parents, and new Scots well covered. Gaps in older age groups and other disadvantaged groups

Targeting/ages very much driven by funding and there is a need to pay attention to all the programmes finishing in 2022. This mapping is a list of services that partners have highlighted operate in North Ayrshire, there will be other services and this mapping doesn’t take account of effectiveness of services at the various stages.

Key priority groups & Geographical Approach

1. Young People
2. Disabled people/those with health issues
3. Females
4. Parents
5. Long term unemployed
6. People living in 0 to 15% SIMD Areas

The LEP proposed to have a short-, medium- and long-term plans to respond to emerging gaps. The mapping completed shows an immediate need for sector specific training linked to the current labour market to deliver job outcomes for those progressing through the pipeline. The needs and gaps with be prioritised using the priority groups and local labour market demands. This is based on the evidence collated but will be reviewed on a regular and ongoing basis by the North Ayrshire LEP to ensure provision meets local demands, needs, and delivers the impact required to deliver the ambition.

North Ayrshire has a wide range of partners and services, currently being delivered. A training portal, providing information on local provision has be commissioned by the LEP and partners can access this platform to promote and take referrals to provision; Skills Training Network – The one-stop shop for employability programmes

The LEP have created Operational Delivery Groups who will consider specific priority groups, specific key objectives, challenges, opportunities, and report to the LEP who will make decisions on commissioning. These groups will provide additional information to enable decision making to be more informed and ensure the most effective local approach is implemented. This will include review of provision, highlighting gaps, identifying emerging opportunities to inform commissioning, amendments or delivery which is not longer required. The aims of this will be to ensure services meeting the needs of service user and repurpose investment by making recommendations to the LEP who have make the decisions.

North Ayrshire Council has implemented a Management Information System, YETI, to collate statistical information, generate reports to funding bodies and store information as require in accordance with terms and conditions of funding. This is supporting by a compliance team who conduct regular checks to ensure information is stored, recorded, and processed in compliance with terms and conditions of funding. These systems and checks are essential to ensure eligibility of participants as well as producing accurate and timely reports and information as requested.

This Delivery Plan aligns and integrates with existing provision in North Ayrshire.

The approach would be to utilise existing reporting mechanisms and collate information which already exists to be presented to the LEP to measure gaps, issues, improvement actions, impact, and good practice.

A range of performance indicators will be created which take account of the ambition, what success will look like and will collate key information from the Shared Measurement Framework which will be reported quarterly/bi-annually to measure impact and identify where additional.

Evaluation is conducted on a regular basis and the LEP will consider feedback from service users on a more formalised basis to ensure continuous improvement can be achieved.

1. Identifying areas for improvement through self-evaluation, analysing data, and collecting feedback from service users. These findings should be used to identify where improvement is needed most, and to develop clearly defined and measurable aims. Self-Evaluation Survey and evaluate services against the desired service standard in their area, and establish processes for collaborative and evidence driven self-evaluation blank self-evaluation survey template.
2. The Shared Measurement Framework for employability services will be deployed, providing a consistent approach to measuring the reach and effectiveness of employability services at national, local, and individual programme level. The LEP will undertake and encourage providers to take full advantage of the available data sets to analyse the outcomes of services to identify which areas of the service would benefit most from improvement. Where data is being collected consistently, benchmarking data with similar organisations across Scotland can provide a useful insight into how a service is working.
3. Collecting and analysing feedback and insights from service users is vital in identifying which improvements will have the biggest impact on their experiences and outcomes. The LEP use robust processes, detailed within our communications plan to collect regular feedback from service users. This will be undertaken through surveys, interviews, focus groups and lived experience panels, as well as new innovative approaches that are deemed effective locally. These will provide an invaluable source of data to use to identify where a service can be improved.
4. Creating an improvement aims statement: An aim statement should be a measurable and concise sentence composing of the following three elements: What will be improved – i.e., what is hoping to be achieved, how much of an improvement will there be, when will the desired improvement be delivered by.
5. Develop a change idea: teams can collectively develop change ideas that could lead to improvements, testing these iteratively, to see if they do deliver improvements before being fully implemented. For each improvement aim statement, a ‘driver diagram’ will be developed. Blank template and further information on how to complete a driver diagram.
6. Various continuous improvement tools: will be utilised by the LEP as appropriate when undertaking continuous improvement of services. Process Map guidance, Empathy Map guidance and Cause and Effect Diagram guidance.
7. Plan, Do, Study, Act: This is a tried and tested approach used for testing an improvement idea at a small scale to assess its impact, before implementing successful improvements at a larger scale. This cycle is not necessarily designed to deliver large scale transformational change, but rather to deliver incremental and continuous improvement over time. Further details included in the Plan, Do, Study, Act cycle guidance document.
8. Continuous Improvement Action Plan: In order to log and monitor ongoing improvement activities within a team or organisation, it’s encouraged that this Continuous Improvement Action Plan template be used to co-ordinate improvement activities and log the key information relating to the improvement activity. This includes the improvement aim and desired outcome, how the success of the initiative will be measured, and the timeline for delivering an improvement.
9. Share Improvements: Delivering an improvement, however big or small, is an achievement that should be celebrated and shared with other organisations. Sharing learning and experiences across organisations breeds innovation, encouraging those delivering services to build on each other’s improvements. A National digital platform is currently in development, which those delivering employability support services can use to share information about successful improvement initiatives.

Highlight the anticipated process to review and update the Delivery Plan highlighting key timeline

No One Left Behind, places people at the centre of service delivery, promotes a strengthened partnership between spheres of government, the third and private sector to make informed, evidence-based decisions on required support, flexing these to meet emerging labour market demands.

The move to local governance of services will foster social renewal and place-based approaches that prioritise the needs of people and communities rather than policies and organisations.

No One Left Behind services will be targeted at people with protected characteristics as defined by the Equality Act (Scotland) 2010 and those with certain life experiences who are significantly more likely to struggle to improve their employability and successfully gain and sustain employment. These characteristics and life experiences often interact with each other (also known as intersectionality) meaning that people are often affected by more than one issue at a time which can have a cumulative impact on person’s journey to work. People must be able to find the service and be able to access it regardless of their circumstances. Referral routes should be as seamless as possible where they are needed.

It is anticipated that Local Employability Services will be designed and delivered in line with the principles set out in the Scottish Approach to Service Design. Using a 5 Stage Employability Pipeline approach. However, it is recognised that individuals do not follow a linear journey.

Engaging and supporting people into regular activity, positive routines connecting them with others.

Assessing needs of individuals and agreeing key activities to address any barriers to employment or training.

Activities include delivering a range of accredited training, employability core skills, job search etc.

Activities such as work experience or volunteering placements with employers, assisting individuals to secure job vacancies.

Activities includes supporting individuals to maintain and progress within the workplace.

Registration and initial action plan, detailed assessment of support needs and barriers to progression such as qualifications, experience, core skills, housing, drugs & alcohol, confidence, motivation, personal finance, health etc, creation of a detailed action plan.

Key worker/Adviser support to manage progression through action plan, follow up meetings, tracking progress, engagement, continuous assessment, making referrals, advocating, reviewing, and updating action plan.

• Financial health check, benefits advice, managing debt, setting up bank accounts, living on a budget management advice/financial well-being advice and support
• Better Off In Work Calculations

• Ayrshire Growth Deal – Working for a Healthy Economy
• Health and wellbeing support for unemployed individuals experiencing health conditions, disabilities, and long-term unemployment to address health and wellbeing barriers to work

• Confidence Building/Motivation
• Personal Development, Personal Presentation, Problem solving, Communication /ESOL
• Digital Skill Literacy
• Work Preparation
• Youth Hub
• Employability Hubs

• Employability award units SCQF level 4 or above
• Digital Skills
• Accredited core skills training.
• Short courses such as first aid, food hygiene etc
• Specific vocational qualifications and/or industry recognised certificates
• Sector Based Work Academies
• Sector specific programmes

• Work based activity, job tasters and employment focused volunteering
• Allowances or Wage Based Opportunities
• ILMs
• Supported Employment (EQUAL Programme)

• Create and update CVs
• Job seeking, applications and Interview preparation
• Online applications/interviews

• Recruitment Advice, Job Carving, Job Descriptions
• Job Broking, Vacancy Matching, Interview preparation, Job Coaching etc
• Health and Safety/Risk Assessments
• Employer Recruitment Incentives: ERI Targeting priority groups