The Scottish Government

(50) Jobcentre Plus should, as a key priority, improve gateways for homeless people to access mainstream employment services and programmes. This should include systematic skills auditing of homeless people, ensuring easy access to employment services for homeless people and linking relevant employment initiatives to establish coherent systems for individual progression.

RAG status: Amber

Delivery contact: Jobcentre Plus Scotland

Progress to date:

• Since April 2004, there has been a common list of circumstances which entitle volunteers to early access to New Deal services. Homeless people (including rough sleepers) can gain early access to New Deal regardless of age or length of unemployment.
• Progress2Work LinkUp is now available in Glasgow District, as well as in the Tayside part of Jobcentre Plus Grampian and Tayside District and the Fife part of Forth Valley and Fife District. Progress2Work LinkUp extends the help available to recovering drug users to other disadvantaged groups - homeless people, ex-offenders and recovering alcoholics.
• DWP published 'Building on the New Deal' ( BoND) in May 2004 - this sets out the Government's aim to ensure that barriers to work are tackled, particularly for those people who have not been given sufficient opportunities to access work-focussed support in the past. It also sets out the principle of greater empowerment and flexibility for local Jobcentre Plus staff, so that they can tailor provision to individual clients needs, within a clear framework of national standards. DWP Ministers are currently considering the shape of future provision for disadvantaged clients pending decisions on the future of BoND.
• Approval has now been given for an extension to all Action Teams of at least 6 months from April 2006.

Action required & by whom:

• Scottish Executive/ HMG to continue to monitor progress.
• DWP/Jobcentre Plus to take forward approach to Building on the New Deal.

Key milestones:

• Building on the New Deal published May 2004.

(51) Jobcentre Plus should work with the Scottish Executive and the Scottish New Deal Task Force to engage employers to develop employment initiatives targeted at vulnerable and homeless people. This should include wider employer participation in relevant transitional employment programmes for homeless people. Jobcentre Plus should examine ways of supporting employers who are willing to participate in initiatives to employ homeless people, particularly smaller employers who lack the resources of the large corporate organisations. Appropriate business networks should be enlisted to promote such initiatives.

RAG status: Amber

Delivery contact: Jobcentre Plus Scotland, SE: ETTLD/Transitions to Work, SE: DD Social Inclusion

Progress to date:

• Jobcentre Plus engages with both large and small employers so that job opportunities can be created for priority customers - mainly IB clients and lone parents but also those considered to be most disadvantaged. A Diversity Manager and SME Channel manager support employer activity and have an interest in promoting most disadvantaged customers, including homeless people, to employers of all types. The new Jobcentre Plus External Relations team will work closely with all key stakeholders to promote and support initiatives to help all disadvantaged customers into work.
• The Scottish Executive is developing an Employability Framework as an opportunity for Scottish Ministers to drive forward action on the devolved areas of employability in Scotland, and to have a closely informed influence on the direction of UK policies and programmes on benefits and Welfare to Work. Jobcentre Plus is working closely with the Scottish Executive in the development of the Employability Framework so that homeless and other disadvantaged customers access Jobcentre Plus services at the most appropriate time. The Framework will emphasise the importance of local partnerships working together to identify priorities and agree relevant support to meet the needs of all clients, in each area. Employer engagement is a key aspect of both local and national employability partnership working.
• Communities Scotland and NHS Scotland have agreed to join The Scottish Partnership Accord : Helping the Hardest to Reach into Work. Discussions will commence with Enterprise Networks in early 2006. The Accord highlights the importance of public sector as a potential employer, and Jobcentre Plus is already working with local authorities across Scotland to identify ways of making vacancies available to clients needing additional support.
• Scottish Homelessness and Employability Network established to bring together employers, voluntary sector agencies, local authorities and other statutory bodies.

• Following a successful pilot, Scottish Business in the Community's "Ready for Work" Programme has been operational for 18 months. The programme is an effective business model that creates training and recruitment opportunities for businesses in Scotland to include people who are currently excluded from the workplace. The programme has surpassed its targets, with 122 participants attending Ready to Go training, 88% of whom went on to begin their work placement. 90% successfully completed the placement, 72% of whom have entered full time employment. A Job Coaching programme and Employability and Workplace Health Leadership Group have recently been added to the Ready for Work package. SBiC are currently investigating, with external partners, how to evaluate and benchmark the Ready for Work programme.

Action required & by whom:

• Scottish Executive and partners to ensure that this recommendation is reflected in the development of the Employability Framework.
• New Partnership Accord to be agreed between the key stakeholders - Scottish Executive, Job Centre Plus, CoSLA and Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Communities Scotland and NHS Scotland.

Key milestones:

• Employability Framework to be published in 2006.

(52) Public sector employees should also examine ways of creating and expanding work opportunities for homeless people. New public sector initiatives should strive to employ homeless people in the provision of their services.

RAG status: Amber

Delivery contact: SE- ETLLD Welfare to Work Team; SE-Health Department.

Progress to date:

• Closing the Opportunity Gap target set as "Public sector and large employers to tackle aspects of in-work poverty by providing employees with the opportunity to develop skills and progress in their career. NHSScotland will set an example by providing 1000 job opportunities, with support for training and progression once in post, between 2004 and 2006 to people who are currently economically inactive or unemployed." [ Results against the target should be available prior to publication]
• The Employability Framework also highlights the need to work with business and the public sector to build the role of employers in helping to reduce worklessness.
• DWP/ Jobcentre Plus is in discussion with COSLA and the Local Authorities to agree a Partnership Accord. This will be the basis for improved collaborative working with the priority of " helping the hardest to reach into work".
• "Ready for Work" programme available to public sector agencies; Aberdeen City Council set to take placements later this year.

Action required & by whom:

• SEHD/ SEDD to ensure that homeless people included in activity to meet target.
• Identify activity being carried out by other public sector agencies.
• Scottish Executive and partners to ensure that this recommendation reflected in the development of the Employability Framework.

Key milestones:

• Closing the Opportunity Gap target to be met by 2006.
• Employability Framework to be published later in 2006.

(53) Transitional employment programmes should be piloted in Scotland to test the creation of new incentives to work for homeless people. Such pilots should test how flexibility around housing benefit payments could overcome the poverty trap faced by homeless people when trying to access employment. The Department for Work and Pensions should aim to develop and test in 2002 a pilot scheme with The Big Issue in Scotland. If the Department for Work and Pensions is unable to overcome impediments in Social Security legislation which may prevent potentially effective schemes, UK Ministers should consider amending the relevant legislation to remove these hurdles.

RAG status: Amber

Delivery contact: DWP

Progress to date:

• In April 2004, DWP introduced a number of measures to improve work incentives for HB recipients by:
• treating the move into work as a change of circumstances for most recipients. This removed the need for these people to reclaim benefit when they take a job. In most cases this should ensure that benefit payments continue without a break where claimants are entitled to in-work support;
• applying the 30-hour disregard in HB and Council Tax Benefit ( CTB) to those working between 16 and 29 hours per week.
• extending the HB run-on to people receiving Incapacity Benefit and Severe Disablement Allowance (previously went only to people in receipt of Income Support or Jobseekers Allowance). The run-on involves paying HB at the "out of work" rate for the first four weeks of employment.
• DWP also believe that the Local Housing Allowance will encourage work readiness as for the first time, tenants in the private rented sector will know in advance how much they will receive towards housing costs and this greater certainty will help people make the move from benefits into work and will make it easier for Jobcentre Plus Personal Advisers to calculate how much better off claimants will be in work. They also believe that payment to the tenant rather than to the landlord, and encouraging people to use direct debits for rent payments, will also prepare tenants for the world of work, where income comes from a variety of sources and people otherwise find themselves responsible for managing their finances to pay their rent for the first time when they move into work. DWP have introduced 9 Pathfinders of the flat rate Local Housing Allowance ( LHA) - they came on stream between November 2003 and February 2004 - to test out paying an amount to tenants that is based on household size and locations for those living in the private sector. A further 9 local authorities implemented the LHA in the period April to July 2005.
• DWP five year strategy reiterated commitment to improve the benefits system to provide the right incentives, for example reforming Housing Benefit to empower individuals, and improve work incentives.
• DWP are working with the Greater London Authority and ODPM to test out approaches to helping families in temporary accommodation get a job, including testing the effects of different rates of rent. The Working Futures pilot involves fixing rents at affordable levels and putting in place a block grant to meet costs over and above this in order to address poverty trap issues - the pilot also involves the provision of employability support.

Action required & by whom:

• Scottish Executive/ HMG to continue to monitor progress.

Key milestones:

• DWP five year strategy published February 2005.
• Working Futures pilot in place August 2005.

Progress to date:

• Mainstreaming, within a NFF context, was defined with a range of relevant stakeholders as either buying in services, or adapting their current provision to meet the needs of the NFF type client group. A number of projects have secured "in principle" agreements that their activities are being mainstreamed beyond 2005 by, for example, local authorities and health trusts. Others have secured short term funding, of between one to three years that will ensure the service can be delivered beyond NFF funding. Within mainstream organisations, the application of lessons learnt has already begun, for example in Scottish Enterprise's Get Ready for Work initiative for young people, which has incorporated lifeskills support as a direct result of NFF experience.
• NFF was due to complete in March 2005, pending the implementation of the Employability Framework. Ministers approved a further extension of funding for all projects for an additional 3 months. Subsequently 50 projects were funded to the end of March 2006 of which 12 were for homeless people.
• From April 2006, Community Planning Partnerships will take the lead in developing the local infrastructure of support services, building on the work of NFF projects and other support services in their areas. This is consistent with the Executive's approach to getting people back into work and the related outcomes set out by CPPs within their Regeneration Outcomes Agreements.
• The Employability Framework will recommend how local services should work together to help those most disadvantaged in the labour market to access training, move into employment and to develop their skills once in work. These services will need to identify the barriers to employment for disadvantaged groups. The Executive will be encouraging partnerships to mainstream NFF-type approaches and by recommending collaborative working, to make best use of resources.

Action required & by whom:

• Scottish Executive - ETLLD to ensure development of the Employability Framework supports the delivery of a more comprehensive service provision for those furthest from the labour market, building on the lessons of the New Futures Fund.
• Clear strategic guidance to be produced for Housing/Homelessness officers, endorsing practice and the tools developed within NFF.

Key milestones:

• Employability Framework to be published later in 2006.