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Annex 3: Key Findings of the Workstreams

Size and Characteristics of the Workless Client Groups

Drawing a complete picture of the workless client group is extremely difficult due to data limitations. The Labour Force Survey ( LFS) and the 2001 census were the primary source of data for the Workless Client Groups Workstream, but only provide information on certain client groups. However, they also used data from other sources where appropriate. Full details of this data can be found in the Workless Client Group report.

Description of Workless Client Groups

The Workless Client Group Workstream set out to identify particular workless client groups. There is no one primary barrier and the Workstream identified major risk factors affecting worklessness as:

• Qualifications - Rates of worklessness peak in the "low or no qualifications" group at 48.7% (247,000). Those with no qualifications represent just over 35% of the workless population.
• Length of time unemployed - The longer an individual is unemployed the more likely it is that their worklessness will continue. About two thirds of the workless group have been out of work for over
  3 years or have never worked.
• Parenting and other responsibilities - Lone parents and others with caring responsibilities remain one of the largest groups who are workless and want to work. They often face a combination of low skills, lack of work experience, poorer health and inflexibility in the hours available for them to work, as well as practical difficulties in making alternative caring arrangements.
• Health Issues - Over half of the workless client group declare a health problem. These can include musco-skeletal problems, drugs misuse, alcohol problem, the consequences of work and non work related accidents as well as a range of mental health problems. Those with mental health problems represent a significant section of this group. Over 40% of those claiming Incapacity Benefit do so as a result of a "mental or behavioural" disorder. Physical and in particular, mental health problems are the most significant secondary barrier for most of the client groups within the workless population.
• Geographical locality - While not totally related to locality, worklessness is concentrated in certain areas. For example, excluding students, 41% (286,000) of the workless group is found in the 7 local authorities targeted by CtOG Target A, and Glasgow alone accounts for 15.7% (109,000). In addition, the workless are further concentrated in the 15% most deprived areas in each local authority.
• Age - Worklessness increases with age and rates of inactivity within the over 55 age group are extremely high. Also Scotland also has a rate of youth unemployment that is higher than most European countries.
• Smaller but significant groups amongst the workless include those with substance abuse problems, the homeless and ex offenders. Whilst relatively small in number they represent some of the hardest to reach for any employability programme.
• Ethnicity - The Pakistani, Bangladeshi and African/Black groups in Scotland have the highest unemployment rates.

The Barriers to Employment

The Group found that the many barriers to sustainable employment can be divided into three groups:

• Structural Barriers: Barriers such as the cost, availability or ease of access to services and benefits, as well as the state of the local labour market.
• Attitudinal Barriers: Including the attitudes and recruitment practices of employers, or of carers and support workers (institutional or family) whose low expectations may lead to low levels of support or inappropriate support.
• Personal Barriers: The circumstances, skills and attitudes of the workless individual themselves, including fear of losing benefits, low self-esteem, an inability to self motivate, a lack of skills, poor health, caring responsibilities, poor employment record and/or a lack of mobility/willingness to travel.

Each workless individual faces a unique combination of barriers determined by their own personal experience, characteristics and circumstances that prevents them from entering and sustaining employment which must be overcome so that they can progress towards and into employment. The support that workless individuals receive on their transition to work must therefore be flexible enough to recognise and adapt to the different stages on their journey and the barriers that face them at any particular point.

Also there are combinations of barriers that affect common groups within the workless population. For example, lone parents commonly encounter structural barriers such as the cost of childcare, the potential loss of passported benefits and the availability of work (perhaps on shift patterns) which enables them to fit work around school and/or childcare. ² Those with other caring responsibilities potentially face similar barriers.

On the other hand disabled people with experience of physical and/or mental illness more commonly face attitudinal barriers, from both employers and carers/service providers, which mean that, despite the policies introduced in recent years to make employment more possible, they are on average still underemployed. For example, The Disability Rights Commission estimates that the overall national figure of employment rate for people with a mental health problem is 72% ( DRC 2001).

Those affected by mental health problems and substance abuse face a combination of attitudinal and personal barriers, including employer and support staff prejudices, low confidence and self-esteem and fear about the support they will receive during the transition to work. Further details are provided in the Workless Client Group Workstream report.

The Route to Work

The number and extent of barriers an individual faces may be thought of as an indication of their "distance from the labour market". It is important to recognise that there will be stages towards employment for those individuals with multiple barriers to employment. These stages can be categorised as:

• Engagement - This stage involves the client developing an awareness of options and the confidence to take them toward employment support. This can involve confidence building, personal and social skills development, debt counselling, and literacy and numeracy training. For many, volunteering can provide an easily accessible means to develop the basic confidence and skills required.
• Towards job readiness - At this stage, clients are working towards identifying the "match" between their own skills, aptitudes and interest in the type of jobs available. This might involve volunteering, work experience or job tasters. It may also include the development of personal and soft skills necessary to gain and hold work.
• Job readiness/job search - The evidencing of specific job related and job search skills are an important part of this stage. It also involves developing the skills necessary to present to employers. For example, this can involve CV writing and job interviews. It might also involve decisions on disclosure about disability and offer strategies to compensate for and accommodate disability in the workplace.
• Entry into work - Both employer and employee might need support to help an individual progress in the work place. Many clients will need flexible and intensive forms of support to achieve a stable position in the labour market.
• Maintaining and progression of employment - This stage may involve longer term in-work support where necessary. It may also involve moving from benefits to low pay and back. It is essential that clients are able to deal with rejection or redundancy so that they remain confident and able to return to the labour market. Different job provision such as social firms and intermediate labour markets may be an option for those who find it difficult to enter the labour market.

The Workstream report reached a number of conclusions about the services available for individuals on the route to work. These included:

• The group felt that current provision provides some specialist provision for different groups but not all. Current funding regimes and target setting encourage cherry picking of clients who are the easier to help.
• There is some evidence that support for disadvantaged clients are too short term and expertise often lost between the end of funding from one project to another.
• There is a perception that the needs of some groups are met in a way that separates them unnecessarily from other groups ( e.g. refugees, mental health).
• Existing services tend to mainly focus on the job ready and that there are gaps in the current provision, particularly with early engagement and in-work support.

The NEET Group

At any one time, some 35,000 - around one in seven - of young people in Scotland aged between 16-19 are not in education, employment or training ( NEET). Research tells us that young people NEET are far more likely to experience problems of worklessness and social exclusion in later life. Meeting the Framework's aims in the long term means tackling the NEET challenge head on. The NEET strategy, published alongside this Framework, details the action required across government and our partners to re-engage these young people and help them realise their potential - by offering them more and better opportunities in the school system and beyond 16.

Low Paid Workers

The Low Skilled/Low Paid Workstream stressed that whilst there is overlap between these two groups, they are not synonymous. Low skilled workers feature within the low paid group but not all low skilled workers are low paid, and most low paid workers are not low skilled.

The Workstream report provides many details regarding the low paid workforce, from which we have highlighted some key facts. Using the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings ( ASHE) and the definition of low pay as those paid less than two-thirds of the median earnings it is estimated that 486,000 employee jobs were low paid in 2004:

• the majority of those under 21 in employment are low paid, however many of this group are involved in traineeships and Modern Apprenticeships.
• low pay can be considered to be related to low income and poverty - only 8% of the low paid have wages which on their own are sufficient to avoid poverty.
• not all of the low paid group will be living in poverty due to income of other family members and benefits.
• those who work part time are vulnerable to persistent low pay, 80% of part-time workers are women.
• two-thirds of low paid workers in Scotland are female.

Low Skilled Workers

For the purposes of the Workstream report, qualifications were used as a proxy for skills and low skills were defined as below SVQ level 2 ( SCQF level 5). Intermediate skills are those between SVQ level 2 and 4 ( SCQF levels 5 - 8) and high skilled as SVQ level 5 ( SCQF levels 9 -12). 21% of Scotland's working population are therefore defined as "low skilled" although by using qualifications as a proxy for skills, it means some people will be classified as low skilled even though they have high levels of unaccredited skills. This is particularly true for those over 50.

24% of working age women are classified as low skilled compared with only 19% of working age men, however among younger people, women are more likely to be highly qualified than men. 53% of those who are in the low skilled group are currently in employment compared to 79% of those who have
level 2 qualifications or above.

Both female and male part-time workers receive 40% less training than their full-time counterparts and research indicates that somewhere between a third and a half of part time workers are working in jobs that are below their potential.

Low Pay and Low Skill Breakdown

Source: Annual Scottish Labour Force Survey 2003

The working group was not presented with any strong evidence to suggest that the current system of support through in-work training and other types of lifelong learning was in need of a major overhaul. ³ However, there were clearly aspects of the system which could be improved to make the services available to a wider, more inclusive audience. For instance, we need to be better at:

• joining up pre and post-employment support for those who need it;
• finding a route to better engagement with small and medium enterprises;
• addressing cultural and social barriers which may prevent people from taking up offers of skills development; and
• communicating - we sometimes use terminology that can exclude and confuse people.

Similarly, there was no major criticism of business support services, though again there were some improvements which might increase the possibility of engaging with employers who chose not to use these services.

Literacy and Numeracy Skills

It is estimated that 23% of adult in Scotland have low literacy and numeracy skills - similar to England, Wales and Ireland. People with poor literacy and numeracy tend to be on lower incomes or unemployed and they are more prone to ill health and social exclusion. Additionally, the FutureSkills Scotland's Employers Skills Survey for 2004 indicates that where hard to fill vacancies were attributed to skills shortages, literacy and numeracy was cited in around a quarter of cases.

There are, however, a great many people in employment who have low literacy and numeracy skills, so it is fair to assume that this will rarely be the sole cause of unemployment. Individuals will often suffer from other disadvantages and low literacy and numeracy skills will be part, but not all of the problem for helping people into work.

In Scotland, significant investment has been made to help large numbers of people address their literacy and numeracy difficulties. Learning is delivered through Community Learning and Development Strategy Partnerships, with targets in place to support 150,000 new learners over the 5 years from 2001 - 2006. Jobcentre Plus ( JCP), the Scottish Executive and Learning Connections, Communities Scotland have agreed a Statement of Arrangements for the referral of JCP customers to literacy and numeracy provision, and considerable work has been undertaken to ensure that those links are effective, with information on local community-based provision being available to all Jobcentre staff. Additionally, the Big Plus campaign to engage employers and encourage them to support employees to undertake literacy and numeracy learning was launched in autumn 2004.

Employment Demand

Taking account of the labour market statistics from the 2 recent Futureskills Scotland reports "Labour Market Demand to 2008" and "Employers Skills Survey 2004", the Employment Demand Group highlighted that:

• When drawing up targets for moving people into employment, consideration should be given to the issues facing particular areas - sectoral demand and the available labour force, as well as the geography of the area, as rural and urban areas present very different challenges.
• Increasing numbers of job opportunities are likely to be in service sectors. How does this match with the aspirations of clients and what interventions can help improve this match?
• Given that the labour market works less well for small and growing businesses, does this require a greater emphasis on direct and ongoing support for these employers when designing interventions?

The public sector in Scotland employs 570,000 people in a variety of positions (23.3% of the total workforce) and includes both local and national government. The public sector therefore needs to lead by example, although companies in the private sector are already realising the benefits of being involved in welfare to work issues.

The public sector's role will showcase how innovative recruitment methods can assist with vacancy filling. Specifically in Target C of Closing the Opportunity Gap, 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.

They will undertake this by building on successful programmes like the Healthcare Academy in Edinburgh and working for Health in Greater Glasgow ( WHIGG), jointly funded by NHSS, Jobcentre Plus and the Enterprise Companies.

In looking at these, and other initiatives which are happening in the public sector, this group considered that these key messages were:

• Some public sector organisations have taken steps to target suitable people who are currently out of work when suitable vacancies occur through a variety of channels, working closely with Jobcentre Plus and other organisations such as the Enterprise Networks. This has led to identified reductions in recruitment costs.
• Processes have been put in place by the employer to provide in-work support for the new work placement or employee, assisting with the sustainability of the job.
• Many offer the opportunity to go on to achieve relevant qualifications, which improves the sustainability and helps progression of the employee.

Employers felt there could be improvements to the information available to businesses, perhaps through a lead agency or 'brokerage' approach providing information and local links to appropriate organisations. Employers want to know what help is available to them:

• to help them fill their vacancies;
• on the support they will receive;
• on the performance of training providers;
• on the support and incentives available to them when recruiting people who may still face barriers;
• on the standards of service they can expect to receive; and
• on information on relevant legislative changes.

One of the top priorities of the group was the provision of suitable and effective aftercare and in-work support for both the new employee and the employer, leading to better sustainability of jobs. It is considered that this is an area that is lacking at present.

Individuals will need different levels of support according to their individual needs. More funding should be directed in keeping people in work, saving employers time and the cost of beginning the recruitment process again and this support should be extended to those currently in employment to help them from falling out of work.

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