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CHAPTER FOUR OVERVIEW OF PROGRAMME PARTICIPANTS

4.1 Both the Wise Group and One Plus exist to provide support for a range of disadvantaged people to help them to gain the skills and experience needed to access labour market opportunities, and to sustain work in the longer term. Whilst both organisations are therefore similar in their overall objectives, they tend to deal with different client groups, with One Plus's primary focus being on lone parents (mostly women) and the Wise Group covering both men and women from a range of backgrounds (though notably mostly older males). This section provides an overview of the characteristics of the study sample (making comparisons with the monitoring data ¹¹ where appropriate), highlighting their circumstances at the time of the research interview, their employment history and barriers to employment. Where these are different between the two samples, this is described.

4.2 The monitoring data for the relevant time period for the One Plus Sustainable Employment project indicated that there was a total of 460 clients registered, 346 of whom were unemployed. The vast majority of clients were lone mothers, and around 90 per cent were white. Looking at the differences between participants who were employed or unemployed at that time, those with more than one child were more likely to be unemployed than those with just one child - perhaps indicative of the difficulties in juggling work and childcare with more than one child and covering the additional childcare costs involved. The main reasons recorded in the monitoring data for attending One Plus Sustainable Employment Project were to find employment (cited by around half of registrants), to find a better job (around a quarter of registrants) and to access training (around a fifth). The types of jobs sought were mainly childcare, administration and 'other', with relatively few seeking professional level employment. The main barriers to work recorded on the Sustainable Employment database were the lack of childcare and the cost of childcare. Lack of appropriate qualifications or experience as well as lack of opportunities were also common.

4.3 The monitoring data for the relevant time period for the Wise Group Next Steps project had a total of 120 clients recorded - 63 of whom were employed and 57 unemployed. The majority of clients were male (87 males, 33 females). Just under a quarter of registrants were over 50, with similar proportions in the 40 to 50 age group. Again Next Step clients were mostly white. The main barriers recorded by clients were lack of qualifications, lack of experience and lack of jobs. The Next Steps database recorded the number of barriers, and the majority faced between four and seven barriers to employment, with nine out of ten participants facing at least two barriers. Furthermore, over 40 per cent of the original 120 registrants had been employed for over 25 months - in itself a significant labour market barrier. Around 7 per cent of registrants were resident in rural areas (against a target of 35 per cent).

Clients' backgrounds and personal circumstances

4.4 Using the monitoring data for each programme as a guide, the research sample was selected to ensure a broad representation of the wider population characteristics. Included in the samples, therefore, were both men and women, of a range of ages (with more aged 40 and over for the Wise Group respondents) and with and without children. However, a review of the circumstances of the sample indicates the range of difficulties their circumstances presented, which in turn highlights both the barriers they face as well as the range of interventions and support they require to help them to overcome, or at least manage, their difficulties to help them to move forward.

4.5 One Plus Sustainable Employment Project sample was predominantly female, with one male lone parent included in the research. This reflects the profile of their caseload as a whole. The Next Steps sample was around two thirds male, which again reflects the overall caseload at that time.

4.6 A small group of respondents from BME group backgrounds were recruited to the sample, which again broadly matched that of the overall caseloads.

Table 4.1 Gender Breakdown of Sample

Table 4.2 Age Breakdown of Sample

Health

4.7 Many of the respondents had (either currently or previously) problems with alcohol or drug misuse, or had experienced poor health which, in turn, had impacted on their ability to work. This was particularly the case with Wise Group clients, although some One Plus Sustainable Employment Project clients raised issues relating to mental health difficulties.

4.8 Poor health featured significantly in many respondents' lives, and this was often associated with job loss and subsequent contact with the Wise Group. For example, one respondent described having worked as a machine operator for 19 years before being made redundant following ill health. Whilst she was on sick leave, she took voluntary redundancy. She found out about the Wise Group having seen an advert on a bus, and her family persuaded her to contact them:

"I was really scared but I phoned them and met with someone for about one and a half hours. I was saying to him 'I don't know how to do this - I've never done anything - I left school with no qualifications at 16 and had my first son at 17. But all the time I was in the factory I was bringing the kids up but feeling that there must be more to life". (Wise Group Next Steps)

4.9 Age and financial pressures in middle life (mortgage, supporting children) and less robust health for those who had spent considerable periods in 'traditional' employment areas such as factories or ship-building were considerable, and their ability to consider re-training for, say, the sorts of jobs that were available led some to become depressed:

"When I was made redundant I had been with the company for 16 years. Not having any sort of daily structure in my life was horrendous. I ended up getting a job refitting ships, but once the ship goes off you're laid off again. I was 53 and unemployed, but eventually got a temporary contract with the NHS as a procurement officer. Then it was 12-hour shifts in a bakery, but my health started to suffer with the long shift patterns. Got another job in a steel factory, but it was through an agency and I eventually got paid off. Oh I was terrible. You dip, you peak, you dip". (Wise Group Next Steps)

4.10 There were also examples of enduring health problems leading to job loss. One client had worked in a factory when she was a single mother, and had been there for 18 years before developing a medical condition:

"I developed a tumour on my thyroid - was then made redundant after being away from work for a long time. (One Plus Sustainable Employment Project)

Caring responsibilities

4.11 Naturally, the lone parents in the sample all had significant caring responsibilities. However, there were also others in the sample who had responsibility for caring for adults, such as an unwell parent. These caring responsibilities affected the type of work they were able to undertake and, in some cases, were a reason for leaving work in the first place.

4.12 For example, a male client had stopped work to care full-time for his three children, following the break-up of his marriage. He lost the family home and became homeless as a result of being unable to work. He didn't feel that he received help or support at the time and said:

"I just wasn't aware of any support that I could get. Nobody told me about One Plus or any other organisation - eventually a social worker mentioned it when I mentioned the possibility of returning to work. I felt I was under scrutiny as a lone father, and felt under pressure to be 'diligent' at all times around the kids". (One Plus Sustainable Employment Project)

Asylum seekers and refugees

4.13 A small number of respondents from both organisations had been asylum seekers or refugees. Here, backgrounds were varied, ranging from a previous working life on a farm to having experienced higher education, but all had required significant support on being sent to Glasgow. There had been varying levels of support from social workers and the refugee support team (prior to involvement with the projects), but they had often experienced isolation and confusion, as well as practical difficulties such as language, money and housing.

4.14 A typical example of clients in this group is a refugee who came to Scotland four years ago as an asylum seeker from Lithuania with her young daughter. She described her circumstances:

"The rest of my family was still living over there so it was really hard for me. When I first got here it was awful - I had no money and couldn't claim benefits because Lithuania wasn't even in the European Union at the time". (One Plus Sustainable Employment Project)

4.15 For people in this group, contact with the Wise Group or One Plus played an important role. Describing initial contact with Next Steps, one client, originally from Angola and with a wife and two very young children, described:

"My social worker 'phoned the Jobcentre and the Housing people, saying that my main priority was work. At the time, there was no benefits, no work, nothing. They signed me up to the NHS project". (Wise Group Next Steps)

4.16 Another client, a single man originally from Cameroon, heard about the Wise Group from a friend, and he too was signed up to the NHS project. He had previously studied science at university before fleeing Cameroon. Having successfully completed his training and his work placement, he now has a job as a hospital porter.

Offending backgrounds

4.17 For those with offending backgrounds (more common among the Wise Group respondents than among the One Plus respondents), they often described the personal difficulties they had encountered following leaving prison and employer attitudes regarding convictions or spent convictions. One man in his early 40s with a Higher National Certificate, in addition to being an ex-offender, had also spent time in a drugs rehabilitation unit. Asked about his initial contact with the Wise Group, he intimated that the organisation came into his life just at the right time:

"I got an outstanding achievement award at college, but it was difficult with my placements because of the nature of my convictions. I ended up doing casual labouring jobs on building sites - it really set me back. I was really low. The money wasn't bad, but I felt like I was depriving myself. I ended up going to a Wise Group Open day". (Wise Group Next Steps)

4.18 Another Next Steps client secured an Honours degree in history whilst serving 'life' in prison. When we interviewed him he had been out of prison for 18 months, and had been training with the Wise Group as a life coach.

Debt

4.19 Respondents with families had often accumulated significant debt. This included credit cards and loans, some of which were taken out or run up whilst clients were employed. One Plus clients mentioned problems with personal debt more often than Next Steps, indicative perhaps of the financial vulnerability of lone parents. There were also problems identified for both cohorts in terms of the administration of tax credits. Some respondents indicated that bad debts would sometimes inform decisions taken about whether they could afford to be employed.

Housing difficulties

4.20 Housing issues - benefits, location of housing or issues with private landlords - were a common feature among the sample, and in particular among lone parents. Often the difficulties were associated with making up the 'shortfall' in rent that was not covered by housing benefit, as well as concerns or difficulties about paying rent on moving into work.

Relationship breakdown

4.21 Among One Plus Sustainable Employment Project clients, many highlighted a lack of confidence or low self-esteem accumulated over many years and often as a result of relationship breakdown, coupled with the general day to day stress of raising a family single-handedly on a very tight budget.

Employment histories

4.22 Generally, respondents demonstrated three main types of employment histories:

• Steady employment until redundancy or poor health (typically late 40s onwards) or marriage breakdown
• Fragmented employment, with frequent spells in and out of work
• Limited employment history (typically, due to caring for children or other dependants)

4.23 Work that had been undertaken in the past was predominantly, but not exclusively, of a low skills nature. For women, it tended to be around shop work, social care, bingo/arcade work and play work; for men it was often manual work, factory work and driving. A minority had utilised professional skills, including a personal trainer and an estate agent.

4.24 Unemployment following long-term employment with the same employer was common amongst clients aged 40+. Some had left secure, long-term employment late in life, making it more difficult to engage in the labour market. A typical scenario was that of one male respondent in his late 50s who had been with the same employer for 15 years before accepting redundancy and going to university. Following that, he spent another ten years working in electronics, but found himself unemployed again, so he re-trained and got a job driving, working during the day so that he could continue studying at night to do a computers networking course. Shortly after he paid for and started the course, he experienced pressure to take on overtime (particularly night driving) and he ended up leaving the job.

4.24 The personal circumstances of Next Steps clients particularly often included employment histories that were somewhat chaotic, for example:

"I worked for 16 years with **** but was made redundant four years ago. Didn't get a very good pay-off. Got another job and lost that. Got a job at **** but the hours were too long (12 hour shift - four days on, four days off -) which wasn't any good for family life. Left that job for another, but was paid off." (Wise Group Next Steps)

4.26 Another client in his mid 30s described a series of short-term jobs:

"I left school at 15, and started off doing general warehousing, then lost that job and got something doing TV and video sales and repairs. Got made redundant, went to work for a paint company, got made redundant from that………"(Wise Group Next Steps)

4.27 Some clients appeared to have found it difficult to hold down a job for very long.

"I think it was the people I didn't like, and it was like 'do this, do that, so it was like oh I'm away'". (Wise Group Next Steps)

4.28 This attitude was evident in both samples, though was more apparent among the Wise group respondents. It invariably required a mixture of counselling to 'cope' with different workplace environments (such as open plan offices) and coaching about the impact of frequent job changes on future employment prospects.

4.29 Lone parents often had had little work experience prior to having children or in some cases prior to the relationship breakdown. Often, however, they had made repeated unsuccessful attempts to enter work prior to joining the One Plus Sustainable Employment Project. One client, following the breakdown of her marriage, had combined voluntary work with attempts at self-employment to enable her to combine work and childcare. She secured play-work qualifications, and went on to become a trainer and assessor, but found it difficult financially:

"Going self-employed was very difficult because funding's been cut for the sorts of community projects that I worked with. I ended up going to the Jobcentre, and they put me in touch with One Plus". (One Plus Sustainable Employment Project)

Barriers to employment

4.30 The monitoring data indicates both similarities and differences in labour market barriers for the two client groups. For lone parents, childcare was the most commonly mentioned barrier, as well as lack of qualifications and experience, financial issues and lack of opportunities or being able to find the 'right job'. For Wise Group clients, lack of qualifications, experience and lack of jobs were the main barriers (mentioned by around half of participants as a barrier at the point of registration to the Next Steps programme), exacerbated by having spent significant time away from the labour market. What is particularly interesting, and is borne out by the qualitative work, is the high proportion of clients who recorded multiple barriers to work - particularly evident among Next Steps clients.

4.31 Barriers to employment that were evident among this sample, particularly for those who had yet to find work, were around the following areas:

Qualifications, skills and training

4.32 Respondents often felt that their skills were outdated. Those clients who were 40+ (and especially those who were 50+) were largely faced with the reality that the 'world of work' is a very different place, with the old industries and traditional sectors being replaced by service industries and an employment landscape dominated by low pay and short-term contracts. Lone parents who had spent significant time away from work whilst caring for their children also felt that they were no longer in touch with the world of work, and also appeared to feel hampered by low confidence about returning to the workplace.

'Soft' skills, confidence and self-esteem

4.33 For older clients it was sometimes evident that there might be an issue regarding their personal attitudes which, effectively, became a barrier to employment. A couple of clients had clearly experienced difficulties in adjusting to their changed circumstances. These attitudinal issues - not being comfortable being interviewed by younger people, dissatisfaction with low wage rates, unwillingness to consider new employment areas or to retrain - were likely to present project staff with something of a challenge. One man explained:

"I'm terrible at interviews because I tend to go in and not say much. I'm not very good at talking - I can see that it frustrates the people who are interviewing me. Sometimes the interview process feels humiliating and I get angry at going through the motions". (Wise Group Next Steps)

4.34 One woman talked of how, having secured employment, she had struggled to understand the 'culture' of her workplace, and described what sounded like a misreading of a situation which she reacted to inappropriately and almost lost her job:

"I'd been filling out an important document and one of my colleagues grabbed my pen out of my hand. I was absolutely livid that she'd done it and really ripped into her verbally. The boss went mad, accusing me of over-reacting and causing unnecessary disruption". (Wise Group Next Steps)

4.35 What staff identified here was that some people had been out of the labour market for such an extensive time that they had to learn how to function in the workplace or in a team environment. Providing training in appropriate life, social and communication skills (and for some, even anger management skills) was an important part of attempting to equip people with the skills to both secure and retain employment.

4.36 For clients that identified a lack of confidence, it was suggested that this was frequently as a result of unsatisfactory in-work experiences, and this denting of confidence appeared to stay with clients for some time:

"Because of what happened, I've got this real lack of confidence. I keep thinking that something's going to happen and, wherever I go, they're going to say 'sorry - this isn't working out'. I can see that, perhaps, my old boss probably did me a favour by getting rid of me. I wouldn't be on the personal development course at One Plus if it hadn't happened, but I still worry about the future. I'm going to be on a monthly salary - what happens if it doesn't work out? I'm already way behind with my bills, rent arrears and everything." (One Plus Sustainable Employment Project)

4.37 Another said:

"My self-esteem was at rock-bottom when I came here. I'm hoping that all the confidence building stuff I've done will be a stepping-stone into work. It should be easier now." (One Plus Sustainable Employment Project)

Transport

4.38 Practical barriers identified, particularly for those living in rural areas, included transport. Most rural clients didn't have access to a car, and most could not afford to run one, meaning there was a dependency on available public transport. One member of the Next Steps Team has specific responsibility for a caseload living mostly in Ayrshire, with clients scattered far and wide. For these clients, access to public transport was an issue, and could prevent them accessing suitable jobs, or to be able to work atypical hours or shifts. Accordingly, some of the efforts in this respect were underpinned by getting clients to recognise and embrace the changing economy (for example, by encouraging learning to drive or rethinking the type of work they could do).

4.39 One client, who had a small child, described her experiences:

"I really liked work, but I just couldn't manage the twelve-hour shifts and the job was too far to get to. They put on a bus for us, but it took an hour to get there and an hour to get back. Even when Next Steps got me a work- experience placement it was a nightmare. I had to get two buses and my wee girl went into the nursery at Paisley and that took another half an hour. Getting on and off the bus with a buggy was bad enough. I was leaving home at 07.15 in the morning to get there for nine, to do the nursery drop off and get to work on time. It was completely exhausting". (Wise Group Next Steps)

Drug and alcohol difficulties

4.40 Recovering from alcohol or drug abuse was a barrier to work for some (and again a factor associated with being out of work in the first place). One male respondent, who also had a criminal record, spoke of steps he had taken to manage his problems:

"I'm on methadone at the moment - it helps make life feels a bit normal. I want to try and give my family now the sort of life that I never had." (Wise Group Next Steps)

Criminal record

4.41 Those with criminal convictions, particularly those who had spent time in prison, had felt that this was a significant barrier to getting a job:

"I've been in and out of prison. Me personally, I still get very angry about what's happened to me. Well more frustrated than anything else when you're making the rounds of different agencies and getting rejected time after time." (Wise Group Next Steps)

Childcare

4.42 Parents with young children, not surprisingly, face particular challenges regarding combining employment with childcare responsibilities and inadequate public transport. As noted earlier, childcare was a major barrier for almost all of the lone parents interviewed. One parent demonstrated the difficulties in managing work, transport and childcare responsibilities, giving the example of attending a recent job interview:

"I was just in a total rush that day. It was pouring with rain and I was rushing about, running to the train station. This woman was asking me all these questions and giving me all these scenarios and I was just asking myself, 'do I really want this'? They were offering twenty-two and a half hours a week, doing the breakfast club in the morning before the kids go to school and then back again for the afternoon shift. On top of looking after my own kids…." (One Plus Sustainable Employment Project)

4.43 Some clients who were combining childcare with working a few hours a week acknowledged feeling 'boxed in' by their personal circumstances. One client, who had previously lived in a Social Inclusion Partnership area but now didn't following the breakdown of her marriage and her consequent move to another area, wanted to do social care but was unable to access childcare. She described being in a 'Catch 22' situation:

"I work in the morning doing breakfast at school. It's stopping me from getting ahead, and the longer I'm here the more difficult it will be to escape." (One Plus Sustainable Employment Project)

Perceptions of discrimination

4.44 Respondents that had a history of substance misuse or those with an offending background felt that they faced institutional and structural barriers. Some clients suggested that they had experienced prejudice and discrimination, with a perception held that subtle age discrimination was commonplace amongst employers. Others felt that they were discriminated against by dint of having caring responsibilities, or because of being refugees.

4.45 Some clients had encountered much in the way of rejection at interviews, putting age discrimination at the forefront:

"I think age discrimination was a factor [in not getting the job]. The money on offer was only half of what I was used to when I left the factory but I was happy to accept that, and told them so. After I heard I didn't get the job I asked for feedback, but was told that they hadn't picked anyone. I asked if there was any point re-applying if the post was re-advertised, but they said that I wasn't of the right calibre. I'm coming up to 50, I've got two grown up children. Me and the wife have unfortunately parted and I'm staying in digs." (Wise Group Next Steps)

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