Orkney No One Left Behind Operational Plan 2022–2025

www.orkney.gov.uk

IMAGE: Cover page showing a silhouetted stone monument against a sunset, with the Orkney Local Employability Partnership logo, the title “Orkney No One Left Behind Operational Plan”, the dates “2022-2025”, the Orkney Islands Council logo, and the website “www.orkney.gov.uk”.

Contents

• Preface
• Introduction
• Background Information about the Local Employability Partnership
• Membership
• Delivery Partners
• Governance
• Reporting arrangements
• Strengthening Local Partnership Actions/Self-Assessment
• Vision, Mission, Aims, Objectives, Impacts
• Vision
• Aims and Objectives
• Objectives
• Developing and Delivering the Plan
• Our Approach to Delivery
• Delivery Infrastructure
• Commissioning Subgroup Membership
• Economic, Policy and Operational Context
• Local Economic/Labour Market Profile
• SWOT Analysis
• Place Plan Priorities – Links to existing local priorities and plans
• Service Delivery
• Supply and Demand Mapping
• Service Delivery Priorities
• Key Priority Groups
• Service Delivery Requirements and Approach
• Resource Requirements
• Performance Management and Reporting
• Approach
• Service Delivery Requirements and Approach
• Aims and Outcomes
• Actions

Preface

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 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 NOLB 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 LEPs are supporting the implementation of the Scottish Approach to Service Design and actively helping to develop national frameworks such a customer charter and minimum service standards which support local flexibilities.

Introduction

Background Information about the Local Employability Partnership

With the introduction of No One Left Behind, CLD took over responsibility for employability support within Orkney Islands Council in January 2020. Shortly after we were lunged into the Covid pandemic, and during the first lockdown, June 2020, Education Leisure & Housing created a Recover and Renew Programme of work. Under this Programme there was a workstream on positive destinations. The workstream was tasked with establishing a team to produce a plan and identifying the deliverables to flow from the workstream.

As this new Positive Destinations Partnership workstream, which was focused on Covid support and recovery, progressed it was agreed to put the Orkney Skills and Employability Strategic Group on hold.

As the group progressed and developed to focus on the newly announced schemes and support that was being issued to combat the high unemployment and reskilling needed due to Corona Virus, it was agreed this new partnership would become the Orkney Local Employability Partnership and would replace a number of Employability based partnerships that existed prior to the pandemic.

By merging some partners from the Positive Destinations Group, the Orkney Skills and Employability Strategic Group, and its Equality & Diversity Subgroup a streamlined and effective partnership was formed in December 2020, to ensure a coordinate an effective response to employability support requirements in Orkney through the No One Left Being agenda.

Although a relatively new partnership the group has progressed a lot over the last 13 months, coordinating all age employability provision and support, working effectively to ensure the needs of those targeted under No One Left Behind are met and positive outcomes are achieved.

Membership

• Chair: Local Authority Employability Lead (OIC)
• Deputy Chair: Skills Development Scotland (SDS)
• Department of Work and Pensions (DWP)
• Developing the Young Workforce (DYW)
• Orkney Health and Care (OHAC)
• Orkney College UHI
• Voluntary Action Orkney (VAO)
• NHS Orkney (NHSO)
• Criminal Justice Service (OIC)
• Education Service (OIC)
• Housing Service (OIC)
• Economic Development Service (OIC)
• Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE)
• Community Justice Service (OIC)

IMAGE: Membership diagram showing the Chair, Local Authority Employability Lead (OIC), above the Deputy Chair, Skills Development Scotland (SDS), followed by the partnership members: Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), Developing the Young Workforce (DYW), Orkney Health and Care (OHAC), Orkney College UHI, Voluntary Action Orkney (VAO), NHS Orkney (NHSO), Criminal Justice Service (OIC), Education Service (OIC), Housing Service (OIC), Economic Development Service (OIC), Community Justice Service (OIC), and Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE). Delivery Partners are shown as Employability Orkney (EO), Fairstart Scotland (FSS), Connect Project, and Orkney Blide Trust (OBT).

Delivery Partners

• Connect Project
• Orkney Blide Trust (OBT)
• Fairstart Scotland (FSS)
• Employability Orkney (EO)

Governance

The Orkney Local Employability Partnership will utilise existing No One Left Behind national and local governance structures and reporting, the use of the data hub, participation measure and Shared Measurement Framework to report on progress. Improved outcomes will be demonstrated through the reach and impact supported by local and national data dashboards.

The Employability Partnership will report to the Community Planning Partnership through the Sustainable Recovery Delivery Group.

In addition, the group will provide advice and reports to Regional and National groups as required.

It is recognised that members may bring items to the group for discussion, subject to other governance structures. In this situation, it is the responsibility of members to highlight the input they are seeking and the associated governance route.

The Orkney Local Employability Partnership has no executive powers other than for shared partnership responsibilities designated in the LEP Delivery Plan. The collective arrangement is based on mutual trust and each partner organisation has come together with equal status within the partnership. The partnership recognises and respects the valuable role that each individual partner brings.

When decisions are required to be made, the LEP will seek to reach them by consensus. The LEP representatives have agreed autonomy to take appropriate operational decisions at group meetings but may require further consultation within their own organisation as required. It is expected that the majority of decisions can and will be agreed by consensus in the LEP group.

However, where a consensus cannot be reached a majority vote will be required with all partners required to participate (by email if necessary), with each partner having an equal vote. When there is a split vote, the Chair has the casting vote.

In the rare circumstances where issues cannot be resolved, for example where a split vote has occurred, these matters will be referred to the Chair of the Community Planning Sustainable Recovery Delivery Group.

Reporting arrangements

The Orkney LEP will report to the Sustainable Recovery Delivery Group of the Community Planning Partnership, Orkney Islands Council Education Leisure and Housing Committee and the Orkney Child Poverty Action Task Group annually or as requested. In addition, progress against agreed priorities will be reported to Scottish Government through quarterly Local Authority data and narrative report submissions.

In addition to annual reporting requirements the LEP will have intrinsic, cross cutting reporting and delivery mechanism to relevant local and national plans and work towards place-based outcomes detailed within them. These include –

• Scottish Government No One Left Behind Delivery Plan: Supporting documents - No One Left Behind: delivery plan - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
• The Orkney Partnership Plan (LOIP): orkney-community-plan-2021-23-inc-loip.pdf (orkneycommunities.co.uk)
• Local Child Poverty Action Plan: to be added
• Community Learning and Development Partners Plan: CLD Partners Plan 2021 - 2024 (orkney.gov.uk)
• Orkney Children Services Strategic Plan: Item 8: Childrens Services Plan (orkney.gov.uk)
• National Performance Framework: https://nationalperformance.gov.scot/
• SDS Regional Skills Assessment: https://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk/media/45753/a-human-future-strategic-plan-2019-2022.pdf
• National Improvement Framework (NIF): Education - Achieving Excellence and Equity: national improvement framework and improvement plan 2022 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
• Community Justice Outcome Improvement Plan (CJOIP): Orkney Community Justice Partnership Outcomes Improvement Plan 2018 to 2021

Strengthening Local Partnership Actions/Self-Assessment

The Orkney Employability Partnership have recently undergone a rigorous self-assessment process to critically assess their effectiveness and establish a baseline of how well the partnership meets the ambitions of No One Left Behind and Young Person’s Guarantee. The Self-assessment challenged participants to reflect upon recent performance and to reach consensus on identifying areas for improvement.

The resulting improvement plan can be accessed here.

In addition to an annual self-assessment, analysis and evaluation process, the Orkney Employability Partnership will apply the principles of the national Continuous Improvement Tool Kit to collective decision making regarding local employability services.

• Continuous Improvement Toolkit

Recognising the effective processes already in place to deliver improvements to services, the purpose of the toolkit is not to override local approaches with a new, uniform approach, but to add value to existing good practice.

This toolkit will hold three main functions in driving continuous improvement within employability related services, by empowering, equipping and encouraging those delivering services, as outlined below.

• Empower: Empower those responsible for delivering employability services to make tangible and incremental improvements to the services they provide.
• Equip: Equip those providing services with the tools and techniques they need to plan, test, evaluate and implement improvements to services, however big or small.
• Encourage: Encourage a structured and methodological approach to continuous improvements, continuously using feedback, data, learning and good practice to strive for improvement.

IMAGE: Continuous improvement diagram showing “Driving Continuous Improvements” connected to three functions: “Empower”, to make tangible and incremental improvements; “Equip”, to provide tools and techniques to plan, test, evaluate and implement improvements; and “Encourage”, to use a structured and methodological approach based on feedback, data, learning and good practice.

The Orkney LEP will use the principles detailed with the Continuous Improvement Toolkit Continuous Improvement Toolkit to identify and improve areas of need and improvement within the LEP and the wider local employability landscape.

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 continuous-improvement-blank-self-evaluation-survey.docx (live.com)
2. The shared-measurement-framework-key-questions-paper.docx (live.com) 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 ideas: 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 included in this guidance document.
6. Various continuous improvement tools: will be utilised by the LEP as appropriate when undertaking continuous improvement of services. Process Map: this guidance document Empathy Map this guidance document. Cause and Effect Diagram this guidance document.
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 this 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 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.

Vision, Mission, Aims, Objectives, Impacts

Vision

The partnership will;

1. Build on and embed the strengths and effectiveness of the LEP and existing local and national services, to better align funding and improve integration of employability services with wider support services to ensure that services are designed and delivered around the needs and aspirations of the individuals we work with and our local communities.
2. Establish, promote and increase awareness of the local employability services/provision and coordinated information sharing and action between strategic and delivery partners to meet the needs of the individuals we work with and local communities.
3. Improve employment/career opportunities and outcomes for individuals we work with, challenging work based inequalities, through equal access to education, training, learning and fair work, reducing unemployment and inactivity rates and increasing the skills of the workforce within the Orkney Islands Council area.
4. Increase income from employment for (low income) parents. This is one of the 3 key drivers of Child Poverty and one that the Orkney LEP will lead on.

Aims and Objectives

The Orkney Local Employability Partnership (LEP) will plan, coordinate, and deliver employability provision which supports individuals to progress towards fair and sustainable employment that suits their needs and that of the local community.

Employability services are pivotal to avoiding the widening of social and economic inequalities and the LEP will work collaboratively by supporting those who are most vulnerable (please see priority groups). Local Employability Partners recognise the vital role that a range of organisations across the employability landscape play and are committed to protecting a diverse range of provision and ensuring that the right support is put into place at the right time for those who rely on these services.

The partnership 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 around the needs and aspirations of those using our services.

Objectives

• To drive forward and implement the shared ambitions and actions of No One Left Behind and the response to Covid -19 and Brexit to ensure the right support is available in the right way at the right time
• To use 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
• To involve service users throughout the process
• To co-ordinate information-sharing and action between strategic and delivery partners
• To utilise labour market statistics and available data to inform decisions, identify priorities and support an effective partnership response
• To co-ordinate resources to improve opportunities and outcomes
• To align as appropriate with regional and national approaches
• To align the delivery of various NOLB workstreams
• To support and engage employers in the development of employment provision and support

Developing and Delivering the Plan

The Orkney Local Employability Partnership will enable collective leadership and shared commitment across partners to effectively align and coordinate both local and national employability support in Orkney in line with the Local Outcome Improvement Plan and National Performance Framework.

The Partnership will take forward at a local level the actions from the No One Left Behind Delivery Plan based on the following principles which underpin the approach contained within the partnership agreement for employability agreed by Scottish and Local Government.

1. Treating people with Dignity and respect, fairness and equality and continuous improvement
2. Providing a flexible and person-centred support – aspirations for all age, needs based
3. Is straightforward for people to navigate – no wrong door
4. Integrated and aligned with other services – building on the Scottish Approach to service design with the user at the centre
5. Providing pathways into sustainable and fair work
6. Driven by evidence including data and the experience of users
7. Support more people to move into the right job, at the right time

No One Left Behind aims to support those facing structural inequalities in the labour market. In order to deliver the principles, this plan will ensure connectivity with other local services and policy priorities aligned to the National Performance Framework. 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
• Supporting Community Wealth Building
• Supporting Public Sector Reform
• Supporting Place Based Approaches

Our Approach to Delivery

Orkney Local Employability Partnership are committed to embedding and meeting the commitments of ‘Our Charter’.

The Charter has been co-designed with users of employability services and agreed by partners across the Public, Third and Private sectors. It establishes three commitments NOLB funded services will make to users:

1. A service that treats you with dignity and respect;
2. A service that works for you; and
3. A service that learns and improves.

View the Charter here.

Delivery Infrastructure

A Strategic Commissioning Subgroup has been established to plan and agree local funding decisions and allocations to meet local needs. The Strategic Commissioning Subgroup will follow the same governance procedures as the LEP and will report all decisions back to the wider partnership as required. Local Authority procurement processes and procedures will be followed to ensure transparency and scrutiny of any agreed external commissioning opportunities. Members of the Strategic Commissioning Subgroup will be involved with all aspects of the procurement process including development of invite to tender documentation and assessment, scoring and approval of successful applications.

For further info regarding the procurement process please follow links below.

• Procurement (orkney.gov.uk)
• Standard Terms and Conditions of Contracts (orkney.gov.uk)

Use of the National Procurement Framework will be explored for specialist services/provision not available within the local community.

Commissioning Subgroup Membership

• SDS Local Manager
• OIC CLD and Employability Service Manager
• OIC Employability Team Leader
• DWP Local Manager
• TSI Voluntary Action Orkney

Local Alignment and Integration

The Orkney LEP has representation from NHS Orkney, Kirkwall Job Centre Plus, Orkney Island Council Criminal Justice and Housing Services and relevant Third Sector partners to ensure alignment and integration of services, promote collective and shared responsibility for resources and reduce duplication and complexity in the local support offer.

Economic, Policy and Operational Context

Local Economic/Labour Market Profile

SWOT Analysis

IMAGE: SWOT Analysis table showing the Strengths and Weaknesses listed above, with employment, education, volunteering, employability provision, poverty, business, skills, transport, housing, migration, stigma and work experience identified as key factors.

IMAGE: SWOT Analysis table continuation showing Opportunities and Threats, including renewable energy, apprenticeships, care-sector routes, volunteering, digital working, an ageing population, migration, skills gaps, poverty, funding uncertainty, connectivity and the effects of COVID.

Place Plan Priorities – Links to existing local priorities and plans

The LEP will have intrinsic, cross cutting reporting and delivery mechanism to relevant local and national plans and work towards place-based outcomes detailed within them. These include –

• The Orkney Partnership Plan (LOIP): orkney-community-plan-2021-23-inc-loip.pdf (orkneycommunities.co.uk)
• Local Child Poverty Action Plan:
• Community Learning and Development Partners Plan: CLD Partners Plan 2021 - 2024 (orkney.gov.uk)
• Orkney Children Services Strategic Plan: Item 8: Childrens Services Plan (orkney.gov.uk)
• National Performance Framework: https://nationalperformance.gov.scot/
• SDS Regional Skills Assessment: https://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk/media/45753/a-human-future-strategic-plan-2019-2022.pdf
• Community Justice Outcome Improvement Plan (CJOIP)

Evidence Led

Link to local data dashboard and narrative around local priorities evidenced by data and by user/stakeholder input. Include tables and gap analysis supporting prioritisation.

Evidence is provided from a variety of public sources, collated and presented to the LEP to assist with community engagement, planning, commissioning, implementation, performance monitoring and continuous improvement. Additional information is also provided at service level where appropriate.

Current data sources include:

• Office for National Statistics: NOMIS – Official Labour Market Statistics
• The Local Authority Data Toolkit
• Skills Development Scotland: Participation Measurement, 16+ Data Hub & Regional Skills Assessment
• Orkney College
• DWP Stat Excel
• Local intelligence/insight captured from professionals working across the LEP

IMAGE: Evidence-led data table listing indicators and comparative national, Orkney and Scotland data, including earnings, qualifications, underemployment, childcare, child poverty, GVA and care-experienced positive destinations.

The table below highlights national and local priority areas that the Orkney LEP will work towards and will be used during the annual monitoring and evaluation process to track progress against these.

Service Delivery

Supply and Demand Mapping

The Orkney LEP have completed an audit of local employability provision and mapped this to stages of the Employability Pipeline. This map can be found Employability (orkney.gov.uk).

Service Delivery Priorities

Aligning to the Scottish Government’s No One Left Behind Delivery Plan the Orkney LEP will work collectively to deliver fairer and more inclusive communities where every person has an opportunity to reach their potential. The Partnership will prioritise individuals for which employment opportunities are harder to secure, adopting an equalities first approach ensuring that individuals from priority groups are not left behind and labour market inequalities are not reinforced.

Whilst it has been agreed by the partnership to work with individuals across all NOLB eligibility criteria, the partnership will work collectively using local and national data to identify priority groups and plan, coordinate and deliver provision to meet local need.

Key Priority Groups

Service Delivery Requirements and Approach

IMAGE: Priority groups table divided into ages 16–24 and 25+, listing disabled people, people with health conditions or learning disabilities, care-experienced young people, people who are unemployed or underemployed, people with convictions, lone parents, people at risk of homelessness and people living in jobless households.

The Orkney LEP have used a variety of local and national data and professional intelligence to complete local mapping of provision and gap analysis which has informed the LEP Delivery Plan 22-25. However due to annual funding allocations and restricted budgets the plan will prioritise actions for 2022/2023.

Resource Requirements

At the time of writing this plan it must be recognised that although the document sets out the intentions for a 3 Year Delivery Plan the LEP is functioning on annual funding allocations. This makes future planning challenging.

NOLB phase 2 has brought about changes to how employability funding is allocated with a shift to local delivery and commissioning. The key difference in NOLB Phase 2 is the ceasing of both the Community Jobs Scotland and Employability Fund Programmes with funding now being directed to the local areas to meet local needs.

Scottish Local Government and Scottish Government signed a partnership agreement in 2018 to jointly commit around £60M each to local employability support. Alongside this is a commitment from the Scottish Government to a simplification of the grant funding approach and processes which in time will provide councils and LEPs with multi-annual funding and streamlined reporting.

The Scottish Government has confirmed that a total of £59.43m will be allocated to local authorities for 2022/23 for locally delivered employability services (including some LEP commissioned employability support). This does not include Fairstart Funding which is likely to come to LAs/LEPs from April 2023 as part of NOLB Phase 3.

The table below provides a break-down of this funding and the allocations for Orkney and how this compares with the funding available in 2021/22.

IMAGE: Funding table showing national and OIC allocations for No One Left Behind, Parent Employability Support, Long Term Unemployed and Young Person’s Guarantee, with a total national allocation of £59.43 million and OIC allocation of £245,00.

As the figures show Orkney has a significant reduction in funding allocation for 2022/23 despite the expectation to maintain and develop local employability services and manage any potential gaps in the transfer of Community Jobs Scotland and Employability Fund to local service delivery and governance structures.

The table below identifies agreed interventions and budget allocations across the Orkney LEP to meet local priorities identified with the plan. This is a one-year plan and details spend against the 2022/23 funding NOLB funding allocation. It is recognised that this is a working plan and may change if local priorities change of for unforeseen circumstance we must re-profile. In this instance the Commissioning Group will convene and consult and gain approval of wider LEP before actioning any changes.

Performance Management and Reporting

Approach

Performance Indicators – Detail the agreed performance indicators with reference to the Shared Measurement Framework. Outline the link to the Data and improved outcomes.

The Orkney Local Employability Partnership will use the agreed shared measurement framework to detail progress against agreed local priority areas, objectives and outcomes. This will detail:

• partnerships reach,
• progress against agreed priorities
• skills attainment of service users,
• service users experience
• value of service for investment.

The partnership will gather and evidence this information using a variety of methods including national and local data dashboards, case studies, service users’ feedback and financial profiling and evaluation tools.

This information will be monitored and evaluated by the partnership during quarterly reviews and reported during regular Scottish Government reporting cycles together with annual LEP review and reporting to Community Planning Partnership.

The Orkney Local Employability Delivery Plan will be monitored, reviewed and evaluated on a quarterly basis across the partnership and progress against agreed priorities recorded.

Service Delivery Requirements and Approach

Aims and Outcomes

1. Build on and embed the strengths and effectiveness of the LEP and existing local and national services, to better align funding and improve integration of employability services with wider support services to ensure that services are designed and delivered around the needs and aspirations of the individuals we work with and our local communities.
2. Establish, promote and increased awareness of the local employability services/provision and coordinated information sharing and action between strategic and delivery partners to meet the needs of the individuals we work with and local communities,
3. Improve employment/career opportunities and outcomes for individuals we work with, challenging work-based inequalities, through equal access to education, training, learning and fair work, reducing unemployment and inactivity rates and increasing the skills of the workforce within the Orkney Islands Council area.
4. Increase income from employment for (low income) parents. This is one of the 3 key drivers of Child Poverty and one that the Orkney LEP will lead on.

Actions

Young Persons Guarantee

By 2023 all children and young people (16–24 year olds) will have the opportunities and support to be engaged in education, training, an apprenticeship, employment or volunteering, based on individualised goals and ambitions (with a particular focus on care experienced and disabled young people).

Priority Groups: Disabled Young People, Young People Autism/Long term health condition, Young People with Care Experienced, Disengaged from Education, Employment, Training (NEET), School Leavers with unconfirmed destinations, low skilled, young parents, Young People with/at risk of criminal convictions, Young People from low income families.

No One Left Behind (25’s +)

To improve the engagement access and opportunities to training and employment support for priority groups 25+.

Priority Groups: Disabled People, People with a Learning Disability/Autism/Long term health condition, Low Income Families & Lone Parents, Long Term Unemployed, People with convictions including CPO, Low skilled, Individuals who are/at risk of homelessness, individuals living in a jobless household, Individuals in precarious work or underemployed.

Maximise employer engagement, job creation initiatives and access to fair work

Work Collaboratively to plan, design, implement, monitor and review local employability services, aligning to the wider Orkney LEP Delivery Plan evaluation process, NOLB strategy and wider integrated policies