Since the Scottish Government’s Tackling Child Poverty delivery plan for 2026 – 2031 was launched in March, the Employability Partnership Manager has been working with partners to ensure that relationships are established and strengthened with the organisations delivering against various funding streams that align with employability delivery.
Regional Transport Partnerships
Following the award of £19m between Regional Transport Partnerships (RTPs) and Local Employability Partnerships (LEPs), a cross-sector working group was established to develop a menu of options to support better partnership working between RTPs and LEPs. A number of new initiatives and infrastructure developments are now underway, supporting better availability, accessibility and affordability of transport for parents progressing to employment.
NHS National Boards
NHS Boards were awarded £4.2m for the provision of paid work placements within the NHS. Work was undertaken to bring together six local authority employability leads with representatives from the NHS National Boards who had not previously offered placements. This included ensuring that relevant contacts were made in areas where placements would be offered for the first time, building knowledge around the work of Local Employability Partnerships, sharing best practice from existing work with territorial boards, streamlining referral pathways and processes and agreeing wraparound support for participants.
Scottish Funding Council and Colleges Scotland
Colleges were awarded £21m to deliver three programmes - Raising Income through Skills and Education, Training Access Fund and the New Flexible Workforce Development Fund. Work is currently underway with partners to ensure that courses, vocational training and other college offers are aligned with the employability activities already being delivered to support parents to progress towards and into employment.
Next steps are to build and strengthen links with third sector organisations and childcare providers who successfully secured funding in the first round of the Childcare Support Fund – which has a total funding pot of £15m. This is important to ensure that local employability providers are aware of and can refer into the service locally, which aims to offer additional support to priority family groups where childcare is a barrier to accessing or sustaining employment.
For further information, please contact Susie.donkin@improvementservice.org.uk