The Employability Partnership Manager at the IS supports the Scottish and local government approach to transforming employability services in Scotland.
The Partnership Agreement for Employability, signed by Scottish Ministers and COSLA leaders in 2018, is a mutual commitment to ensuring that Scotland’s employability provision is person-centred, joined-up, flexible and responsive to individual needs.
No One Left Behind (NOLB) is the strategy behind this joint approach. It has a crucial role in helping Scotland achieve its vision for economic transformation and tackling child poverty, and aims to deliver a system that is tailored to the needs of everyone who requires support on their journey towards, into and in fair and sustainable employment.
The Employability Partnership Manager assists and advises the SLAED People Group (the network of local government employability leads) to apply the NOLB principles across local employability support through their Local Employability Partnerships (LEPs).
The NOLB principles are:
- Dignity and respect, fairness and equality, and continuous improvement
- Provides flexible and person-centred support
- Is straightforward for people to navigate
- Integrated and aligned with other services
- Provides pathways into sustainable and fair work
- Driven by evidence including data and experience of others
- Support more people to move into the right job at the right time
The Improvement Service co-ordinates and facilitates a programme of thematic, capacity building webinars and workshops for Local Employability Partnerships and employability delivery staff. These have included flexible working, specialist employability support, and asylum seekers, refugees and their right to work. A programme of sessions covering other relevant topics is planned for the year ahead.
The Employability Partnership Manager is integral in establishing, developing and maintaining relationships across public, private and third sectors, to ensure that people are at the centre of the design and delivery of employability support, and that support is evidence-based and informed by local needs. One tool that assists with this planning is the NOLB Data Toolkit, which was developed by Glasgow City Region’s Intelligence Hub for use by LEPs in planning employability delivery.
The Improvement Service is also a member of various working groups across Scottish Government, local government and other partners, including:
- NOLB Next Phase Working Group
- NOLB Improvement Group
- Employability in Scotland Operational Group
- All Age Employability Steering Group, which reports into the Fairer and More Equal Society Programme Board, which itself reports into the National Strategy for Economic Transformation (NSET).
-
No One Left Behind/Employability
This group supports the transformation of Scotland's employability support system outlined in No One Left Behind. It is a shared space for a collaborative approach between Scottish and local government.
-
SLAED: the Scottish Local Authorities Economic Development Group
A place for Scottish local authority economic development representatives to share and develop thinking, collectively address topical issues and organise SLAED activity.