As recommended by the Smith Commission, powers over certain employability services were devolved to the Scottish Government through the Scotland Act 2016. Powers were commenced in September 2016, with transitional employment services introduced in April 2017. These will support up to 4,800 people with health conditions and disabilities into work before the full devolved service (Fair Start Scotland) launches in April 2018.
SQW was commissioned to review the development and early implementation of the transition year services, namely Work First Scotland (WFS) and Work
Able Scotland (WAS). The findings will feed in to and inform the development of Fair Start Scotland, as well as continuous improvement of policy and
service design and delivery. The key questions to be addressed through the review were: what worked well; what worked less well and what would improve the pre-delivery and initial implementation phases in future.