Apt Public Social Partnership: final report and evaluation 2023
This report presents the work of the Apt Public Social Partnership (PSP), outlining key learning, impacts and recommendations from three years of work of supporting employers to improve employment outcomes for disabled people. It summarises achievements, challenges, and opportunities.
Introductory Summary Text
The Apt Public Social Partnership (PSP) was established in 2020 to design tools and interventions to support employers across Scotland to attract, recruit, retain and progress disabled people, contributing to the national ambition to halve the Disability Employment Gap by 2038. This Final Report and Evaluation summarises three years of activity, capturing the PSP’s impact on employers, the evolution of its delivery model, and the central role of people with lived experience in shaping and delivering support.
The evaluation highlights strong progress between 2020 and 2023, including engagement with over 260 organisations, the training of more than 1,300 individuals, and intensive support to more than 70 employers. Employers reported significant improvements in awareness, recruitment practice, workplace culture and confidence, supported through tools such as the Employer Assessment Toolkit, Digital Recruitment Reviews and bespoke training. The PSP also evidences early long-term outcomes such as disabled people securing employment, progressing into management roles and sustaining work, earlier than typically expected for a PSP of this scale.
Apt’s model is built on partnership working, sector expertise and meaningful leadership by people with lived experience. Over the three-year period, the Scottish Government provided just over £1.2 million in funding to support the development, piloting and evaluation of the Apt PSP. This investment enabled delivery partners and people with lived experience to codesign and test new approaches that help employers remove barriers, improve workplace culture, and strengthen inclusive recruitment and retention practices. The Scottish Government will draw on this learning in future engagement on support and advice with employers to help them implement and benefit from Fair Work principles in workplaces across Scotland.
The full report is available to view in PDF format in the supporting documents section. If you require the presentation in a different format, please get in touch using the contact details below.
Contact
Email: Boswell.Mhonda@gov.scot