Fair Start Scotland - evaluation report 3: participant phone survey - year 2

Part of a series of reports on the evaluation of Fair Start Scotland (FSS) employability services. It presents more detailed findings from a representative telephone survey of FSS participants and explores their experiences in the second year of service delivery (April 2019 to March 2020).


Footnotes

1. 'Year 2' in this context describes FSS participants who joined the service between April 2019 and March 2020. Please note the slight difference with new participants surveyed at Wave 2 discussed in this report (referred to as the 2019 cohort), who joined the service between January and December 2019, due to sample availability.

2. https://www.gov.scot/publications/scotlands-devolved-employment-services-statistical-summary-7/

3. Data was weighted by age, gender and Lot so is representative of the whole cohort of participants who joined Fair Start Scotland in 2019

4. Family types that are at a higher than average risk of child poverty, identified in 'Every Child, Every Chance'.

5. This includes participants who were working and not working at the point of the survey.

6. This question was asked to participants who started receiving support after July 2019 and therefore more likely to remember their experience of signing up.

7. Response options around support for mental/physical health were expanded for the 2019 cohort at Wave 2 to capture experiences in more detail, and therefore cannot be compared with the more general question asked to the 2018 cohort at Wave 1.

8. Within FSS a job outcome is classed as 16 hours or more, therefore anyone moving into a job of fewer than 16 hours is still classed as not working and remains eligible for pre-employment support

9. Due to small base sizes it is not possible to comment on differences between groups of participants or among different FSS Lots for those who were offered or took up in-work support.

10. Please note that results on the usefulness of support types have low bases sizes

11. https://www.gov.scot/publications/creating-fairer-scotland-new-future-employability-support-scotland/pages/3/

12. Twenty-three 2019 cohort participants said the service was not relevant to their needs and were asked for more details. Responses are not reported due to low base sizes but were coded to the following categories: the service didn't offer anything new, the advisor didn't listen to my specific needs, employment opportunities offered were not suitable, my health issues weren't taken into consideration, I found the service disorganised/badly run, advisors said the service was not suitable, would have liked more courses or qualifications.

13. Including: I couldn't manage the travel, I moved away, Caring responsibilities, My health deteriorated, Other domestic or personal reasons, Lack of support or help from the service.

14. This refers to employment status as reported in the survey by survey participants, and data was weighted to the FSS participant population.

15. The job roles and descriptions were coded to using the Office for National Statistics (ONS) standard Occupational Classification Hierarchy https://onsdigital.github.io/dp-classification-tools/standard-occupational-classification/ONS_SOC_hierarchy_view.html

16. The national living wage for workers over the age of 25 was £8.21 at the time of the survey, it has since risen to £8.72.

17. The income bands were selected to be comparable to work carried out by the Fair Work Convention. https://www.fairworkconvention.scot

18. Within FSS a job outcome is classed as 16 hours or more, therefore anyone moving into a job of fewer than 16 hours is still classed as not working and remains eligible for pre-employment support.

19. Respondents could select up to three barriers

20. This was a free text response, so participants were not restricted to pre-coded descriptions of support elements.

21. The original JSSE Index was developed at the University of Michigan (Vinokur et al., 1995) and contained six items. This was modified by R. Birkin and M. Meehan in 2014 with the addition of three items to address using IT for job search and job applications, and also getting help to become familiar with a new job.

22. Respondents could select up to three barriers

Contact

Email: socialresearch@gov.scot

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