No One Left Behind User Experience Research

3. Findings in detail

Detailed findings from the research are set out below. They are structured as answers to each of the key research questions set out in section 2.1 of this report.

3.1 What is the role of the Employability Child Poverty Coordinators and is there consistency in how this is understood by different stakeholders?

3.1.1 What do stakeholders see as the overall purpose and objectives of the Coordinator?

Across local authorities who participated in the research, stakeholders consistently felt that the overall strategic purpose of the Coordinator role is to improve the alignment and integration of parental employability services. There were no participants who felt unclear about the role of their local Coordinator or had a significantly different understanding of the purpose of the role. Stakeholders consistently expected their Coordinator to:

• Establish a thorough understanding of the provision of employability and child poverty services in their local area
• Encourage links between services in their local authority to ensure there are no gaps or duplication
• Have a thorough understanding of the drivers of child poverty and parental underemployment in their local authority, and work with partners to address these

Before the implementation of the Coordinator role, stakeholders felt there was a clear need for such a role. In some local authorities, work to coordinate parental employability provision was felt to be held back by capacity and resourcing constraints, and handled by colleagues as a secondary duty that took time away from their primary responsibilities. In others, there was felt to be a disconnect between ‘siloed’ employability and child poverty teams that reduced the potential for joined-up working on parental employability. It was felt that there was a need for a focussed role to give the issue the capacity it deserves, with central, ringfenced funding from the Scottish Government to support it and ensure dedicated resource could be maintained.

“[Before the introduction of the Coordinator role], there was no provision for dedicated support to the Local Employability Partnership group, [and the] same for provision for grant funded support to local training providers, and also no trainee programme within the Council.”

– A Local Authority stakeholder, Qualitative survey response

3.2 How have the Employability Child Poverty Coordinators been implemented across different Local Authorities, and how did those experiences vary across the country?

3.2.1 How have local authorities established the Coordinator role within their local area?

Local authorities across Scotland received funding from the Scottish Government to establish the Coordinator role, hiring and paying a postholder. The funding has been provided on an annual basis through the ‘No One Left Behind’ approach, and is ring-fenced for this purpose.

For most of the local authorities who responsed to this research, the local authority was able to hire a post holder after a fairly straightforward recruitment process. A small number of local authorities, however, reported struggling to fill the role or relied on interim post-holders for extended periods of time. This was attributed either to contextual factors around specific local authorities (e.g. isolated geography) or a perception that the short-term contract offered may be unappealing. In one local authority, an attempt to host the role within a partner organisation fell through, meaning that recruitment had to be restarted, and wasn’t completed for 12-18 months after the funding became available.

In almost all participating local authorities, the Coordinator role was established within a pre-exisiting Employability team and has remained there ever since, with the exception of single local authority where the role sat within a Child Poverty team.

Stakeholders and Coordinators consistently reported that their local authority provided organisational resource to create and maintain the role, including:

• A line manager to offer support, guidance, and feedback.
• Practical resources such as a laptop and office supplies.

3.2.2 What are the typical duties of the Coordinator?

Across all participating local authorities, the duties of the Coordinator were informed by a combination of guidance from national approaches (i.e. No One Left behind), as well as local authority perceptions of how the role could add the most value in the context of their local area. Stakeholders felt the specification for the role set out by the Scottish Government allowed for a degree of flexibility for local authorities to shape the job description to meet the needs of their local area.

In practice, this means that the way the role operates varies considerably between local authorities. For example, one local authority reflected that the job description for their Coordinator was built around coordinating interventions to support families in especially deep poverty, such as services to support the development of reading and writing skills or provide basic monetary skills. In another, there was more of an emphasis placed on establishing wraparound support for parents to support them into work.

Despite this variation, there are several ‘core’ activities which were consistently reported as being part of the Coordinator role. All participating local authorities reported that the Coordinator was responsible for:

• Building partnerships with external stakeholders and services, and within different departments of the local authority. This includes building new relationships and working to strengthen existing ones. In practice this takes three forms:
  • Building relationships with existing partner services in the local employability landscape, with a view to identifying potential areas for collaboration, cross-referral, and synergy.
  • Developing relationships between different teams within local authorities, with a view to reducing ‘siloes’ and duplication, identifying gaps in provision, and sharing knowledge.
  • Reaching out to potential new partner organisations, such as businesses and third-party organisations in their local area with the goal of involving them in the provision of employability services.
  • Developing formalised referral systems where there is an agreement for a referral to be triggered under specific circumstances. This can happen on a one-to-one basis or as part of engagement with networks. For example, one stakeholder reported that their Coordinator had set up a formal ‘two-way referral process’ with their local Child Wellbeing Partnership (CWP).
  • Awareness-raising and marketing to potential service users. Often Coordinators developed marketing materials such as leaflets and posters, sharing information about available employability support. These materials were usually shared with colleagues as a learning resource or placed where potential service users are likely to come into contact with them, such as GP surgeries, supermarkets, and religious spaces. Some Coordinators also conducted direct outreach by attending local meetings, such as mother and baby sessions, or support groups, to raise awareness of the support services available.
  • Organising ‘one stop shop’ events where multiple agencies and services gather together in a single location for parents to attend and learn about the various types of support available to them.
• Developing new referral pathways. Coordinators were typically felt to be aiming to increase the number of referrals to parental employability services by developing robust referral pathways with local services. Stakeholders reported several different ways in which Coordinators have attempted to achieve this:
  • Engaging with new and existing partners. Coordinators typically communicated with these partners – either through one-to-one contact or through engagement with networks/working groups - to raise awareness of the services available to parents in need, and how these can be accessed, in the hope that they will make or encourage referrals. In one local authority, the Coordinator worked with local NHS and Public Health to reach out to Nurses and GPs to encourage them to direct patients who may benefit from employability support to contact the local authority employability team.
  • Developing formalised referral systems where there is an agreement for a referral to be triggered under specific circumstances. This can happen on a one-to-one basis or as part of engagement with networks. For example, one stakeholder reported that their Coordinator had set up a formal ‘two-way referral process’ with their local Child Wellbeing Partnership (CWP).
  • Awareness-raising and marketing to potential service users. Often Coordinators developed marketing materials such as leaflets and posters, sharing information about available employability support. These materials were usually shared with colleagues as a learning resource or placed where potential service users are likely to come into contact with them, such as GP surgeries, supermarkets, and religious spaces. Some Coordinators also conducted direct outreach by attending local meetings, such as mother and baby sessions, or support groups, to raise awareness of the support services available.
  • Organising ‘one stop shop’ events where multiple agencies and services gather together in a single location for parents to attend and learn about the various types of support available to them.
• Codesigning services. In many of the local authorities who took part in this research, part of the Coordinator’s work was to bring together relevant stakeholders and engage with networks/working groups. The Coordinator’s unique ‘big picture’ understanding of the parental employability landscape in their local authority means they are well-placed to lead (or contribute heavily to) the codesign and planning sessions to develop new/improved services or pathways. Several stakeholders mentioned that this work by their Coordinator had led to the creation of an ‘action plan’ to introduce or redesign services to meet a particular need. In some local authorities the Coordinator does not play quite such an active or leading role in service design, instead contributing by connecting relevant colleagues and facilitating conversations to enable service pathway development.
• Engaging with national networks to share and implement best practice. Stakeholders and Coordinators alike consistently reported that there is a well-established national network of Coordinators which is frequently used to share learning and best practice. Coordinators spoken to as part of this research reported attending this network.

Beyond these ‘core’ activities, the Coordinator role is being implemented flexibly according to the needs of each local authority. Examples of other duties performed by Coordinators in some areas include:

• Mapping services to identify ‘gaps’ in provision or areas of duplication. This was reported to be taking place in many local authorities across Scotland, but the extent to which the Coordinator drives this varied. Mapping was typically conducted as a collaborative process by the local authority’s employability team and other local partners. In some cases the Coordinator owned or led this process, taking a coordination role, sharing their knowledge on what services are currently available, and bringing together other stakeholders with institutional knowledge. In other local authorities, mapping was owned by another member of the employability team, with the Coordinator acting as one of many participants.
• Collection and analysis of data/evidence on employability and child poverty in the local area. This was being conducted to varying degrees across local authorities. For some local authorities who took part in the research, this work was undertaken by the Coordinator and was one of their key responsibilities. Sometimes this extended as far as taking primary responsibility for monitoring and evaluating the local authority’s employability programmes and reporting findings back to funders (including the Scottish Government). In other local authorities, the work did not fall into the remit of the Coordinator and was instead managed by other colleagues. There were some local authorities where the evidence gathering process was less formalised. Instead, an institutional knowledge of employability services and employment in the local authority was developed through cross organisational networks and external partnerships, often led by the Coordinator.
• Promotion of good practice with local employers. In some local authorities, the Coordinator was reported to be responsible for direct outreach to employers to guide them on how their working practices could be adapted to help support parents into work (e.g. flexible working). This sometimes included offering employers direct advice on request around how specific job adverts could attract parents who face barriers to employment.

3.3 Early examples of public services being aligned and integrated within local areas as a result of the role

It is too early to assess the longer-term impact of the Coordinator role on parents of low-income families. However as part of the qualitative survey, stakeholders were asked to rate the extent to which they felt the Coordinator role had made a difference in improving the integration and coordination of employment services for parents in their area from 1-5 (1 meaning ‘has made no difference at all’ and 5 meaning ‘has made a big difference’).The average response was 4.4/5. This is supported by the wider evidence gathered through this evaluation and suggests the Coordinator role is contributing to early improvements in the alignment and integration of services across Scotland.

Although approaches vary between Local Authorities (as outlined in section 3.2), the research identified several areas where the Coordinator role was felt to be contributing to delivery of greater alignment and integration of services. These are summarised below, with illustrative examples from the research:

• Stakeholders working in employability or child poverty have a clearer understanding of the services available in their local area. This was felt to have strengthened referral pathways by promoting a ‘no wrong door’ approach where parents can be linked with the services they need, regardless of their entry point. Research participants consistently attributed this to the work of the Coordinator in raising awareness of the services available through engagement with partners, the development of new networks and working groups, and marketing activities (as described in more detail in section 3.2). Examples of this include:
  • A local authority stakeholder reported that the Coordinator had built a signposting service for local authority colleagues, with up-to-date information on local resources and services like childcare and transport links. This enabled colleagues to have a strong understanding of the types of services that were available, and to effectively direct potential service users to them.
  • A local authority stakeholder referred to the work done by the Coordinator to increase awareness of employability services and pathways outside of the local authority itself. Connections established with social services, maternity staff, health visitors, local schools and third sector partners had increased awareness of the pathways for parents, were felt to be leading to an increase in referrals.
  • A local authority stakeholder reported that their Coordinator played a key role in a recent project to map local employability services. They coordinated this activity by gathering intelligence from partners, highlighting gaps in provision (particularly in more remote communities), and identifying areas where services appeared to be duplicating effort. The stakeholder reported this had helped partners redirect resources, clarify target groups, and avoid families being passed between similar services.
  • A local authority colleague reflected that before the introduction of the Coordinator role, the employability team did not have the capacity to develop, innovate or introduce new programmes or services for parents. Since the Coordinator has been in post, new programmes and services have been introduced, thanks to the increased capacity provided.
• Gaps and areas of duplication in service provision have been identified and addressed. Research participants reported that their local Coordinator had used the ‘knowledge base’ they had built from mapping activities, collection and analysis of data, and developing relationships with other stakeholders in the local authority, to suggest areas where service provision could be strengthened (for example, through the commissioning of new services by their LEP). In some cases, Coordinators were reported to have directly led the development and commissioning of new services to fill gaps. Examples of this include:
  • A Coordinator in a local authority reported that they had led a ‘skills gap analysis’ with local businesses. The findings were used to create recommendations on how training courses offered in partnership with local businesses could be tailored to equip local parents to fill these skill gaps.
  • A local authority stakeholder reported that their Coordinator played a key role in a recent project to map local employability services. They coordinated this activity by gathering intelligence from partners, highlighting gaps in provision (particularly in more remote communities), and identifying areas where services appeared to be duplicating effort. The stakeholder reported this had helped partners redirect resources, clarify target groups, and avoid families being passed between similar services.
  • A local authority colleague reflected that before the introduction of the Coordinator role, the employability team did not have the capacity to develop, innovate or introduce new programmes or services for parents. Since the Coordinator has been in post, new programmes and services have been introduced, thanks to the increased capacity provided.
• Capacity for employability work within local authorities has increased. Many stakeholders reported that the introduction of the Coordinator role had significantly increased capacity within their local authority’s employability team. Coordinators (and in some cases the officers they employ) have been able to find efficiencies and better support Employability teams. The role also appears to have complemented the work of existing Child Poverty Leads as opposed to duplicating it or acting as an unhelpful counterbalance. This has enabled employability and child poverty teams to be more effective, delivering or coordinating a wider range of services, and allowed stakeholders who were previously using some of their capacity to coordinate parental employability services to focus on their core responsibilities. Examples of this include:
  • One local authority stakeholder reported the introduction of the Coordinator role had effectively linked together the poverty work and employability work being undertaken within their local authority, reducing duplication of effort between the teams. This had increased resource and established a clear focus and strategy for the poverty and employability work to work together.
  • A local authority colleague reflected that before the introduction of the Coordinator role, the employability team did not have the capacity to develop, innovate or introduce new programmes or services for parents. Since the Coordinator has been in post, new programmes and services have been introduced, thanks to the increased capacity provided.

“There was a definite need for this role as PES requires a dedicated and targeted focus. Prior to this role, there was limited capacity and resource - there were pockets of good practice - but limited in reach.”

– A Local Authority stakeholder, Qualitative consultation survey

3.4 What has worked well in implementing the roles and what could be improved?

3.4.1 What is working well

The following themes summarise the aspects of the Coordinator role that appear to have worked well so far, contributing to the delivery of the positive outcomes described in section 3.3 of this report:

• Dedicated capacity for coordination. Coordinators (and in some cases the officers they employ) often acted as ‘extra pairs of hands’ in employability teams that wouldn’t exist without Scottish Government funding for the role. Stakeholders feel this has enabled employability teams to be more effective, delivering or coordinating a wider range of services, and allowed stakeholders who were previously using some of their capacity to coordinate to return to their core tasks.
• The flexibility of the role. Many stakeholders acknowledged that the Scottish Government has not been too prescriptive on how the role should function, and they broadly saw this as enabling postholders to deliver positive outcomes. In practice this is usually achieved by focussing on the development of different services that suit the local area. Research participants reported examples of coordinators straying beyond the traditional confines of what counts as ‘parental employability’ when they feel it would lead to better outcomes for families experiencing poverty (such as engaging schools, and developing pathways to help 16–19-year-olds into work), and praised the ability to do this as a strength of the role.
• The position of the Coordinator as a ‘link’ between employability and child poverty teams. Siloed working between these teams had previously been seen as a key weak spot in the ability of local authorities to offer a well-coordinated parental employability offering. Local authorities who took part in the research felt the Coordinator acted as a ‘link’ between these teams. This was felt to have resulted in improved collaborative working to tackle challenges that sit across both remits.
• The role of the Coordinator as a ‘knowledge base’ for local areas. Coordinators are felt to be well-placed to see the ‘big picture’ in terms of gaps and duplication in service provision. Stakeholders were able to directly reference examples where gaps in provision had been filled as a result of their Coordinator’s knowledge of activities and services across the employability and child poverty spaces, as well as their understanding of data and evidence around the needs of parents in their local area. This was attributed to their mapping work, their work to collect and analyse data and evidence around employability and child poverty in their local area, and the breadth of relationships they held with stakeholders in their area (both within and external to their local authority). Stakeholders who participated in the research provided examples of their local Coordinator using this knowledge to suggest and develop improvements to the breadth and suitability of service provision in their local authority.
• The centrality of the Coordinator in networks and partnership working. According to research participants, the work of Coordinators to establish new networks and working groups, and maintain these through email and newsletter updates, meant that stakeholders across those local authorities had developed improved awareness of the parental employability landscape in their area. This was felt to have strengthened referral pathways by ensuring that a wider range of stakeholders were able to direct parents to services suitable for them.

“The Employability Child Poverty Coordinator brings all partners together, including people with lived experience, to plan and develop referral pathways in the area. This has been working well, and the [Coordinator] has built positive relationships across the authority to support this.”

– A Local Authority stakeholder, Qualitative consultation survey

3.4.2 What could be improved

While stakeholders viewed the role positively overall, several areas for improvement in how it is implemented were identified.

Short-term funding of Coordinator posts was consistently felt to constrain the effectiveness of the role. Coordinator roles are typically offered as fixed-term or temporary contracts tied to time-limited 'No One Left Behind' cycles, as opposed to permanent posts. The same is often true of funding for projects or partnerships spearheaded by Coordinators. Across local authorities who took part in this research, stakeholders and Coordinators alike felt this arrangement makes it more difficult for local authorities to:

• Attract and retain quality post-holders: Stakeholders were concerned that the short, fixed-term contracts given to Coordinators are unappealing, and may deter highly-qualified potential candidates who would prefer a permanent position. A small number also speculated that with little long-term job security, talented Coordinators may be tempted to leave for permanent positions elsewhere.
• Establish long term relationships with partners: Coordinators sensed that some potential partners were unwilling to invest time and funds into new initiatives and relationships without assurances that the local authority would be able to sustain their end of the arrangement (including both project funding and the Coordinator post itself) in the long term.

The Coordinator role was felt to be less effective and more challenging when located outside the employability team. Coordinators typically sit within their local authority’s employability team. Where this was not the case, it was felt to limit the ability of the post holder to build relationships with and influence key stakeholders within the local authority. This issue was summarised by a Local Authority stakeholder who completed the qualitative consultation survey:

“One barrier that has limited the effectiveness of the Employability Child Poverty Coordinator in our area is that the role is not based within the employability service… this has impacted their ability to influence delivery and prioritise actions directly within employability, which can limit the overall impact of the role in driving change or coordinating activity effectively.”

– A Local Authority stakeholder, Qualitative survey response

In some areas, the Coordinator did not appear to have access to the data and evidence they felt they needed in their role. The level of existing data or evidence related to parental employability in the local area available to Coordinators varied significantly across Scotland. For some local authorities, the formalised collection and analysis of data about family needs, the employment landscape and other key data points at a local level was limited or did not previously exist at all. In some cases, this was felt to limit the ability of the Coordinator to properly identify gaps in provision and design new services to fill these.

Whilst there is clear evidence that Coordinators are consistently engaging with LEP networks, it is unclear if or how best practice learnt from these networks is being implemented at a local level. Stakeholders did not identify concrete examples of this, and further evidence collection is required to understand the extent to which this is taking place.

3.5 How is the impact of the Coordinators’ work being measured?

The Theory of Change (section 2.4) set out the anticipated outputs, outcomes and longer term impacts of the Coordinator role.

Plain text version:

Outcomes include improved integration of services, clarity around service availability, reduced duplication of services, identified gaps, evidence based service provision and best practice adopted.

Impact includes well-integrated and coordinated suite of services in local areas leading to more parents in sustainable and fair work.

Assumptions include child poverty remaining a high priority, continuation of the No One Left Behind approach, buy-in from local authorities and stakeholders and unique context in local areas informing the ECPC role.

The evidence gathered supports delivery of the expected outputs (section 3.2.2).There is also some initial evidence which suggests some anticipated outcomes are being realised (section 3.3). There is a challenge in measuring progress towards outcomes, as these are not easily quantifiable. It is therefore understandable that local authorities seemed to rely on more informal measures in assessing progress, typically including:

• Observing the delivery of key outputs and outcomes such as new services, programmes, partnerships, and networks/working groups.
• Feedback from colleagues and stakeholders on the activity of the Coordinator, often focussed on the extent to which they have improved the sense of integration and cross-team working between local authority teams and external stakeholders, or stakeholder awareness of key employability services. Some mentioned using formal mechanisms for collecting this feedback including surveys with service users and delivery partners, case studies, and ‘360 feedback’ collection with colleagues.

While it is too early to expect longer term impacts to be realised, the research did find some examples of local authorities using empirical data to understand the impact of the work of their local Coordinator. Their means of doing so were:

• The collection and analysis of data related to outcomes within the local authority. Examples included the proportion of parents experiencing positive outcomes following engagement with a service introduced by the Coordinator, the number of parents being referred to or accessing employability services, and the number of places available for parents in new services (e.g. funded childminding places).
• Analysis of national dataon child poverty statistics – for example, one local authority reported that the child poverty rate in their area had reduced, moving them from having the 2^nd highest level in Scotland to the 9^th, which they attributed at least in part to the work of the local Coordinator.

Local authorities may find it an ongoing challenge to robustly measure and evaluate the longer term impacts of the role in their area, and establish a causal relationship between any changes and the work of the Coordinator.

3.6 Were there particular skills and attributes that helped post holders achieve their aims more effectively?

While stakeholders did not identify a specific set of skills or attributes that make a Coordinator more effective in their role, it is clear that prior experience working in an employability service or setting is considered a strength for new coordinators. Evidence from some local authorities suggests Coordinators have been hired with this experience in mind. Some Coordinators reported experience in employability from other public or third party services, with some even having been recruited into the role from within the pre-existing employability team in the same local authority. This experience provides Coordinators with a strong grounding in what employability services look like, and the challenges being faced by families in regards to employment, enabling these Coordinators to “hit the ground running”.

As evidenced throughout this report, relationship building is an essential part of the Coordinator role, in relation to both establishing new relationships and building on pre-exisiting ones. This suggests that Coordinators need to be excellent communicators who are comfortable proactively reaching out to prospective partners, effectively sharing their vision for employability services in a way that encourages partners to get involved.