Working communities
Addressing employability
We have played an instrumental part in helping regional and local agencies map and integrate employability services into a coherent, operational framework. We developed the regional employability framework for the North East on behalf of North East of England Regional Skills Partnership (One NorthEast, LSC, JCP, NE Employer Coalition, Government Office North East). The Framework aimed to help the funding partners to allocate resources in a coherent and coordinated way to ensure that they were creating a complete supply chain of engagement, assessment, specialist support, vocational training, work placement and post recruitment support. Our approach provided a means for the funding partners to gain much higher performance (people into sustainable work) using existing resources and transforming the current confusing and fragmented service for individuals and employers.
We have worked with the local partners to develop similar approaches to enhancing performance in other areas including Fife and Dumfries and Galloway.
Understanding exclusion
The current economic climate has highlighted the difficulties faced by individuals who are over-indebted, cannot access finance or not able to manage their financial affairs. All of these factors contribute to the barriers of communities in achieving economic well being. We delivered a piece of research mapping the extent and location of financial exclusion and incapability across the East of England. We looked at five financial exclusion variables including lack of a current account, no home contents insurance and past credit refusal to understand the severity of financial exclusion for individuals and communities. In addition we mapped the supply of money advice and financial services across the region. This comprehensive mapping exercise was the first step in assisting EEDA and its stakeholders shape and deliver support to financially excluded individuals across the region. This work is being conducted in the North East and South East regions, supported by a national study on behalf of Friends Provident Foundation.