The future of Specialist Employment Provision

for Disabled People

Huw Davies

BASE

http://base-uk.org

What works?

For people with more substantial

disabilities:

Supported employment!

• Place, train & maintain

• 5 phases plus career development

• Proactive client engagement

• Holistic vocational profiling

• Work awareness

• Person-centred action planning

• Durable employer engagement

• Rapid, individualised job search

• Thoughtful job matching

• Just enough support & consistency

What doesn’t work?

• Waiting for clients to engage

• Traffic light assessments

• Using a “job readiness” model

• CV preparation & job clubs

• Automated job search

• Competitive interviews

• Lack of retention support

(Progression)

• Work Choice?

• Capped programmes

• Work capability assessment

Differentiial provision

What’s different?

• People don’t tend to engage with

JCP

• Links to local services:

• social care, health, education,

housing

• Complexity of barriers

• Employer attitudes

• Intensity of support

• Need for specialist techniques eg

TSI

• Need for consistent support

Personalisation

When existing Work Choice contracts expire, the Department should

consider rolling Work Choice funding into individual budgets with

Access to Work.

This would simplify the system into one general Work Programme and

one individual budget-based programme so individuals have a choice

over the support that they most need. This would build on learning from

the Right to Control trailblazers.

Sayce Review

Personalisation means thinking about public services and social care in

an entirely different way – starting with the person rather than the

service. It will require transformation of the way we deliver public

services.

Julie Jones, Chief Executive, SCIE

Personalisation

Personalisation – 4 elements

Community facilities and

services that we all use,

e.g. transport, leisure,

health, education,

housing and access to

information and

advice

People as participants in

their communities,

friendships and family

relationships - individuals

with lives and relationships

Support that’s

available for people

to stay independent

for as long as

possible

People choosing who provides their support and what form that support takes, and controlling when and where those services are provided, rather than being expected to fit in with what’s already on offer

Personalisation

Personalisation is NOT:

• A single work programme

• A completely new idea

• Just about giving people individual

budgets

• Only for people eligible for Council

funding or those needing

traditional services only

Personal budgets: Challenges for providers

Pricing Challenges

• What do commissioners want?

• The hourly rate and price differentials

• Funding what we know works

• Incentivising outcomes: PbR

Marketing challenges

• Selling to informed customers

• Differentiation (M&S or Netto)

• Selling more than jobs

Delivery challenges

• A professionalising sector

• Maintaining quality & safeguarding

• Balancing risk, independence, learning, progression

Personal budgets: Challenges for clients

What’s being bought?

• Job outcome or process

• Product knowledge

• Provider capability & track record

• Quality issues

Choice & Control

• How much choice is there?

• What are the implications of

choice?

• How portable are the budgets?

• Management of individual

budgets

Learning from pilot projects

Project Search

• 1 in 3 gain employment

• Wider range of benefits

• Partnership with employers

• Family involvement

Jobs First

• Difficult to braid funding streams

• Insufficient funding

• Raised expectations

• Changed attitudes

Getting a Life

• 1 in 5 gain employment

• Driver for partnerships

• Improved transition

Right to Control

• Little take up of individual

budgets

• Little choice of provider

• Budgets are complex to

manage

• Lack of understanding of

indicative budgets

Possible directions forward

Local commissioning

• Training for commissioners

• A commissioning framework

• Realistic costs and evidence-

based delivery

Individual budgets

• Mix of strategic commissioning

and individual budgets

• Combined funding for individual

budgets

• Diverting existing wasted

spending

• Portable individual budgets

Possible directions forward

Delivery

• Quality as well as value

(inspection?)

• Better information for customers

• Professional standards

• Workforce development

• Model fidelity

• Better data sharing on what works