Service Providers and Stakeholders' Survey
 
As part of the range of employability support that the City of Edinburgh Council offers, they fund third party grants under the banner of the Network of Employability Support and Training (NEST). The aim of these grants are to support Edinburgh citizens to access and progress along the Employability Strategic Skills Pipeline with the goal of securing and sustaining training and employment. The NEST grants target gaps in provision and focus on specialist services to complement the employability landscape in Edinburgh. These grants are due to expire on 31 March 2022. 

Additional funding from Scottish Government for local employability delivery is expected to be provided to the City of Edinburgh Council as part of the second phase of the No One Left Behind (NOLB) employability transformation in Scotland from 1 April 2022.

The Council is now undertaking joint co-production, consultation and research for NEST and the NOLB Phase 2 implementation. This allows for the potential alignment of both funding streams, identifying current good practice and preventing duplication.

A Consultation event took place on 26 May to begin this period of Co-Production. Presentations and video recordings from the session are available on the Joined Up For Jobs Website. You may find it useful to view the presentations before completing the survey to provide the context of the review.

The Council would value your input to this process and would appreciate you taking the time to complete this survey to provide your opinions. All elements of the co-production process will help shape future services to best meet the needs of Edinburgh citizens.
 
The survey closes at 5pm on the Friday 2 July 2021. The information you provide on this survey will only be used to help the Council shape new services and will not be shared with any other party.

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* 1. What do you believe have been the main positives and negatives of the current programmes:
  • The Council’s Employability Third Party Grants (NEST)?
  • Employability Fund?
  • Community Jobs Scotland?

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* 2. What should the priorities be for the fund from April 2022?
Topics you may wish to consider:
  • Should there be specific focus on any of the stages of the Strategic Skills Pipeline? If so, why?
  • Should it foster innovation?
  • Should it focus on specific client groups?
  • Should it focus on specific age groups?
  • Should there be a focus on specific and/or emerging sectors?
  • Should it ensure geographical coverage?
  • Should it provide support for employers and in-work support?
  • Should there be a focus on linking with other Council priorities, such as the Twenty Minute Neighbourhood and other community-level objectives?

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* 3. Taking into account national and local employability provision, what are the gaps that NOLB2 and NEST should focus on?
(For example, consider services already within the Strategic Skills Pipeline and wider Young Person’s Guarantee activity.)

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* 4. What kind of outcomes should we be looking for from this fund?
(For example, should this focus on more health, wellbeing and specialist support outcomes at the early stages of the pipeline, employment outcomes or in-work and progression outcomes?)

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* 5. There is currently a £75k cap for bids with the Third Party Grants with the average awards around £50k. Should the cap be maintained?

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* 6. We are currently considering options for how to allocate this funding and whether it should be a grants process or under a contract framework. What are your thoughts?

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* 7. Currently, applications for Third Party Grants are submitted to an email address as a Microsoft Word document. Do you have any other suggestions for completion and submission of applications that you believe would work better?
(For example, as an online document or form?)

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* 8. We are interested in getting feedback about the mechanisms for reporting and grant management. Do you believe the current reporting mechanisms for the 3 funds are proportionate and do you have any thoughts on how this could be adapted and improved?

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* 9. Anything else we need to consider?

Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey. It will help the City of Edinburgh Council to make informed decisions about future employability services.

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