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In December 2011, we accepted a report by Stewart Black. This is the summary of the report.

GETTING THE JOB DONE?

Report of Consultation by CheckIn & Giraffe

Summary

In Autumn 2011, Check In and Giraffe (CI/G) carried out a fully comprehensive consultation with all who have an interest in CI/G and their activities - job seekers; the parents or carers of the job seekers who were referrers; local employers; agencies making referrals, and potential future referrers; agencies which have a partnership with Check In and/or Giraffe: and other affiliated bodies.

The purpose of the consultation was to get feedback on how well CI/G are doing at present in meeting the needs of disadvantaged job seekers, and also to take soundings on the possible future activities of CI/G.

Overall, two major, high-level conclusions emerged from the consultation: consultees

  1. Provided a strong affirmation of the value the work CI/G are carrying out at present, and the underlying approach involved (e.g. offering paid work, addressing social inclusion in the workplace, tacking job seeker’s quality of life as well as employability needs)
  2. wish to see an expansion of existing activities, with some fresh activities added.

The consultation has proved to be very valuable, because it was authoritative in identifying so many useful findings and conclusions.

The four immediate conclusions which can be drawn from analysing consultees’ responses are:

  1. the value of having carried out the consultation is clear from the large number of proposals it triggered
  2. there is a relatively high level of consensus on many of the recurring themes (e.g. the value in expanding paid work, the social inclusiveness of the CI/G model, the value in expanding the range of vulnerable groups; new models of training and alternatives to college; the value of supporting employers; etc)
  3. these recurring themes all reflect a single major, underlying theme – that the consultees all see the current approach taken by CI/G as one which is already effective, so that the proposals are all made to improve a successful model (rather than being made to fundamentally alter it, by setting it in a new direction)
  4. in the short term, and without additional resources is may not be possible to pursue all proposals – or even the most popular among them.

More specifically, it is possible to identify the major themes at ii) above. There are 5 of these themes. They are not listed in any order of priority. The themes are: -

Theme 1 Expand paid work, and also social enterprise trading: There is consensus from consultees that CI/G rightly aim to create paid work opportunities (as contrasted with other options, including volunteering), and expansion is needed. Several consultees related this to another theme – the already successful social enterprise model which Giraffe represents, whose expansion consultees support, partly because it should lead to more paid employment opportunities for a greater number of job seekers.
Theme 2 Continue to develop the social inclusiveness of the CI/G model: Consultees praised the CI/G model of ‘social inclusion via the workplace’ and wish it to be continued. It is valued both for its ‘quality of life’ and for it’s employability value. There were no major proposals for change in the model itself – more that it should be expanded to serve a growing number of job seekers.
Theme 3 Expand the range of vulnerable groups: Again there was consensus that CI/G expand in scope to serve 3 new groups – the homeless, addicts and ex-offenders. CI/G were already interested in pursuing this, and are currently deciding how best to achieve it.
Theme 4 Develop new models of training and alternatives to college: There are several issues which relate to this theme – the need to expand the range of skills for which training should be offered to job seekers (to reflect their aspirations and also to meet local labour market needs); the need for a higher proportion of training to be accredited; and the value in designing training which offers a more effective employability opportunities that college, at least for some job seekers.
Theme 5

Expand move-on employment/support for employers: This is of course a major challenge – yet is also perhaps the major opportunity - for all employability bodies. The consultees’ responses suggest they see CI/G as perhaps better-positioned than other bodies to address this (as their discussion of the uniqueness of the CI/G model suggests). A related consultation issue is how best to measure success in this area. However, it is clear that the key to success here relates to the major issue of support for employers. This topic attracted a considerable volume of proposals, and not only from employers themselves. The responses form the employers suggest that the provision of support is the main key to persuading them to consider providing the 5 employment opportunities discussed in the consultation.

(Employment opportunities: full-time work and workplace experiences e.g. shadowing/work tasting, volunteering/unpaid work experience, part-time paid work, full-time temporary work.)