Facilitating employment of disabled and disadvantaged groups requires co-ordination, transparency, and reduction of variability of access.
Supported employment is an evidence-based, personalised approach that provides support to people with disabilities or other disadvantaged groups to secure and maintain paid employment in the open labour market.
There is a complex mixture of local and national provision of supported employment across Scotland. There is a high variability in access rates. There is an opportunity to improve access for clients with learning disabilities, and autistic people.
The review also found variations in the quality of support on offer throughout Scotland, with some examples of excellent supported employment services, and other examples of services that were not delivering the full 5-stage model and could benefit from additional support to improve delivery.
The research identified three key themes and goals to be addressed in future supported employment delivery.
- 1. reduce variability of access across different Local Authority areas;
- 2. increase transparency of data collection and outcomes; and
- 3. standardise quality assurance of supported employment.