8. WHAT STILL NEEDS TO BE DONE
The Workforce Plus Common Assessment Subgroup see this report as part of an ongoing process where there is much work still to be done, despite having discharged their original remit.
Some more detailed issues around the application of the needs led model were listed earlier and are repeated here, and these relate to:
- adapting it to the Workforce Plus context and language.
- emphasising early client engagement as central to pre-referral and referral.
- considering reducing the number of stages (functional and direct assessment possibly collapsed into one stage) to keep complexity to a minimum.
- making more explicit the four Workforce Plus stages, e.g. employment before sustained employment.
- ensuring the process of client engagement and the stages of professional activity are clear.
- including client 'loop journeys' (i.e. when going between providers).
Additionally, a number of other developments need to be progressed.
- The case study material considered by the Subgroup is based largely on young people in the MCMC group. Given the more joined-up approach to MCMC and Workforce Plus, it will be important to generate good case study material for adult workless people on the employability journey and test the robustness of the current Common Assessment Framework for their situations.
- The Subgroup's report has drawn heavily on only a small number of local employability partnerships. Work around assessment will mature in a number of localities, hopefully stimulated by this report, and the good practices generated in these areas will need to be captured in due course.
- There is scope to enter a development process where local partnerships try to design and agree some key common parts of the process, such as a common tool for measuring distance travelled. It is a logical development of the work carried out for this report, but it would need a number of local partnerships and local partners to commit the time to make it happen.
- This report has not explored the role of funders, particularly those operating at the Scottish and UK levels, in supporting or even promoting the development of common and shared assessments. The discussion of the business case in this report can form the basis for beginning a dialogue with these funders.
- Finally, it will be necessary to evaluate the efforts of local partnerships to implement a Common Assessment Framework, and to share the lessons with the localities through the National Delivery Group.