April 2022

Welsh employment support services extended

27/04/22

The Out of Work Service and In-Work Support Service, which are helping Welsh people to rebuild their lives, will be extended until 2025.

The Out of Work Service helps the most vulnerable and those "furthest away from the labour market". It is specifically focused on providing long term support to people recovering from mental health or substance misuse issues. The service provides support through a national network of peer mentors – people who have themselves recovered from issues such as mental ill-health or substance misuse. 

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DfE publishes Supported Internship support contract

06/04/22

DfE has published details of its Investment in Supported Internships Programme support contract. The contract is split into 2 lots: one to strengthen delivery of the Supported Internship programme and one to deliver job coach training. Bids are invited before 13 May and must be submitted through the Jaggaer e-procurement portal.

The DfE wants to build the capacity of the SI programme and are aiming to double the number of SIs from c.2,250 internship enrolments per annum to c.4,500 per annum by 2025.

 

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Supported Internship quality framework published

06/04/22

The Supported Internship Quality Framework has been published. It was developed for the Department for Education by the Education and Training Foundation and their centres of excellence. The framework has been developed over the last 6 months and aims to improve the quality of Supported Internships (SIs) provision and outcomes. BASE has fed into discussions and we have asked for a review of the framework in 12 months.

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IPES performance statistics

04/04/22

DWP has published statistics for the Intensive Personalised Employment Support (IPES) programme following a Freedom of Information request from BASE. The statistics have not been publically available until now despite IPES starting delivery in late 2019.

The data shows that there have been a total of 6044 programme starts since December 2019. 1071 lower threshold outcomes have been achieved so far resulting in 787 higher threshold outcomes.

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