Knowledge Base

Over the last five years, various aspects of employment and skills policy have formed a significant element of devolution policies. City Deals and Growth Deals in particular have focused (to varying degrees) on aspects of youth employment programmes, adult skills provision and vocational training in order to respond to the needs of specific areas.

Disability Rights UK has published a summary of the Closing the Skills Gap reports. The report highlights their findings on the skills young disabled people need to get into employment; and on skills for people who acquire impairments or conditions during working life. Their findings, based on the two reports, stress: * the importance of peer to peer support * a need for disabled people to be able to exercise choice and control There are critical success factors from the 2 reports:

Through several policies and programmes, including the Department of Communities and Local Government's Our Place and Delivering Differently, The Public Service Transformation Network and the Commissioning Academy, the government is supporting local commissioners to design and implement commissioning models.

This report evaluates a scheme that provided employment support based on the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) model, alongside the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme. The pilot was 1 of 4 commissioned by the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions based on recommendations in the 2014 report Psychological Wellbeing and Work: Improving Service Provision and Outcomes. It was designed to test service design, methods of tracking findings and initial effects.