Shetland’s Commission on Tackling Inequalities Session 5: Pathways of Individuals 23rd November, 2015

Shetland’s Commission on Tackling Inequalities

Session 5: Pathways of Individuals23rd November, 2015

Purpose of Session

Early Intervention and Prevention to Address Failure Demand: Pathways for Individuals

At a national level, Shetland performs highly for educationalattainment, positive destinations for young people andemployment rates. In the context of the Christie Commission,the fifth session will examine the evidence available tounderstand the levels and reasons why some people performless well. The outputs will be used to inform earlyintervention and prevention in Shetland in order to reducesocio-economic inequalities.

Christie Commission & Inequalities

Dr Susan Laidlaw, Consultant in Public Health Medicine

Commission Findings

• The Commission believes Scotland's public services are in need of urgent and sustained reform to meet unprecedented challenges.– the pressure on budgets is intense and public spending is not

expected to return to 2010 levels in real terms for 16 years. – new demographic and social pressures will entail a huge

increase in the demand for public services. – the economic downturn will also intensify and prolong demand.

• Unless Scotland embraces a radical, new, collaborative culture throughout our public services, both budgets and provision will buckle under the strain.

Failure Demand

• Failure demand is a systems concept used in service organisations defined as as 'demand caused by a failure to do something or do something right for the customer'.

• It has been estimated that over 40 per cent of public service expenditure is attributable to ‘failure demand’ in Scotland, that is spending that could have been avoided by earlier intervention.

Failure Demand

Why do we take a reactive approach to failure demand?

• Resources are mostly used to deal with immediate problems to the exclusion of longer term initiatives;

• Unhelpful (but understandable) focus on short term results, sometimes because of political demands; and

• Organisations have a narrow focus on specific outcomes or outputs – and prevention not seen as central to the mission of the organisation.

Reducing Failure Demand

• Dealing with causes rather than symptoms • In current funding climate, however, a ‘decisive shift’ to

prevention can often require an element of disinvestment

• How do we decide: (a) What do we prioritised? (b) What should we cut?

• …. And, there are few votes in prevention?

Tackling Inequalities• Pooling budgets in support of a longer-term, outcomes-based

approach should allow preventative approaches to be prioritised. It should also contribute, over time, to a reduction in 'reactive' public expenditure by preventing duplication and reducing negative demand;

• Extending and deepening a local partnership approach can involve a wide range of public service organisations in coordinated and preventative approaches;

• Empowering front-line staff should promote greater initiative in identifying ways in which the causes of inequality can be tackled;

• Empowering people and communities to engage in the initiation, design and delivery of public services should support the development of preventative approaches; and

• Helping communities to achieve their own ambitions.

Key Objectives for Reform

• Ensure that public service organisations prioritise prevention, reduce inequalities and promote equality.

• Ensure that our public services are built around people and communities, their needs, aspirations, capacities and skills, and work to build up their autonomy and resilience.

Key Objectives cont.

• Ensure that public service organisations work together effectively to achieve outcomes - specifically, by delivering integrated services which help to secure improvements in the quality of life, and the social and economic wellbeing, of the people and communities of Scotland.

• Ensure that all public services constantly seek to improve performance and reduce costs, and are open, transparent and accountable.

The Role of Attainment & Participation

Evidence Base

Robin Calder, Quality Improvement Officer,

Children’s Services

Attainment & Participation

• National and Local Agenda around Attainment• Attainment Levels in Shetland, compared to:

– all local authorities;– island authorities; and– SIMD.

• Closing the Attainment Gap in Scottish Education (JRF)

• Local Action Plan• Some examination of uptake of Free School Meals

and participation

Current Agenda: national and local

“It cannot be emphasised enough thatattainment and the focus on exam passes is only

part of the picture and over the next three tofive years, other outcomes for young people,

including their literacy and numeracy skills, theiropportunities to access courses that focus on

wider achievement and their pathways throughthe Senior Phase in school and college will come

to the fore.”

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Current Agenda: national and local

Curriculum for Excellence: • Every child and young person is entitled to experience a curriculum which is coherent from 3

to 18;• Every child and young person is entitled to experience a broad general education (up to end

of Secondary 3);• Every young person is entitled to a senior phase where he or she can develop the four

capacities and also obtain qualifications (Secondary 4-6 and ages 16-18);• Every child and young person is entitled to develop skills for learning, life and work, with a

continued focus on literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing;• Every child and young person is entitled to personal support and challenge to enable them to

gain as much as possible from the opportunities within Curriculum for Excellence;• Every young person is entitled to support in moving into a positive and sustained destination

(post 16).As well as the extent to which our young people develop the four capacities of Curriculum for

Excellence:• Successful Learners;• Confident Individuals;• Effective Contributors;• Responsible Citizens.

National: Range and Spread of Performance Between Schools

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Other Island Authorities: Comparisons

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SIMD: 2013/14, National / Shetland

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SIMD: 2014/15, National / Shetland

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SIMD: 2014/15

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Closing the Attainment Gap• Scottish education serves many children well, but the attainment gap between pupils from

the richest and poorest backgrounds is wider than in many similar countries.• Preschool: Children from higher-income households significantly outperform those from low-

income households at ages 3 and 5. By age 5, there is gap of 10 months in problem-solving development, 13 months in vocabulary.

• Through school: A clear literacy gap in Primary 4 (ages 7–9) widens by Primary 7 (ages 10–12). By S2 (ages 12–14), more than twice as many students from the least deprived areas (as distinct from households) performed well in numeracy as those from the most deprived. The Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy found an attainment gap of 14–17 per cent for reading, 21 per cent for writing, and 12-28 per cent for numeracy from primary through to secondary school. Although overall attainment has risen slightly at the end of S4 (ages 14–16), the gap between the most and least deprived remains.

• Leaving school: Those from the most deprived families are consistently less likely to go into further/higher education, employment, training, or voluntary work. They are only one-third as likely as the least deprived to go into higher education (Scottish School Leavers Survey).

• Employment: Studies show that, by age 22–23, low attainers are more likely to be unemployed (12 per cent vs 4 per cent), work part-time (12 per cent vs 6 per cent), earn less (difference of £23.45 per week for men, £44.94 for women) and be in low-status jobs.

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Closing the Attainment Gap• Increasing and maintaining the focus on equity requires focused policy-

making and practice. The education community in Scotland needs to get better at creating and sharing knowledge in ways that focus on outcomes for children in poverty. Better evaluation will help practitioners distinguish between proven, promising and unproven approaches and decide how to make curriculum design and planning decisions that raise attainment for economically disadvantaged groups.

• Several bodies shape what happens in Scottish schools, although none directly controls curriculum design, content or implementation. A strong, shared focus on reducing the attainment gap over time requires deeper understanding of how poverty affects attainment.

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Closing the Attainment GapSome recommendations:• High-quality, full-day preschool education. • Parental involvement programmes, helping parents

support their children’s learning at home.• Literacy teaching works. • Children working together in small groups (co-

operative learning) • Mentoring (usually matching a volunteer mentor

with a disadvantaged student) can have a significant impact.

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Local Action Plan“The focus on attainment is very timely given recent interventions and developments by the Scottish Government in an effort to raise attainment nationally in literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing and reduce educational disadvantage among children from socially deprived areas of Scotland.”

• The Scottish Attainment Challenge.• The Education (Scotland) Bill 2015 proposes placing a

statutory duty on councils to narrow the attainmentgap from the most and least deprived areas.

• Draft National Improvement Framework will set out key priorities for young people, including:– closing the attainment gap between the most and least disadvantaged

children;– improvement in children and young people’s health and wellbeing;– improvement in sustained school leaver destinations for all young people.

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Local Action Plan

• Set out clear priorities and actions at local authority level for improving further on Shetland’s very strong overall attainment record in line with Audit Scotland’s 2014 ‘School education’ recommendations.

• A draft Attainment four year action plan has been developed with seven action points.

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Free School Meals / Clothing Grants

• Uptake in Shetland has reduced in recent years:– Lower unemployed rates in Shetland– Increased incomes– Less people on benefits– Introduction of P1-3 Free Meals– Reduced School roll

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Music Tuition

• 567 pupils receive music tuition:

– 29 receive either just clothing grant or clothing grant and free school meals (24 families).

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Q & A

Agnes Tallack, Chair, Children’s PanelMarc Coyne, Adult Learning, SIC

Denise Morgan, Criminal Justice, SIC


Developing Recommendations

Commission

The Role of Destinations of Young People

Evidence Base

Shona Johnson, SICEmployability Pathway

Context

• Opportunities for All• Positive Destinations (or not)• Participation Measure• Non Participation:

– Participating in The Work Programme– Unemployed Not Seeking– Are known not to be participating in any learning or

employment.

Positive Destinations: Local and National Comparison

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https://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk/publications-statistics/

Unemployed Seeking by Gender and Age

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Percentage of Leavers in a Positive Destination, 2009/10 to 2013/13

Opportunities for All - Statistics

National Statistics

Analysis of Characteristics of 16-19 Year Old NEETs – National (2011)

• The proportion of the 16-19 year old population who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) has increased by 0.4 percentage points since the 2001 Census from 13.2% to 13.6%;

• In general, the proportion of the total 16-19 year old population who are NEET increases with age and peaks at 18 years old and falls slightly for 19 year olds;

• The proportion of 16-19 year old males who are NEET (14.6%) is higher than the proportion of females who are NEET (12.7%);

• For males who were NEET, 76.3% were unemployed and 23.7% were economically inactive and for females, 56.6% were unemployed and 43.4% economically inactive;

• 71.6% of those not in employment, education or training fall into the elementary occupations or never worked categories, which is approximately 9.8% of Scotland’s 16–19 year old population;

• Over one in five (21.6%) people (7,900) in the NEET group suffer from a limiting long-term illness;

• The percentage of people who are NEET varies considerably between males and females for some Local Authorities;

• In the majority of local authorities, a higher percentage of males who are NEET are unemployed than females and a higher proportion of females are economically inactive than males. 38

Analysis of Characteristics of 16-19 Year Old NEETs – Local (2011)

• The proportion of the 16-19 year old population who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) has increased by 0.9 percentage points since the 2001 Census from 7.7% to 8.6%

• The proportion of 16-19 year old males who are NEET (9.4%) is higher than the proportion of females who are NEET (7.5%);

• The proportion of 16-19 year old males who are NEET is higher than the proportion of females who are NEET

• For males who were NEET, 76.7% were unemployed and 23.3% were economically inactive and for females, 60.6.6% were unemployed and 39.4% economically inactive;

• The 2011 Analysis showed that Shetland had the highest percentage of those 16 – 19 year olds not in education, employment or training (NEET) suffered from long term illness. (over 30%);

• The proportion of the total 16-19 year old population who are NEET increases with age and peaks at 18.

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Q & A

Jim Leask, Bridges, SICIan Bray, Homelessness, SIC



Commission

The Role of Employment

Evidence Base

Linda Robertson, Skills Development Scotland

Economic Activity:Jul ‘14 to June ‘15

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ShetlandNumber

Shetland%

Scotland%

UK%

Economically Active

12,500 83.6% 77.6% 77.5%

Unemployed 300 2.6% 5.9% 5.7%

Economically Inactive

2400 16.4% 22.4% 22.5%

And of those, those that don’t want a job

2100 87.8% 76.6% 75.8%

Those Not In Employment

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Oct 14 Jan 15 Apr 15 Jul 15* Oct 15*

JSA 107 83 118 109 109

ESA (Total) 590 618 N/A 601 649

ESA (WRAG)

120 118 N/A 107 120

Lone Parents

N/A 62 56 45 N/A

Those Not In Employment:October 2015

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18-24 25-49 50-65 TOTAL

Under 6 mths 38 42 11 91

6-12 mths 1 6 5 12

1-2 years 1 0 0 1

2 years + 0 1 4 5

TOTAL 40 49 20 109

Characteristics

For people over 25 Years:• Many are long-term unemployed / in and out of

employment (92.5%)• No formal qualification (32.5%)• Criminal convictions (10%)• Poor mental health (60%)• Substance misuse (20%)

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Underemployment & Gender Segregation

• There is an issue of underemployment and gender-segregation / barriers to employment for women:– Lack of knowledge– HIE funded research commencing– Inform actions to address gender balance

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Q & A

Elizabeth Robinson, Health Improvement, NHS

Eleanor Bartlett, Condition Management Programme, NHS

Alison Moar, Employability Pathway



Commission

The Role of Families and Communities

Evidence Base

Elizabeth Robinson, Health Improvement Manager


Q & A

Lesley Simpson, Dunrossness Primary, SICJanice Irvine, Child Health, NHS Shetland

Martha Nicolson, Chief Social Work Officer



Commission

Documents

Shetland’s Commission on Tackling Inequalities Session 5: Pathways of Individuals 23rd November, 2015