Commissioning employment and skills provision for over 50s - A Commissioner Toolkit

Which organisations are already delivery services? What national and local provision is already in place? Include targeted 50+ services and those with an all-age focus. For the all-age provision, what data is collected for different age groups as part of this? Are outcomes comparable to other age groups?

What outcomes are people of different ages achieving? Does performance drop-off after a certain age? Look at wider progression into skills or other provision, not just into employment.

What data and user feedback exists? Do you have any feedback from older service users about their experience? Have you yourself witnessed the challenges older workers face accessing services in your area?

How many people in their 50s, 60s and beyond in your area are engaging with your services? Does that reflect what you would expect based on the wider population?

Do not just consider employment and skills data – look at demographics, languages spoken, access to wider local services, access to transport links and health services. Using data in your work will help you better understand the needs of your population and the impact work could have.

Where are the greatest opportunities for jobseekers in your area? What types and levels of skills are needed? More often than not, multiple geographical areas will need to feed into a solution, with regular contact between these embedded into the approach.

What are the attitudes of certain sectors or employers to older workers? Are there high levels of flexible work opportunities, for example? Do you have a standard for good practice in place? Changing the attitudes and activity of employers in your area may unlock as many changes as improving your employment support offer and will be crucial to increasing employment among over 50s.

Looking at what provision exists elsewhere and applying this to your local setting can also highlight new opportunities. Our bank of international case studies of support is a good starting point for this.

This initiative was managed by Provinces and Territories (PTs). Projects were designed in line with the parameters set out in bilateral agreements between the PT and the Federal Government. Projects were usually delivered by third-party service providers. It was a was a federal-provincial/territorial cost-shared initiative.

A group-based approach to employment assistance and employability improvement activities. It provided income support tailored to the needs of older workers. The initiative focused on unemployed workers, primarily between 55 and 64, in small vulnerable communities experiencing high unemployment and/or significant downsizing and closures.

• Projects were required to provide employment assistance activities such as cv writing, interview techniques, employment counselling and job search techniques
• Projects were also required to offer at least two employability improvement activities such as assessment activities, peer mentoring, skills training, wage subsidies, community-based work experiences, preparation for self-employment and post-project follow-up and mentoring
• Projects which did not include either work experience or subsidised employment were obliged to offer income support in the form of allowances to participants
• There was a minimum requirement of 25 hours per week of activity for participants. No minimum or maximum number of weeks of participation was stipulated
• The programme was closely modelled on previous employability schemes for older workers that successfully produced higher rates of employment and employment earnings as well as job satisfaction
• The most successful schemes included some form of marketing of older workers to employers
• Regular positive peer support motivated participants. This had a positive impact on the intensity of job-searching

Is the approach inclusive, respectful, participative, iterative and outcomes focused? Allow people free space to raise thoughts about what is needed, what appeals to them and then consider how these could be applied to wider local need.

For example, focus groups may encourage people to share more openly and prompt wider reflection; a fly on the wall approach may be more useful if looking to revise existing services.

Which voices are missing from the conversation that would make you feel more confident that any decisions made are right for beneficiaries? Ensure you have a representative group - how and who you select to feed into the process will impact the success of the process. Consider ways to reach out to existing service users to gather feedback.

Think about where you will source people, any conflicts of interest, their understanding of wider context relevant to the service. You could consider offering training to support people with lived experience to engage in the process.

People should know what they are contributing to, and any parameters set. Set clear boundaries around the involvement people will have and at which stage of the process. Agree time commitments and how people will be reimbursed for these. If payment would have implications for those in receipt of benefits, then gifts in kind can be arranged.

Use multiple facilitators, transcribe sessions where possible and ensure clear records are kept. Listen carefully to what people respond with – it’s important to keep an accurate record of what has been said to inform future decision making. It may require multiple attempts at engagement to gather accurate reflections.

Not everyone will be familiar with the language used in certain sectors. Using plain language and being open to challenges to terms used is important.

Avoid last minute changes to meetings in the same way you would with those working full time on a project.

How flexible are your bid documents? Are you heavily prescriptive in your service outline or do they allow for bidders to work with service users to shape something with codesign at its heart? Where possible build flexibility into your bids, allow space for bidders to outline what their audience need.

Do application timelines allow enough time for bidders to properly work with their partners and customers in a meaningful way? Allowing an extra 1-2 weeks in the bidding window where possible will allow bidders to engage with service users/ potential service users to sense check ideas, arrange focus groups and feed that learning back in for a stronger bid.

Does your tender document encourage bidders to take a co-designed approach and is that reflected in the scoring weightings? Include a section specifically outlining co-design and the voice of lived experience. Alternatively, refer to the importance of this in responding to questions around service delivery and stakeholder engagement. Consider encouraging bidders to allocate budget towards lived experience and co-design.

Do you work with service users to review tender documents? Have you got someone with lived experience on your interview panel? Consider opportunities for bidders to include service users in responses and interviews.

In addition to standard quality assurance checks, consider ways to more deeply involve service users. Commissioner led focus groups or interviews during the delivery window can provide useful insight, and support iteration of services.

Ensure providers have well established routes for service user and wider stakeholder feedback. Consider how often these should be shared with you.

Consider options for formalising the requirement to make changes to service delivery based on user insights.

Different groups will choose to engage with different approaches. Even if you have mandatory or established referral routes, clear expectations around how partners will ensure service users remain engaged and eligibility requirements are essential. Complex eligibility criteria or requirements to make in-person sign ups may lead to individuals choosing not to engage with a service. Steps should be taken to open up access and flex traditional sign-up methods, whilst still ensuring relevant checks are made. Many youth focused programmes offer outreach engagement – similar approaches can be applied across age ranges and communities, bypassing the intimidation some may feel walking into formal training environments or unfamiliar settings.

The way a service is framed will impact its success with certain groups. When developing an all-age service or adult service, reflecting on how this is communicated via promotional material is important. For example, if service materials state provision is for those aged 19+ or 25+, this could be interpreted as just being aimed at younger adults. Instead, think about more inclusive references to adult education or reference the full age range.

Positive images of people in mid and later life play a large part in this too. Photos in our age-positive library are free for use across your marketing materials, presentations and websites.

Quality of service is essential for positive outcomes and good customer experience. Allowing providers to detail their own approaches to this enables you to draw out expertise and build on existing practice that has been proven to work for many. However, it is important to outline parameters and expectations for “what good looks like” if we are to create a service which better supports older jobseekers.

Good support...

• is flexible both in approach and delivery. Consider delivery outside of formal settings, offering multiple methods of contact, flexibility in appointment timings, adaptations to interviews etc.
• is tailored to consider age, experience and circumstance. Good support and good work will look different to different people.
• does not exist in a vacuum and should be designed to recognise current life circumstances, including any responsibilities outside of job search requirements.
• operates within a system with clear established communication channels and signposting agreements to support the person.
• is delivered by local trusted organisations, work within local communities to encourage participation by those outside the statutory benefit system. These jobseekers often look for trusted, established organisations where they feel welcome and comfortable in familiar surroundings.
• has built in ownership for participants finding ways to allow them choice and to take an active role in goal setting, career changes and action planning. Open, twoway dialogue fosters trust.
• looks at transferable skills – support to identify transferable skills is critical for this group – not only those developed in a formal work setting, but also those developed informally through their life experiences.
• factors in financial support and planning, looking at how employment will affect them in the short and long term and any pension/retirement planning support that may be needed.
• provides peer support, offering opportunities for sharing experiences and for building social networks which can be of great value in combating feelings of isolation.
• positions support as an opportunity, rather than a punishment or a last resort. Talk about strengths, next steps and potential.
• works to expose and work through “ageism” mindset: you can acknowledge age without making people feel old.
• builds confidence, in the experience of those delivering a service, in participant worth and their potential.
• is practical – setting out clearly communicated progression pathways, has defined goals and action planning, practical job search and interview support and relevant training options to help people progress and linked to the roles and sectors they want to work in.

Older workers could provide an answer to local labour market and skills needs, reframing support services to employers in a way that highlights this as an opportunity rather than an additional ask is crucial in increasing positive outcomes.

Where possible, factor in the role of employers prior to awarding a contract, look at how we can encourage and enable them to raise the profile of age-friendly recruitment and retention practices within local economies. Our employer engagement resource sets out a detailed approach to more inclusive employer-focused work in employment support.

Encouraging innovation from partners and actively looking to include smaller local organisations can lead to more effective services that better reflect the needs of residents. Often, the commissioning process and delivery requirements placed on providers exclude smaller organisations, or lead to services that we know have not worked as well for older jobseekers being implemented again.

Making sure providers know how they are working for their older jobseekers, what is and isn’t working, and actively supporting them to be iterative in approach will help further develop our understanding of what works for these cohorts, and shape more targeted interventions and future commissioning priorities.