Alloa Initiative Partnership evaluation: a report for the Alloa Initiative Partnership

The Alloa Initiative Partnership aimed to bring benefits in terms of employment creation and economic regeneration for the Clackmannanshire and wider Forth Valley areas, while also assisting Tesco Stores in meeting recruitment needs at its Alloa outlet. The evaluation aimed to assess the Initiative, with particular reference to the job guarantee programme and Employability Training Course (ETC).

The methodology consisted of: an analysis of programme performance and outputs; interviews with partners involved in programme development and delivery; a survey of participants that covered 79% of all those completing the ETC; and a smaller comparative survey of Tesco staff employed through the company’s open recruitment process.

Considers the ETC to have been an outstanding success in terms of assisting disadvantaged job seekers into work at Tesco. Outputs include: a completion /job entry rate of 92%; retention rates after 13 and 26 weeks of employment of 94% and 87% respectively; and over 90% of ETC completers currently employed at Tesco believe that they will still be employed after one year. Disadvantaged groups were effectively targeted, for example, 71% of those completing ETC had previously been long-term unemployed, over 30% were aged 40 or over, and 47% had not been registered as unemployed. Effective partnership working was essential to the success of the Alloa Initiative. Finds that ETC participants were generally positive about the training experience and that the ETC was effective in getting people into jobs who would otherwise have been less likely to get them.

For future initiatives, suggests that: successful partnerships depend on identifying and getting the full commitment of the ‘right’ local partners; it is essential to identify committed employers with which to work; strong partnerships are based on trust; flexible funding enables the pooling of resources; job guarantees build trust and ‘enable labour market transitions’; and employability has a supply-side and a demand-side.