Joined Up For Jobs - the story so far

Joined Up For Jobs was first established as the joint strategy for access to work in Edinburgh 2002. It brought together a consortium of key organisations including Capital City Partnership, Skills Development Scotland, Jobcentre Plus, Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce and the City of Edinburgh Council.

The jobs strategy underwent a step change in 2006, when the Edinburgh consortium was successful in its bid to become a Pathfinder area for the Department for Work and Pensions' City Strategy initiative. The original partners have now been joined by NHS Lothian and by the three Edinburgh Colleges (Jewel and Esk Valley, Stevenson and Telford). The group is chaired by a senior employers' representative from the city's financial services industry.

A Business Plan has been developed, approved by DWP and adopted by all members of the consortium. A copy of both the plan and the executive summary can be found on in the document library. Trough the strategy the partners work together to co-ordinate provision around the aims which it sets out. These include focusing effort on the needs of target groups with particular difficulties in relation to work; and helping employers meet their skills and workforce needs. The partners aim to improve opportunities for those in Edinburgh who need jobs, to improve the position of those in low paid and insecure work, and to help employers find the workers they need. The aim is that employability services in Edinburgh:

• operate as effectively as possible through being demand-led and client-centred
• are co-ordinated and integrated into a city-wide network
• are targeted on identified excluded groups and are adequate to address the needs in the city.

This core group of key policy and funding agencies works with a wider partnership of provider agencies in the city. It seeks to make it easier for them to do their work by co-ordinating funding around agreed objectives and tasks.