Social research services

Tender description

— Scottish Government and Skills Development Scotland wish to commission an evaluation of transitional employability services in Scotland — Work First Scotland and Work Able Scotland. II.2.4) Description of the procurement: — SG and SDS wish to commission an evaluation of transitional employability services in Scotland — Work First Scotland and Work Able Scotland — The evaluation will cover both the service delivery process (including performance management activity by SG and SDS) and customer outcomes. This will require a mixed methods approach involving, as a minimum: — A full process evaluation of the service delivery model across 4 regional areas and 7 different lead service providers. This would include as a minimum, 1 focus group with front-line provider staff from each lead provider, feedback from supply chain providers, as well as stakeholder interviews/workshops with SG, SDS and other partners. — a 2 phase customer telephone survey (achieving a minimum of 650-700 responses in total across both programmes in each phase). Phase 1 in field Oct/Nov 2017 and phase 2 Oct/Nov 2018 as a follow-up; — flexibility to provide fully accessible face to face interviews where required to meet individual customers' accessibility needs for participation in the survey; — in-depth longitudinal qualitative case studies to follow individual customer journeys; — feedback from a sample of employers; — given the complex nature of the mixed-methods approach and the scale of the survey responses required, we would encourage and welcome collaborative bids from a consortium of suppliers to ensure that all elements of the requirement can be adequately met; — we anticipate awarding bids late August/early Sept (at latest) and the contract would run until March 2019 — with the majority of the fieldwork delivered in the first 9 months of the contract. — Expected outputs would be in the form of 2 reports: an interim report in Feb/March 2018 covering the process review and Phase 1 survey and a final report in early 2019 covering the customer journey work, phase 2 survey, employer feedback and a final overview of findings. — The outputs will be used to inform the mobilisation and evaluation activity for Fair Start Scotland, for which a separate evaluation will be commissioned later in 2018.