Issue - meetings

Report of the Deputy Chief Executive (Place)

The Cabinet considered a report of the Deputy Chief Executive (Place) which detailed a proposal to use European grant funding and £326,375 of earmarked reserves to support the TESS service to continue to deliver employment support for people with disabilities, including learning disabilities and mental ill health.

The service costs the Council £280.000 p.a., of which £272,000 is staff costs. The service comprises of 5.2 FTE staff and helps between 25 and 35 customers into work each year.

Budget pressures resulting from the loss of one-off funding and the impact of ER/VR within the Economy and Jobs Service meant that in 2015 this part of the Service could no longer be sustained by Council resources. Despite the lack of Government grant, Coventry City Council recognised the value of the service for vulnerable people and were keen to avoid service closure. The Employment Support Service (TESS) is the most expensive of the employment services to operate and had a high cost per job outcome. The cost of delivering a job outcome for a TESS customer is £8,640. This compares to approximately £400 per job outcome through the Job Shop and reflects the significantly larger intervention required to support TESS customers into work.

In March 2015, following a review of all employment services delivered by Economy and Jobs, it was proposed that without any offer of funding from partner organisations, TESS would close at the end of July 2015. Officers were requested by members to investigate alternative options to deliver a supported employment service in light of the financial position. Options investigated included developing a sustainable model for supported employment delivery in partnership with other agencies in the City, externalising the service through a form of social enterprise and merging the service with another local authority delivering supported employment provision. This was considered by the Cabinet Member for Business, Enterprise and Employment in September 2015.

However, one-off funding from Public Health and the Clinical Commissioning Group was then secured to allow the service to continue to operate until the end of December 2015. During this period grant funding from the European Structural Investment Funds was also pursued. However, there was a significant national delay in approving the European Programme. In order to allow time to pursue European funds, the service operated at a budget pressure which was partly off-set by grant surplus from other programmes. The Council has now secured European Social Fund grant for the period April 2017-December 2017, which could help continue the TESS service.

RESOLVED that the Cabinet:-

1)  Approves the use of £326,375 of earmarked reserves as “match” funding against European grant in order to continue the TESS service for the period April, 2017 until December 2019

2)  Agrees that the City Council should continue to pursue external funding for this service from January 2020 as no further Council reserves will be allocated.