The European Social Fund (ESF) was set up to improve employment opportunities in the EU. This report explores how well the Fund supported those who experienced it.
This report provides findings for the England European Social Fund (ESF) and Youth Employment Initiative 2016-2018 Leavers (YEI) survey. The research was commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to explore the experiences of people in England who had recently left work-related courses/programmes funded through the ESF, including the Youth Employment Initiative (YEI). Specifically, the research sought to collect information about participants’ situation on entry to and six months after they have left ESF provision (to determine long-term outcomes), and participant views on the provision.
The research involved a large-scale quantitative telephone survey with 19,769 participants who had left the ESF provision between December 2015 and December 2018, and YEI provision between December 2015 and May 2019.
Some of the main findings from this research include:
- The ESF programme reached many people who faced labour market disadvantage. For many of those assisted, unemployment was an entrenched position.
- Provision was received very positively and views were consistently positive across Investment Priority and CFO.
- Improvements in soft-skills as a result of receiving ESF provision were widely reported, and participation appears to have greatly increased optimism about finding employment.
- Half of YEI leavers received a job offer in the six months following provision.
- Job outcomes across the ESF programme were quite common, and experienced by a range of leavers.
- The job outcome rate was comparable across all CFOs focussing on employability support (HMPPS, DWP and National Lottery Community Fund) and Direct Providers.
- Nearly all of those who received in-work support were still in employment six months later, a large minority reported progress at six months and nearly all reported improved prospects for the future.
- Positive employment outcomes should decrease welfare claimants, indeed the proportion of DWP participants claiming benefits decreased by a quarter between entry to provision and six months later.
- There was a slightly unexpected shift of some participants from being unemployed at the start of provision to being economically inactive six months after leaving; this happened for a third of participants unemployed on provision entry. Most commonly, these leavers were in education or training, or unable to work because of health at six months.
This report is published on gov.uk, you can find the report in its entirety here.
