The Scottish Government commissioned Alma Economics to carry out an economic evaluation of Fair Start Scotland. This is the Scottish Government’s first fully devolved employment programme and it is aimed at people who may find it difficult to find employment due to disabilities or long-term health conditions.

To deliver the evaluation, our economists worked closely with our developer team to create a bespoke algorithm to streamline the analysis. This led to more accurate results and helped us generate additional insights into the wider impact of the service.

In order to ensure that the Scottish Government met its goal of inclusive growth and improving wellbeing, we went beyond financial analysis to ensure that the service was reaching everyone and helping them achieve good quality jobs. Our report makes specific recommendations to improve the service. Crucially, these include adjusting incentive payments to providers so that the service can reach more people with disabilities and participants can achieve better work conditions and fairer pay.

➥ The full report can be found here.