Scotland's No One Left Behind approach to employability services devolves design and delivery to local partnerships, with the aim of better serving people facing the greatest barriers to work. As the approach matures, the Scottish Government needs to understand whether robust national-level impact and economic evaluation is achievable, and how best to carry it out.

Alma Economics were commissioned by the Scottish Government to conduct an independent evaluability assessment of No One Left Behind.

The work spanned three phases:
- An inception and scoping phase involving desk review and stakeholder interviews with the Scottish Government, Local Employability Partnerships (LEPs), and Local Authorities
- A data mapping and assessment phase that refines the existing logic model into a nested Theory of Change and develops a data assessment framework to examine the adequacy of available data
- A recommendations phase that produces an evaluation roadmap and options for next steps.

The assessment will determine the feasibility of conducting Scotland-level impact and economic evaluations of the approach, identify the most appropriate methodological options, and establish a foundation for future evaluation activity.

The Scottish Government will use the findings to inform a full evaluation of No One Left Behind, with the aim of improving service provision and helping more people get into, stay in, and progress in work.

Our report is available here.