To ask the Minister for Employment and Learning pursuant to AQW 45015/11-15, to detail (i) what steps he intends to take to improve engagement with people in the target groups and (ii) a time-line for the completion of this stage.

Improving voluntary engagement with the people in the target groups is critical to the success of ‘Enabling Success’. The strategy proposes to do this through a number of projects.

The first project, the development of an outcomes framework (Project A), has already commenced with the establishment of an expert Design Team. The Design Team aims to develop an end-user focused outcomes framework using a co-design approach to inform and guide the competitive pilot testing process (Project B) going forward.

The second project is to undertake an innovative regime of competitive pilot testing (Project B) to identify, develop and test a range of approaches to improve outcomes for the target groups. Successful approaches, such as more effective ways to improve engagement with the target groups, will then be developed and evaluated further and potentially upscaled.

This is a major project which will be run in three phases over a four year project lifecycle. The project will be initiated at the earliest possible opportunity, subject to my Department securing the necessary resources to take the work forward.

In addition, the Department for Social Development is currently taking forward a geographically focused pilot in 2015/16 (Project C). This pilot is aimed at early engagement with one of the key target groups and improving employment outcomes through early intervention.