1.0 PEP Overview

The emphasis on PEP is getting people ‘work-ready’ and helping them to progress into employment. In order to do this effectively, when setting up PEP courses it is vital to consider not only the needs of the learners, but also the potential for employment in your area (see sections 4 and 6).

PEP courses can be of varying length and at different levels. Their aim is to help people to gain any of the following:

• Vocational skills, focused on sectors i.e. health, retail, construction, transport…
• Basic skills in literacy, numeracy or English language
• Job search skills such as CV writing and interview techniques
• Specific skills required generally by employers or for a particular job opportunity
• Specific skills needed to prepare for self-employment

Softer skills such as self-awareness can be implicit or explicit in the journey towards any of these outcomes – the DOTS model (below) is one explanation of how this can be done.

In order for a person to make a journey like this, a number of organisations and professionals can be involved such as Jobcentre plus (JCP), Nextstep (Information and Advice), providers, employers, Healthcare, Housing, Children and Family Services, voluntary organisations… and more remotely, the bodies which strategically guide and fund those organisations. The bringing together of these services in order to help people gain and sustain skills and employment is often termed ‘Integrated Employment and Skills’ (IES).

Traditionally, PEP funded by the LSC has been mostly about up-skilling, i.e. engaging people with lower level skills in order to help them gain the skills they need to move into a job. However, the economic downturn has resulted in many highly skilled and qualified people becoming unemployed. Therefore ALR-funded PEP needs to target people at a range of levels, e.g. Entry to Level 3 and beyond.

Within this agenda, there is a clear link to the national priority around helping people gain their full level 2 and 3 qualifications - particularly those who have been unemployed for a long period of time. One challenge will be to identify these people and steer them through progression routes which will help them gain these qualifications - either through PEP alone, or through PEP and later, once employed, through Train to Gain.

For any person, PEP can be about up-skilling, re-skilling, or refreshing skills.

Offenders in the community are an important target group for PEP ALR funded provision. They are among the LSC Priority Groups (see LSC: Funding Guidance 2008/09: Learner Eligibility Guidance. April 2008. Publication Reference LSC-P-NAT-080079) and often attract additional funding and/or support, e.g.

Pre-entry learners, although often furthest from the labour market, can be assisted through First Steps and the LSC ESF Skills for Jobs provision (some SO1 specification providers). View the Learner Journey of Hayley Blundell to find out how PEP courses have helped her to work towards employment opportunities.

To find providers delivering Skills for Jobs programmes, view the IES Map and Key at http://readingroom.lsc.gov.uk/lsc/SouthEast/IESMAP%7E1.pdf and http://readingroom.lsc.gov.uk/lsc/SouthEast/LSC_ESP_SfJ__Key_to_IES_Map_for_noticeboard.pdf

See 1.3 for learner eligibility for PEP through ALR funding.

The courses

• There should generally be a qualification outcome with an associated Learning Aim Database (LAD) reference – e.g. a learning aim that can legitimately be entered onto the Individual Learner Record (ILR) for Adult Learner Responsiveness funding (ALR) (see 3.5). This can include the unit-based qualifications.
• A minimum of 9 Guided Learning Hours (GLH)

The learners

• Learners funded through ALR must be aged 19 or over
• Learners should generally be unemployed (although there are some specific cases where employed people can gain fee remission)

A variety of LSC funding streams can and should be utilised to deliver PEP, e.g. ALR, Response to Redundancy, 6 month plus Unemployed, Employability Skills Programme, Skills for Jobs.
In order to meet the varied needs of learners in the current economic climate, it is vital to maximise the use of funding streams available to you now and in the future. Below is a statement from LSC National Office regarding the direction for the variety of funds/training provision offers which can be used for PEP.

The variety of funds/training provision offers referred to in the above statement are shown as a précis in the table below. This is not an exhaustive list, and they will develop and change over time, but these are some of the sources of funding currently available for PEP through the LSC.

Table of key LSC-funded programmes for Adult Learner (19+) Pre-Employment Provision

Not all providers will have access to all funding streams. If unsure, ask your LSC Partnership Manager

My role at the college involves managing and distributing ‘Discretionary Learning Support Funding’ which enables students to enrol on courses if they are facing financial difficulties, especially those in receipt of benefits. The first hurdle usually faced by JSA claimants is having to fund exam and registration fees for courses which are not automatically remitted – these students can apply to our Discretionary Learner Support Funds to assist with those fees, and in most cases do not have to pay for the fees themselves. Students can also apply to the fund for help with additional costs such as course materials, textbooks, protective clothing and childcare costs. Probably the most significant of these is childcare as many students would not be able to attend college at all without this ongoing assistance; daily childcare costs can be huge and many people would not even consider developing their employability skills through education and training if funding assistance was not available to them”.
Debbie Goodall, Student Welfare Officer, Fareham College