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Health & Social Security Scrutiny Panel Respite Care for Adults Panel
MONDAY, 16th MARCH 2015
Panel:
Deputy G.P. Southern of St. Helier (Vice-Chairman) Deputy J.A. Hilton of St. Helier
Deputy T.A. McDonald of St. Saviour
Witnesses:
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust
[09:53]
Deputy G.P. Southern of St. Helier (Vice-Chairman):
Welcome on behalf of the Health and Social Services Scrutiny Panel. We are investigating adult respite care in particular and we would love to hear from you today about equities of J.E.T. and your own role. The conditions under which you are attending here are in front of you. Although it looks very formal, please do not treat it as such. Do not get intimidated. We are here to hear from you, basically. For the sake of the tape, first of all, can I apologise on behalf of my Chairman. He cannot be here. He has a personal family friend's funeral to attend. So you have got the Vice Chair, who happens to be me, Deputy Geoff Southern , and just to introduce ourselves.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
We have two officers with us today. So if I could just open up. We are here to listen to you about the services that you provide and how they impinge upon the respite care. Could you tell us something about your role within J.E.T. (Jersey Employment Trust) and what J.E.T. intends to do.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
I am the Executive Officer, so obviously I look after the whole of J.E.T. in its entirety. J.E.T. is actually made up of three sections at the moment. We have our employment service, which provides direct support into employment. In the last 12 months, in 2014, we worked with about 350 people and placed 152 into paid employment but also supported, including that 152, 261 in employment, because that includes people that we support to be retained. So it could be somebody in work and we get a call saying they are having issues in work and we go in and do the support, and that is overall. We work with any people with a disability or long-term health condition. We do not have any set criteria in terms of anybody coming to the service, only that they would wish to work. That is our only criteria. On the other side, we also have a transition service, which starts working with people from year 9. We track people who have a record of need, attend in their reviews and then do some form of intervention, sometimes in terms of taking the young people out of school and doing some intensive work with them, and also supporting people on work experience towards the latter end of the years at school and then, hopefully, provide a smooth transition if they wish to come to J.E.T. or take on any form of further education. Over the last few years we have been running a service called S.T.E.P.S. (Supported Training Employment Preparation Scheme), which is a supported training and development service for people who wish to gain more skills to come into work or who are not sure whether they want to work. S.T.E.P.S., up until January this year, was split between 3 services and originally 4 services. It was a mixture between Mind Jersey, Autism Jersey, Jersey Mencap, and Jersey Employment Trust. From 1st January this year it all came under the Jersey Employment Trust because it was thought it could provide more resource and with less transitions for the people who attended that service. That service provides a number of supports. We can provide one-to-one support and that would be to be learning any form of skill that might be required. So it could be anything from bussing, budgeting or how to make a basic meal. A lot of the work we do with people in the spectrum is about managing their anxieties and so it varies depending on the client need. We are very flexible in J.E.T. Nobody receives the same service. We basically offer a bespoke service to everyone. We also offer a volunteer service in there and I think at present we have got about 51 people independent volunteering across the community. Some people, we have found, struggled to volunteer independently. That means after probably about 4 months we were not able to leave them independently within the charity and the charity themselves were not able to provide the support. This caused an issue for us, so we started developing group
opportunities where we could support more people. There might be anything from 3 to 6 people undertaking an activity, which is still volunteering but also having a member of staff with them. Those activities vary from time to time. Some of them are seasonal. Occasionally we do work for the parishes. We have an ongoing project with the Opera House who provide skills training for young people in drama and every 12 weeks they put on a production and the clients at J.E.T. under the S.T.E.P.S. service make the props and costumes for that. That is a very successful partnership. The other side of our service, a key part of our service, is the Wellbeing service. This is a service we have created over the last 3 years. It started mainly to address the issues of people on the autistic spectrum, but has gone much wider. That is about supporting the staff within our service for people who have mental health issues. Originally there were very few people coming through to J.E.T. with a mental health condition and that has significantly increased. I think that was partly to do with people having confidence in the benefit system, but also people having confidence in J.E.T. to have the skills to move forward, particularly from a mental health service point of view. So last year over 40 per cent of the referrals to the employment service were people with mental health issues and over 60 per cent to the S.T.E.P.S. service. So it is a significant growth sector.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
Can I just ask you where the referrals came from?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
They vary. At J.E.T. we can take self-referrals and increasingly do so, but they can come from social workers and other services. We get quite a number of referrals from Social Security. So anywhere, friends, family; as long as the person wants to work and is aware of the referral we can take it from anywhere, G.P.s (General Practitioners).
Deputy J.A. Hilton: Okay, thank you.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
The Wellbeing service does not work with anybody directly. Well, they do but their main point is to upskill the staff and give them the skills and the training they require. The last part of our service, an overarching service, is our business unit. Currently we are offering a number of training opportunities and we run 3 to 4 different types of business. We have Acorn, which you have probably all heard of, which runs a contract gardening service and also we have the bedding plants and we are increasing the range on that. We have the cycles. We have stopped selling new cycles as from this year but we still maintain the servicing and second-hand cycles at this time. Last year we opened a new project called the Woodshack, which is a wood recycling service
that we run in conjunction with T.T.S. (Transport and Technical Services). With those services we have a very good partnership with T.T.S. We grow all the bedding plants now for the States of Jersey. We also maintain all the benches around the Island and there are a number of other new initiatives that we are looking at, particularly round recycling in the future. So that sort of gives you a summary of the breadth of what we do.
Deputy G.P. Southern : That is a lot of activities.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: Yes.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
How many staff have you got and what sort of training programme do you run?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
Obviously over 50 per cent of our staff are people with disabilities, the majority of them that come through. At present it does vary because I think we took on about 4 this morning for the bedding season. It is around 70. The majority of those are part-time. On the training and development side, those that would be doing the training and the supervision, I think it is about 40 staff, but that would equate probably to about 35 full-time staff. On the training side, I think we pride ourselves on our training. We offer a very in-depth training, I would say. For any post within J.E.T. that is offering direct, support people are on about a 12-month programme. We offer across the whole range of any form of disability from brain injury, visual impairment, autism or learning disabilities. We tend to focus each year on a particular disability. This year it is going to be autism and we have a 35-day in-depth programme being delivered on autism, and particularly what we ask for is people to deliver that training in environments where you cannot manipulate things around you, because a lot of the autism training is around reducing stimulation. Obviously when you are in a workplace that is very difficult to do, so the support we are buying in is to assist the staff to help people on the spectrum manage their anxieties in environments that we cannot manage. So that is the type of intensity that we do. On top of that, obviously we do all the general health and safety, all our staff are trained first-aiders, and all the generic training that we would do around policies and procedures. The staff are also trained obviously in employment law. We work very closely with J.A.C.S. (Jersey Advisory Conciliation Service). I do not think there is a week goes by that are not on the phone to J.A.C.S. for assistance for any individual that we are working with.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
Could I just ask you a question about transition in particular?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: Yes.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
Obviously you deal with Mont a l'Abbe School but are you dealing with all the other secondary schools as well, the four main secondary schools?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: Yes.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
I think you said you went in in year 9 for people who had a Statement of Need.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: That is correct.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
Generally speaking, that system works well?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
Funny you should say that. We are in the process of doing a full review of the transition service. I think what we are finding is we are not necessarily getting all the detailed information we require and we are looking at how we can best offer the young people the right type of programmes. At present we have not offered support in terms of finding part-time work, like Saturday jobs and things, and Project Trident does not always work for people with a disability in terms of it is not always supported. I have just implemented, only about a week ago, a full review of our transition services to see how we can evaluate whether that is the best way.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
Currently, young people with disabilities are not able to partake in Project Trident because they is not the support available for them?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
They do, but I think the success of that is quite limited. I know each year there are some people who do not partake and there are some people coming to us at Acorn as an alternative to going into the commercial sector, because it is difficult to provide that one-to-one support. Sometimes, without that, the placement becomes more sort of meaningless and people end up making cups of tea and things, which is not appropriate in terms of getting a real understanding of what work might be.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
So basically any young person who is in school who has a Statement of Need will be approached by your service and supported by your service from year 9 onwards until year 11.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: If they wish to do so.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
Only if they wish to do so?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: Yes.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
Is there any support available to them, like if they are going into Highlands, supported by your service?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
We would not support people into Highlands but we would continue to support them whilst they are at Highlands. In fact most of the cohort at Mont a l'Abbe go on to Highlands. We have a very close link with the support team there and try and track people, particularly if people drop out early because quite often people go to college and then find out after a few months the course is not for them or experience some difficulties. So we try and maintain contact and the tutors there and the support staff would ring us and then we would try and get the young person into J.E.T. to see if we could help them down the work route. It does not always work but we do our best.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
Can you explain to me the correlation between the service that you offer to a young person, from the age of 16 or 18 onwards; how it fits in with, for instance, the Back to Work scheme and Low Income Support, and how that works?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: Just for young people or generally?
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
Generally for those people you come into contact with. Who decides whether a young person is going to have the support of your service or the support of the Back to Work team at Social Security? I am interested in how that works.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
I would say the majority of people who would have a formal statement would come through to J.E.T., unless they chose that they did not want to. Because they changed who received a Statement of Need a few years ago - I think it was about 5 years ago - there were probably about 100 people in any one cohort who were school attenders who no longer had a Statement of Need because they received generic support from the school. Those people are still flagged up to J.E.T. if the support staff at the school feel that they might require that. It has not taken place recently but, along with the individual meetings, we used to have a review meeting and review every year where all the names came forward and the teachers from the schools used to come in and give us information. So it was almost like a tracking process, but that has not taken place over ... it did not happen last year. That would be Education that called that meeting.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
It did not happen for J.E.T., do you mean?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
We were not certainly invited to them, as far as I know.
Deputy J.A. Hilton: Why was that?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
I think it was probably change in personnel in Education. That is probably why it got left or they decided that they were not going to run it. I cannot really answer that, to be honest. But we certainly found that handy for picking up those that did not have a Statement of Need that we were not aware of.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
I am picking up an area of concern there. Tell me if I am right or wrong to be concerned that some 100 or so in the school year are now no longer receiving a statement because of other reasons and a meeting that used to regularly take place did not take place last year. You are not aware of why it did not take place and that was part of your scheme, which enabled you to tailor to make sure you were getting the right people.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
The first one I think was done for very positive reasons. It was thought that you did not need to label people and there was much more support put into schools. There was a pool of support staff. So individual pupils did not have their own identified support, but received extra support in the classroom.
[10:15]
It caused us problems from an administration point of view and understanding but I think it was better for the young person. In terms of the meeting, I think you would have to speak to Education around why that did not happen. I do not believe it causes any significant problems. It was just a way of collecting all the data and particularly for those people that did not have a statement it was a good way of just doing that overview, and it was more for senior management rather than the practitioners. So I would not be too worried about it, but the meetings did not take place and I do not know why.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Because that is certainly one of the issues that we are picking up, that transition is a difficult time.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: Absolutely.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
We hear of children's social workers, as of your 18th birthday you get a new social worker and you have not necessarily got the links between them. Is transition a difficult area for you to handle?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
It is and I think for those people who are on the borderline of whether it is employment or day services, in particular, it is more of a concern about who controls that. I think our concern within J.E.T., we do not offer any sort of full-time programme. We cannot even offer a programme consistently every single week. We are not a day service and our concerns when people are referred to J.E.T. is that there should also be a backup plan as well and we really should be offering a joint planned programme where people have some regular activities, because I do not believe it is very good for young people to go home and have no service whatsoever or inconsistent services. Obviously our focus is around employment and we will provide that training and courses required, but we cannot just provide activities to keep people busy. I would not see that as our remit. This is only my personal view, but I would find transition a lot better in terms of support from Social Services if the transition process was taken from the adult side going back into school rather than from the children's side, because the transition almost comes to an end and whoever has done the plan does not take it forward. I have always thought it would be done better, but that is just my own personal opinion.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
So currently there would be a cohort of young people who maybe are not in day services but have specific needs, but J.E.T. cannot currently provide an ongoing day-to-day support package for them. I think that is what you were just saying.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
It becomes an issue for us and it is particularly around the S.T.E.P.S. service. I think I alluded to it in the report I sent you. So it is not just for young people in transition. It is also for people in general. It is people who fall between almost like 2 camps, if you like, and it has become probably more marked as day services have become very specific about their criteria in terms of when they will provide a day service. People who want to do meaningful activity probably do choose J.E.T. because of the range of the activities we offer, but they are not looking in the long term to go to work. So what we find is that people to come to us. We are offering a service, but J.E.T. was never intended to be an ongoing service. We get to a point where people decide, probably for lots of different reasons, as I am sure I do not need to explain to you - people's lives can get quite complex - that employment is not on the agenda for them at that time. It does not mean it will not be in the future, but they are with us and there is no alternative service to go to. I suppose I do not feel too bad that those people who are in residential have an alternative type for service. It is those people that live at home with families and in J.E.T. we do not like to exit people to nothing because I do not think that is appropriate. So we sort of keep gathering these people that we are offering minimal services to and keeping them involved in order that there is somebody ... because quite a lot of these people would not have an active social worker either because they would not have an active case load. What do we do with that and how many of those do we support before we almost become full and cannot take on any activities? It is one of the issues that I raised because it is a current one for us. It always is. But it does affect our long-term support and our ability to move people forward. At the same time, I think, as a charity, we do not feel comfortable about what the alternatives would be.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
Are you operating at capacity at the moment?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
Pretty much so and we are also quite concerned that, with this year's school cohort of leavers, we may not have the capacity to provide that transition service to them. We are looking at how we can move things around. We were told, I think it was about 19th January, that we would not be getting the 2 per cent increase and we were at the point within S.T.E.P.S. of advertising we still had some posts. For J.E.T. it was about £38,000 in total that we did not get the percentage increase. When we took on the S.T.E.P.S. service we made a deliberate decision that we would put basically all the funding we got into staffing so we could increase capacity, because we knew there were more people coming through the service. We did not really have any Flexibility in our overheads, but we felt that we could absorb those costs for this additional staff that we took on at Christmas. Unfortunately, the freeze on us has had a significant impact. Basically we have 3 vacant posts which we are not filling. We are trying to turn it into a positive. I mean the cuts have affected everybody and everybody is feeling the pinch. What I have done is there are 3 posts that have disappeared from our staffing and we have replaced it with pots of money. We are trialling bringing in 2 part-time tutors to deliver some of our training for things, so we are just sort of seeing how that goes. I think my concerns will be particularly next year if that continues. It is how often you can do that. I think we can probably absorb it without too much of an impact, although there are a significant number of people anticipated to be coming through this year. I am not totally clear on the figures because we are just finalising those, but it is quite large.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
When you talk about figures, do you project on a 3-year basis or a 5-year basis? How many years do you set the way you see things, or you do not know what is coming until they arrive?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
We know everybody who is coming through the system. What I have been asking for that in the last week is, particularly from Highlands because most people go on to Highlands, the vast majority do ... but there is a large number of people and I am just estimating how many people are likely to move on to another college course or how many people will move on. To be quite honest, it is not until sort of like, I suppose, June before the final figures are estimated. There are quite a number of people anticipated moving forward, but that will depend on how confident they feel after their exams. We do not know until September the people that are moving forward or not.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
You see yourself as a charity?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: Yes.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Where does your core funding come from? What is your core funding?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
Our core funding comes from the States. Social Security hold our grants and we receive 2 pots of money from them, one for pure employment services and then one for pre-employment services, which is called the Vocational Day Services budget, which S.T.E.P.S., and the Wellbeing service and the transition service is funded out of.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
You are fielding a 2 per cent cut this year?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: Yes.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Is that on the back of previous cuts or not?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
We have done quite well and I am quite grateful to Social Security. I have been here 10 years and in that time we have only once had a cut. We have had a pay freeze from Health and Social Services for about the last 6 years. The grant we receive from them is quite minimal, but we have not had any funding increase for over 6 years. Since it is a minor part of our grant, we have been able to manage that. What we have tried to do is increase, through income. Obviously we have our business units which have a turnover. Last year we turned over about £375,000. I have got a target in our business plan and in my own sort of way to try and increase that to £500,000 in the next 5 years. We are constantly looking. Obviously when we do that sometimes it detracts from our core services, but I cannot see an alternative way forward. If somebody is not going to fund our services then we need to find another way of doing it, so we have got a number of other projects that we are trying to develop at the moment. Obviously we try to focus on those that create employment opportunities and additional training activities which are useful for our client group and our client group is always changing, so we sort of move with the times.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Is it a wide range of people that you deal with from quite severely disabled to ...
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
Yes, completely. We work with people with complex needs to basically chief executives and people in the finance industry. We work right across the board. So we are working with people who have been teachers and accountants as well as people with learning disabilities or compound disabilities who may have a number of issues. We are concerned at the number of people with a disability who also have a dual diagnosis of a mental health issue present. That seems to be ...
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Mental health issues have been a growing area.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: Yes.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Can you tell us more about that particular aspect, the differences that you notice in the type of work that you are doing now to the past?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
In the way we operate, you mean, or the types of work we find?
Deputy G.P. Southern : Either.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
As I said, J.E.T. will offer a one-to-one service, so it is a bit hard to sort of give generics and I do not want to sort of ...
Deputy G.P. Southern :
As I asked the question I thought: "Maybe I should not be asking."
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
... just pigeonhole people. Some people we go in and offer intensive one-to-one support and we may actually be in the employer's premises training for some considerable time. Other people prefer us not to be in the workplace or it is not as appropriate and, therefore, we will support people outside. It can be some people just need us to pop in and give intensive work for a very short period of time and then we can leave them to get on with it. Other people, it is about managing their anxieties and our Wellbeing service. It is very hard to say and some people just need that initial phase in terms of going into work and needing intensive input. For a lot of people it is about building up confidence and their self-esteem and I think once you can get that sorted it is amazing how quickly people can progress.
You mentioned Education already and then Health. You mentioned Social Services. How does that knit together as a whole? Think communication and effective delivery; how efficient are we at the moment in terms of communicating between various bodies in order to deliver?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
As a charity, I think we work very well with the States departments and I think I said in my report we are a good example how the voluntary sector and the States can work together. I meet with Social Security, probably more than Health and Social Services, on a regular basis. That is weekly and our staff work in conjunction. In fact some of the people we work with are also on Social Security support and we offer a dual service and that works very well. With Health and Social Services, obviously quite a significant number of the people we work with are receiving support from there and I would say, again, in the main on a delivery level it works very well. I probably do not have as much contact with senior managers there but that is because we are focusing on employment. It is more of the support staff that would be on a day-to-day basis working with those. I would say there is always an issue when you are talking about the different departments, about who funds what, and I think sometimes we sort of slip or the person can slip in between. This is this issue about whether it is a day service or whether it is an employment service and that has been going on ever since I arrived and I do not think we have come to a conclusion about that. In my view, if the person needs a service they should just get it and we should not be having fights about which budget it should come out of. Unfortunately that still does happen and I think that is partly some of the issues that we have got around those people who sit between day services and employment. If there was a budget to provide it then there would not be an issue.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
In our discussions with other people who have given us evidence there seems to be a lot of concern particularly around disabled individuals who are in wheelchairs. Have you noticed in your work that that particular group of people were more disadvantaged because the transport is not available to them to access many services that are available?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
I would not say they were more disadvantaged but obviously there is a particular issue in Jersey in that, for starters, in most buildings there is no requirement for them to be accessible and the majority are not. Quite often, if you can get into them, you cannot look after your on personal care needs because there is no accessible toilet. Transport is a major issue and it is a major issue for all our clients at J.E.T. whether you can access the bus or not. Sometimes it is because of a financial basis or just because of where the routes go.
Obviously if you can use a bus you have got an advantage to somebody who requires either a taxi or to be moved around by some sort of support worker or a family member and there is no support for that at present. In the U.K. (United Kingdom) I alluded to a support system called Access to Work which provides fairs to work and particularly for those who require taxis and that would be either to and from work or in-work support, but I would say at the moment all J.E.T.'s clients are disadvantaged in that most of ours would not be classed as being actively seeking work. In fact there are only about 20 people out of the 400 people that we work with who come under that banner. Even after they raised the bar up to 35 per cent, most of the people we work with either cannot access L.T.I.A. (Long Term Incapacity Allowance) because they have never worked, because obviously it is the insurance scheme, or would be 50 per cent plus. The people who are actively seeking work used to get free bus passes while they undertook some form of work experience and now I think it is a percentage towards bus travel. J.E.T. clients, even though they have more significant needs, cannot receive any subsidy unless they are under that banner. So there are only about 20 people out of 400 we work with who can get any form of support. Even though the people that are coming to us want to work and are actively doing this under their own volition, there is no support for that. The reasons I have been given for that, which I think I can accept - I do not think it is right but there are reasons - is because the people who are actively seeking work, their benefits are potentially under threat if they do not attend the training. That is the difference. But for me it seems a little unfair that people are motivated to work - and probably the people we support will cost the States more money in the long run because they tend to be on higher benefits, so not just Income Support - the same financial support is not available. If we have somebody on work experience and it is out of town and they are having to get 2 buses, they have to fund that out of their average benefit and there is no support for that, or people attending any of our training courses at Acorn (I mean Acorn has issues with buses anyhow if you can get a bus; we are hoping the Community Scheme will help us out in that area in the future) people are footing that out of their own benefits and it is an issue. For some people more than others, but it does prevent some people carrying on with the training.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
As part of your pressures and challenges that face the service, in particular there is access to work, which you just mentioned.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: Yes.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Do you see that being developed here?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
I have been talking about this for a long, long time.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
It was the right question to ask then.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
Yes, one of my bugbears. Everything comes at a cost but I think I said in my report I would not advocate that you follow much of the advice from the U.K. in terms of how they support people with disabilities into work.
Deputy G.P. Southern : Not at present.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
No, and not for some time probably. I spent 20 years, before coming here, working in that area of work, but Access to Work has been going on, I think, under its current name for about 20 years or perhaps longer and it is one area which the U.K. Government is putting more money into because they have proven it saves them money, but it does work. It is a flexible scheme. I think we could do it better if we did it here. I think we could do it with a lot less red tape. It can be anything from a piece of equipment, assistive software, to, as we said before, taxis to and from work. It can be a communication support, so if somebody requires a signer. It does not always have to be full time. I know in my previous job I placed people who required a signer probably 2 to 3 times a week when there were team meetings but managed to cope the rest of the time through other forms of communication. It also, which I would be particularly interested in and I think would have most impact for us, provides access to people who require long-term support in terms of a support worker. J.E.T. at present can probably offer intensive support for 3 months or more and I am talking one-to-one intensive support. But, similar to the other issues we have spoken about, if we did that for everybody and that was ongoing we would soon silt up and we would have ...
Deputy G.P. Southern : You would be full.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
Yes, we would be full and we would not be able to take any new people coming through. Also, since I left the U.K. - this is only about 2 or 3 years ago - they offer specific support for people with mental health issues who have intermittent attendance, which is quite interesting. I have never personally used that. If I give you an example for the service I worked in, we employed somebody who was registered blind as an employment co-ordinator. They had the guide dog but they needed a support worker and I think we had 15 hours a week and that person used to assist somebody because obviously, although you have got the guide dog, that is great if you are going on a regular route, but if you are going to visit an employer. So they had a support worker that would travel with them to a new employment place and also be their eyes, if you like, doing visual inspections in the workplace and that worked really well and we were able to offer that. It is a very flexible scheme and I think it could work really well and assist J.E.T. in moving on those people who I would say we would struggle with. J.E.T. would use it probably nowhere near as much as it was used in the U.K. I think we pride ourselves on the job match and finding the right job for people, but obviously Jersey has got a limited commercial sector, if you like, and you cannot just send somebody to the next town on a bus to find alternative work. We have got what we have available, but it would make a significant difference. There are certain pots of money available through Social Security, but nothing in the region of this on the flexibility.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
Have you spoken with anybody about Access to Work or what it could offer people in Jersey?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: Lots of times.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
So who have you spoken with then? Is it somebody with Social Security?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: Mainly Social Security it has gone through.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
So you produced a business plan? Have you produced a business plan?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
We have had various reports done from time to time that have gone through Social Security. I think what it is, we have never really found the right time when there has been any funding available and I think it is always that case of what do you fund, but I think there is proven evidence that Access to Work can save the States funding.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
Absolutely, from what you have written, and I am just curious as to why they would not consider that very seriously. Have you thought about approaching the Minister for Social Security directly with your ideas?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
I suppose I have always gone through the officers in the past rather than going to the Minister, although we have in the past had ministerial support on the J.E.T. board. Obviously that is something to discuss. However, I have brought it up at those meetings. It is about priorities but it is something I keep plugging away at. I have a bit of a stock record on that one.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
Can I just ask you how much support you get from the States of Jersey in placing people?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: It is getting better.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
Which means it has not been very good in the past.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
It has been a slow start, but over the last 4 years we have built up a much better rapport with the States of Jersey and quite often we get access to work experiences now and the number of jobs are increasing. I think we could do more. We could always do more, but we are definitely on the right road.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
Have you got a point of contact to communicate with?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: Yes.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
So it is not a question of you going out to the different States departments and saying to each department: "How can we assist you? What are you prepared to do to help us?"
It is both. We do that because we offer an individual service. So if somebody has got an interest in work and that job happens to be available in the States then we would approach it that way, but we work centrally through Sam Duffy in H.R. (Human Resources) who is very helpful to us and will ring us if she feels there is a vacancy suitable. We go and talk to the H.R. managers probably about every 6 months about what we do. We have recently started an internship scheme and we have been working with them closely on that as well. Yes, it is improving and it is getting much better.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
In the U.K. is there a code of good practice in that regard? Are companies expected to take on a percentage of people with disabilities or is it purely voluntary?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
They used to be. They used to have a quota figure of 3 percent but they dropped that probably going on for 20 years ago now. They found it did not work. It was not the appropriate thing to do. I know I was a practitioner then and to force companies into taking people on is not the right road. You want people to take them on because they want to, and I do not think the figures stacked up in terms of how it worked out. The U.K. obviously has its own anti-discrimination laws and now they have - I am trying to remember what the latest scheme is - Disability Confident where they try and encourage employees to take people on. I have to say in Jersey we are doing as well as the U.K. without the disability law. I am hoping it will improve. It is not because we do not want it because I think there is always improvement we can do, but I find employers in Jersey are very receptive and in some ways (and, as I say, I do definitely want the anti-discrimination law) is you do find an area of openness. Because there is no law, employers are much more willing to tell you their concerns without fear. So people are very open and in which case you can challenge that, but I do definitely want to see the law moved as quickly as possible.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Would you like to expand on the new discrimination law and how you see it impacting particularly on your work?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
I think it just gives people protection and everybody should have the right to protection. I would say what I found, because I was around when the laws changed in the U.K., was the biggest impact was not employment because it tended to just affect that one person and that one company, unless it was something like the States of Jersey or a big enterprise. The biggest change it will make is giving people with disabilities access to services and I think probably
education. I know things are changing at Highlands now with the new principal but in the U.K. if you went on to further education you were immediately assessed as to your support needs and that was not an issue. Now, in Jersey the staff are excellent at the college and they make a small amount of money go a long way, but there is not that facility to offer that individualised support, which I think the schools do extremely well, but once somebody leaves that and goes into F.E. (further education) .... As I say, I think it will change now but, for me, that will make a big change. Also accessing the services, there were some major changes in service provision because if it affected one person it was seen to affect the community. I think everybody should have the right not to be discriminated for whatever reason, including disability. Initially it is possible that the anti- discrimination law could have a negative effect because people might be worried about taking on people with a disability because of the law, but I think after a few months that will settle down. Employers will have that level of anxiety, particularly if they do not understand the nature of the disability of the person they are taking on but that is what J.E.T. is all about. We plan, as the law comes in, to do an awful lot of training and support that disability awareness with employers. We see it as one of the main aims and goals of our charity.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
I think you said earlier that J.E.T. gets most of its funding from Social Security, but J.E.T. is a charitable trust, is it not?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: Yes.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
Do you apply for funding from the various organisations that give money out?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
Yes. Obviously we use the Association of Jersey Charities. Last year, from the Lloyds Bank Foundation, we received over £100,000 to develop our new Woodshack, which was very good, over a 3-year period. Other than that we will go for any grants available. We tend to go for corporate sponsorship and donations. We do not compete with the other charities in terms of the flag days and those types of events. I think it is difficult in terms of image when you are trying to promote somebody's abilities to go down certain funding routes, but I find that businesses in Jersey are very supportive and very receptive when we go out to do that.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
There was something else I wanted to ask you.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Can I just return back to that? You said that only 20 of the people that you deal with are actively seeking work in that sense.
[10:45]
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: Yes.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
I just want to ask this question. On the Back to Work scheme they are now trying to deal with all those up to 35 per cent disability but they have put a sanction in. I am just wondering what you think about putting a sanction in when you are talking about disability. Is that appropriate.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
Well, no, but I think the issue raised is that people that we are working with ... I think it was slightly less than 100 people that were affected by the there was only one active J.E.T. client that came under that bracket. Since then we have had a few referrals from that group. I think my concern is some of the people that are being classed as "under employed", those people who are in classed as being full-time employed or still remaining on Income Support. We have had a couple of referrals where from our assessment ... they have been referred to J.E.T. because they would have been classed as that, but we felt, particularly those people who have a mental health condition, that that was enough. Where I have found that has been the case, I have gone back to Social Security and they have accepted that. They cannot exempt people but say for now, 20 hours a week or 25 hours a week are enough. Within JET it is a lot easier for us because we have 3 occupational therapists that work for us who can do an in-depth assessment as well. Because of the nature of the people we work with, we need that sort of medical support. I have never really had a problem where we felt that that person is having specific difficulties at the time. So the range of people we work with is quite limited in terms of who is classed as actively seeking work and where it has been an issue I have always found the department really helpful.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
But the key to you is proper assessment so you are dealing with the right whole person.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: Yes.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Not necessarily one of the issues, but all of the issues.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
I think there is an anomaly because the percentage L.T.I.A. is not assessing somebody's workability. It is the loss of faculty. I understand what it means but I could not really see how that equates to employability.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
While it is very easy to see physical disability, mental disability is less easy to judge.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
I think it is very hard to judge, but as long as it is used as a marker and not a rule to encourage people. In my experience I do not have a problem. People with a disability are wanting to work but require the levels of support. I mean J.E.T. works with over 400 people a year of which only 20 technically are deemed to have to look for work. The others are doing it on their own and they want to work. I am sure there are a lot more people out there who, given the type of support, would be in the same boat.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
I understand that your budget is going to be cut by 2 per cent. Today, are you confident that you can provide the service to all those who require it in the coming months at the level that you feel should be provided?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
I think the simple answer to that is no. We are looking at alternative ways; as you say, looking for donations. We are having to be much more proactive about income generation and I have become extremely mean to anybody who wants anything, but it is an issue.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
Because of that 2 per cent cut are you basically trying increase your income, whether that is through your turnover ...
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: I have increased our turnover.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
Yes, to fill those vacancies that you have got to provide the service that you know is going to increase over the coming months.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: Yes.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
Is there any particular reason why there is going to be a greater demand on the service? Did you say there is going to be a significant increase in the number of people?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
Our numbers are always going up anyhow. It's like a gradual incremental increase. What I do not want to happen is, because of the pressures, that we have to stop services sooner than we should. J.E.T. prides itself in terms of its long-term service. We do not have a set period after 2 months. We carry on visiting and supporting as long as that individual and employer requires us to and somebody can come back to us. It is almost like once you are a J.E.T. client you are there for life. If you require the service you can pop in and out of it. We help people on career development as well. So it is not just about getting a job. It is about increasing your capacity once you are in that job and finding a new job. We are just assessing where we are at. I would not like to say that we could not provide a service and we will do our very best to do that, but I am certainly looking at income generation in order that we can maintain those services. We will be saying to the school leavers: "At this present we cannot guarantee this," or, "This is what we can offer," but I do not think we are in a position to offer all school leavers, particularly those with quite significant needs who require the S.T.E.P.S. service, a guarantee at this present time, but I am hoping we will be able to.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
One of the problems with charitable institutions is running on temporary funds from year to year. You need at least 3 years' funding to be able to say: "We can deliver this and we will deliver it over time."
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
With the financial plan, because we knew our budgets from what was in the States plan because J.E.T. is individually listed within that, we were feeling confident and we planned that way and, after we had done our budgeting for year, it was only when we were into this financial year we were told that there would be a problem, but every States department was in the same position. I suppose as a charity you have to accept equal-handedness in terms of how things are delivered. I would rather we did not but it is hard to argue otherwise.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
I note your smile. I am surprised you are still smiling. Anything you would like to say that you have not touched on or that you came here to say that we have not encouraged you to?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
No, I do not think so. I think I have spoken quite a bit.
Deputy T.A. McDonald:
How long has J.E.T. existed? We were trying to find out.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
This is good. This is a bit of publicity. It is our 15th anniversary this year, which we will be announcing in about the next 2 to 3 weeks. That is when J.E.T. came into being. Originally it took over Acorn and also what was Oakfield Industries at the time. We introduced the employment service 10 years ago, which is when we sort of started to see a big change in what we did, but it is our 15th anniversary.
Deputy T.A. McDonald:
You obviously will be doing something special for that.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: We will, yes.
Deputy T.A. McDonald:
I must admit, I am impressed with the publicity that I have seen, for example, on the Woodshed. I think that got exceptionally good coverage and so on. It is the old story: if you do not tell you do not sell. Are you happy you are publicising things enough or do you feel there should be more?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
We are looking to do more and particularly starting this year. Part of our business plan for the next 5 years is to get J.E.T. known by all employers and everybody, not only for its employment service but also for the products that we sell.
Deputy T.A. McDonald: So raising the profile.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
We are starting to do more on Twitter and Facebook and using social media.
Deputy T.A. McDonald: Excellent.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
I just have one last question. What is your relationship with J.E.N.D. (Jersey Employers' Network on Disability)? Have you a relationship with them?
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: Yes.
Deputy J.A. Hilton:
I was just wondering how the 2 worked.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust:
Not at the moment because we have rotated between the different charities but for many a year J.E.T. was on J.E.N.D.'s committee and we work very closely with J.E.N.D. We quite often support helping them to get the speakers and things ready for the breakfasts for the employers.
Deputy J.A. Hilton: Right, okay.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: Yes. So we obviously work alongside them.
Deputy G.P. Southern : Thank you.
Executive Officer, Jersey Employment Trust: Thank you very much indeed for listening.
[10:53]