Shared Employer Engagement in Practice

Lessons learned from Restart collaboration

The Restart employment programme offers tailored support to individuals who are out of work for six months or more and is delivered by eight Prime Providers contracted by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The Prime Provider Network (PPN) consists of employer engagement representatives from all prime Restart providers. The PPN aims to provide effective employer engagement at a national level through vacancy sharing and supporting ‘single point of contact’ account management for employers that operate across contract boundaries. The group is run and supported by the ReAct partnership at IES.

This research aimed to explore how the PPN has evolved since inception and the value and impact to the prime providers and supported employers. Looking to the future, this work aimed to consider how the PPN could continue to collaborate for the remainder of the Restart contract and what has been learned from the PPN to inform the design of any national employer engagement strategy within more devolved delivery models in future.

Interviews were conducted with representatives from eight Restart prime providers, three wider stakeholders with international experts on employer engagement, six employers and recruitment agency representatives, and a paired interview was conducted with members of DWP’s national employer team. The research team attended three PPN meetings. The recommendations from the research were reviewed and developed during a workshop with members of the PPN.

This report covers the experience and value created by the PPN, how the effectiveness of the PPN can be maximised for the remainder of Restart, and how the PPN model can be used to inform future national strategy. It also includes a number of recommendations for the future in terms of measuring success, supporting employers and sharing information.