The Skill Mill
This project is also known as Skill Mill Young Offenders
Aligned SDGs
General overview
Stage of development: Implementation
Policy sector: Criminal justice
Date outcomes contract signed: Jun 2020
Start date of service provision: Aug 2020
Anticipated completion date: Sep 2024
Capital raised (minimum): GBP 1m (USD 1.32m)
Max potential outcome payment: GBP 3.24m
Service users: 252 individuals
Intervention
Skill Mill service centres around provision of employment; the young ex-offenders are offered 9 to 5 paid employment four days a week and encouraged to acquire a Level 2 qualification. In addition, participants are supported through mentoring given by both the supervisor on a day to day basis and more in-depth support from a dedicated guidance counsellor.
Target population
High risk ex-offenders aged 16-18
Location
Country
- United Kingdom
Service delivery locations
- Birmingham
- Croydon
- Durham
- Leeds
- Nottingham
- Rochdale
- Surrey
- West Sussex
Involved organisations
Configuration of contracting parties:
- Managed structure: SPV managed by intermediary
Outcome metrics
- Metric 1: Young person registers for the Skill Mill programme by signing the registration form.
- Metric 2: Service User has completed at least four weeks on the programme with regular attendance of at least 75% as evidenced by daily attendance register.
- Metric 3: Service User has completed the Skill Mill programme with regular attendance of at least 75%, or completes 5 months of the programme, but departs for purposes of entry into a job position.
- Metric 4: Confirmation from AQA that Level 2 award has been achieved.
- Metric 5: Letter from employer confirming full or part time employment for Service User; or Confirmation from HMT that Service User has registered as employed; or Evidence of enrolment into a NVQ Level 2 or above training course.
- Metric 6: Confirmation from Police or another local agency with access to the Police National Computer that Service User has not been reconvicted during this period; or confirmation from the YOT (Youth Offending Team).
Results
The Skill Mill started delivering services in August 2020 and will finish in September 2024. Data was last updated in June 2024. These are interim results.
Outcome achievements
Overall target is based on the high case scenario defined in the Life Chances Fund Final Award Offer or Variation Agreements.
The graph above shows interim results for the project’s outcome achievements. Each bar represents a key participant outcome or metrics. Each metric is detailed above the graph (under the ‘Outcome metrics’ section of this page). Users can hover over the bars to access data on the expectations and achievements for that particular metric. Labels at the top of the bar represent the overall expectations for specific metrics, for the entire life of the project. The coloured section of the bar represents the project’s achievements so far.
Each bar takes the unit of analysis of the metric (if the metric is measured in number of individuals, the bar graph is representing individuals achieving that metric. If the metric is measured in weeks, the bar graph is representing weeks).
A note on targets (or expectations): the graph above shows the latest targets for the project. These targets are based on the best-case scenario expectations for every project. These targets may be different from the targets set at the start, as projects adapt to unexpected challenges or changes in circumstances. In addition, these targets could also work as a ‘cap’ for payments. We offer these parameters as a reference on outcome achievement projections. If projects are under implementation, they are not expected to have achieved any of these targets yet.
The service provider's comment on this graph (September 2023):
'Skill Mill’s historic success in reducing reoffending has been reflected in the SIB programme and in the data set. Of 123 young people on closed cohorts for whom verified data on no re-offending over 12 months is available, only 14 have reoffended. This figure is slightly higher than the overall data for the Skill Mill as a whole, but at an 11% reconviction rate, it is a massive success and staggering in comparison with established Youth Justice figures - of around 70% for those with numerous previous convictions (Skill Mill’s target group).
The SIB has experienced a much more difficult process regarding the Job/further training outcome, which has been missed by most sites. To date, only 43 out of the overall target of 179 (24%) have gone into Employment, Training or Full Time Education. It is disappointing that, this is the case, because the past record of Skill Mill for young people moving on to employment or training has been impressive. Given that the programme timing coincided with COVID there would seem to be clear reasons for the shortfall and that the difficulty of meeting the target was mainly associated with lockdown and generally reduced economic activity. Other providers with an employment and training focus have similarly struggled due to COVID-19 interruptions. There is good news in that Cohort 5 has improved substantially on the performance of the earlier cohorts suggesting movement in the right direction. Skill Mill front-line staff would be quick to point to achievements of the young people and distance travelled towards employability in ways that are significant for their life chances but not measured within SIB outcomes.
134 out of 240 young people (56%) have achieved the external Level 2 qualification target. This outcome is regarded as difficult to achieve with the Skill Mill’s cohort given that, as a supervisor explained, ‘as soon as you get a pen and paper out young people switch off’. The Skill Mill has tried to ensure that the learning process is integral to the Skill Mill experience and not something that is bolted onto delivery and supervisors go out of their way to ensure that as many young people as possible come away with the qualification and that this is a lead into other more vocational qualifications - such as the CSCS card for the construction industry.'
Outcome payments
The graph above shows interim outcome payment results. The x-axis displays the years since the start date of the project to the anticipated completion date. The y-axis represents the value of the payments for outcomes realised by participants in the programme. The aim of this graph is to enable users to compare the initial expectations of the project against the actual value of the outcomes that were achieved.
The dotted lines represent the different plans that projects had at different moments- labelled as ‘Plans’ in the key. The data for these dotted lines (or single dotted line) comes from the outcome payment profiles that projects shared with the commissioners and their values represent expectations according to 'best-case scenarios' (if projects achieved as many outcomes as possible). There are different dotted lines as projects can renegotiate their payment plans as they face changes that affect delivery (such as the COVID pandemic) or adjust their expectations during the life of the project. Each dotted line is made of a set of points. Each point represents a quarter. Users can hover over those points and access data on the expectations for that quarter.
The solid line shows the outcome payments that the project already claimed and received- labelled as ‘Actual’ in the key. Squared points on the 'Actual' line indicate that the payment for that quarter was a COVID-19 medium-scenario grant. This was one of the temporary funding options offered to projects during the COVID-19 pandemic (this included activity payments based on projected medium-case performance scenarios). On the top-right corner, the ‘Plans’ and ‘Actual’ lines can be selected and deselected to change which lines appear in the graph.
A note on the representation of different payment profiles (or plans): when Life Chances Fund projects reprofile their payment plans, they use a template provided by the National Lottery Fund. When they complete data for the past quarters, some projects preferred to leave those cells blank, other preferred to repeat the previous expectations and other decided to complete those cells with data from actual payments. To avoid confusions around these different criteria, we start representing a plan from the moment when the plan is valid.
Spreadsheet of data
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