The launch of Sarina Russo Job Access UK

Monday saw the launch of Sarina Russo's Job Access programme in Coventry. Having built up a strong name and gained a lot of experience in Australia, Sarina Russo aim to bring their brand of welfare-to-work delivery to the UK.

A well attended event, which featured a speech and the official opening of the centre by Cherie Blair, who focused on the work both the government and providers were doing to ensure that the global economic downturn need not mean a downturn in people's life opportunities. The focus was heavily placed on family success, and lessons learned from thirty years in the industry in Australia, or, in Sarina's own words, "experiences of defying the odds". As someone who had been fired a number of times for having a "bolshy personality", Sarina argued that she understands many of the barriers individuals can come up against while trying to find work. Her hands-on approach leads to her interviewing every single staff member, from the bottom up, which staff feel has led to a very genuine sense of community amongst the team.

Part of the Australian team, including some of the operations managers, have been brought over from to help "integrate skills and experience". They have been joined by veteran UK staff Paul Siffre, Phil Dack, and Chris Seel, who are heading the team.

Australian Model

One of the key questions has to be whether they intend to try and replicate their Australian delivery programme over here, and the answer does indeed seem to be yes. There was much talk of "bringing their unique approach to the UK", and a sense that this is the right time given that FND was, at least in part, modelled on the Australian system. They will introduce the option of access to a psychologist for individuals who need it, as part of their plan to help people overcome four main barriers: employer, environmental, institutional, and self-belief.

In addition, they intend to have just one employer team, as in Australia, which they feel enables them to treat each person as a customer, providing them with a number of options across a number of employment and training areas.

However, clear differences will occur, and it will be interesting to see how the company adapts. A number of these differences are a result of working within different systems, for example the fact that providers work with job seekers from day one in Australia, compared to a year in most cases in the UK, puts providers on a different footing. And starting off as one subcontractor for Serco in Coventry as opposed to already having the wide range of contracts as in Australia will prove challenging in itself.

The future of FND

Nonetheless, given their experience in dealing with contracts similar to FND, it is no real surprise that the general sense from employees is that FND is the right move for the welfare-to-work industry to be making. Interestingly, the general consensus in the room was that no matter which political party is in power come the spring, FND phase 2 will still exist in some form or another, and so confidence in tenders is still strong.

So will Sarina's vision of her team becoming the "Madonna of training and education in the UK" be fulfilled? Of course we can only wait and see, and it is indeed a big aim, but with a well-gelled team and having just celebrated thirty years in the industry, they've definitely got potential to succeed here in the UK.

Q&A

I followed up on the event with some questions about Sarina Russo's model, which were answered by Phil Dack:

Q. What specific support options will you be offering individuals? e.g. pre-employment courses, helping with the funding of suits etc...

We will be offering a wide range of support options, both through our direct delivery and through the support of our subcontractors and delivery partners. We believe that support should be 100% driven by our customers' needs, so we focus on ensuring that we have comprehensive, quality assessments of needs; robust action plans that genuinely reflect customer's goals and passions; tailored solutions to individual needs, not generic solutions to perceived barriers. We also put particular focus on our staff, because we believe it is impossible for us to effectively motivate, elevate and inspire our jobseekers if we haven't motivated, elevated and inspired our own delivery teams.

On the specific point of pre-employment programmes, a key part of our service delivery in Australia is the development of employment and training routeways for specific employers. We have a dedicated team who are entirely focused on this activity, as we find it fundamental to both helping large numbers of jobseekers into good quality, sustainable employment AND securing strong, robust employer relationships that provides benefits not only for our welfare-to-work activity but also across the business in terms of apprenticeships, commercial recruitment and training.

Q. Phil was talking about the fact that you're aiming to have a single employer team. Sounds like a good idea, but I was just wondering how it would work in practice?

We have a centralised team that engages employers across all of our services, whether it's paid recruitment, welfare to work recruitment, public funded training and apprenticeships or bespoke commercial training. We find that this allows us to develop stronger employer relationships whilst offering a wider range of services that is better able to meet the differing needs of our employer clients.

Q. What do you consider the biggest challenges for Sarina Russo to be, starting up in the UK?

From a personal point of view I expected one of the greatest challenges was to effectively engage with subcontractors and explain why the UK needed a new provider in the marketplace. In fact, I have found that delivery partners have been only too eager to embrace new market entrants, and most of them have understood that for DWP's prime contracting model to be truly effective, there needs to be as much competition at the prime level as there is at the operating level. Certainly, industry fears that a small number of larger providers would monopolise the marketplace - fears that were entirely justifiable if you look back to the results of programmes such as Pathways to Work and DWP ESF Phase 1 - haven't come to pass. As such, SRJA is looking forward to being a key part of this newly envigorated and competitive environment that we find ourselves in, a level of competition that can only be of benefit to both jobseekers and employers.