The Robertson Trust: Work Pathways Programme Award

Deadline: 7-Jun-24

The Robertson Trust is currently inviting Programme Award applications through an open call on the theme of Work Pathways.

The Robertson Trust is here to prevent and reduce poverty and trauma in Scotland – funding, supporting, and influencing solutions to drive social change. Work Pathways is one of the four key themes.

Within the Work Pathways theme, they have the ultimate aim of developing new and improved work pathways out of poverty, to increase earnings for low-income households over the short-term, and to prevent and reduce poverty and in-work poverty over the long-term. Across the theme as a whole they are interested in:

improving employment rates for key population groups facing structural barriers to fair work,
driving improved pay, conditions and secure/increased hours for low paid workers,
minimising volatile earnings and maximising secure work, and
delivering improved career progression for low-income workers.

The Trust is working on these aims across a range of work to fund, support and influence and will continue to do so over the course of the strategy through to 2030.

Priority Areas

This could include applications for work focused on:
- Employer-focused approaches rather than approaches that solely focus on the employee.
  - Traditional employability models and in-work support often focus on how the individual can adapt to the workplace rather than how employers may need to change behaviour to meet the needs of their organisation and their employees. They are interested in approaches that support employers to adjust business practices and job design to tackle in-work poverty for employees and improve job quality.
- Encouraging adoption of fair work principles by employers across Scotland
  - They use the Fair Work Framework to define fair work in Scotland, with five dimensions of: effective voice, opportunity, security, fulfilment and respect. They are keen to see applications that can support adoption and improvement in practice across these five dimensions in Scotland.
- Improving career progression, skills investment, and job design
  - Too many people in Scotland are trapped in low-pay jobs. Driving improved career progression, including through increased skills investment/utilisation and improved job design, are crucial to tackling in-work poverty. They commissioned research through the Diffley Partnership with people with experiences of in-work poverty which found that employees they spoke to linked progression opportunities as being incompatible with caring responsibilities, particularly childcare costs. They are interested in work that can support career progression for low-paid workers in general but in particular for the population groups most likely to be affected barriers and the sectors most likely to see entrenched low-paid work.
- Removing barriers to earning more (where people want to)
  - There are often structural barriers in the way of people earning more. These are often beyond the control of employees or employers and include social security conditions, childcare costs, physical and mental health conditions and/or a lack of community infrastructure such as reliable, affordable transport. They are interested in projects in these areas as long as they have a clear focus on paid work, and on tackling in-work poverty and improving job quality in particular.
- Strengthening worker power, rights and enforcement
  - At the core of delivering improved work will be improving worker power and strengthening worker rights. This can be good in the long-term for employers as much as employees, improving wellbeing, retention and ultimately productivity. However, employees have limited tools, resources, and influence to not only understand and secure their rights but to enforce them which becomes more challenging again for those in low wage sectors and roles. Equally, employers often do not have the support needed to effectively build a constructive working relationship with employees. They are interested in projects that can help to strengthen worker power and worker rights in Scotland, to tackle in-work poverty.
Across these areas they will be particularly interested in work focused on lower-paid sectors such as health and social care, retail, hospitality, administration and manufacturing. They will also be interested in work that focuses on population groups and places more likely to experience lower quality work and in-work poverty.

Funding Information

They will usually look to make awards for up to five years, with a total award amount usually between £50,000 and £500,000, up to £250,000 per year.

Population Groups

They are particularly interested to see applications from organisations working in a focused way with at least one of the priority population groups within low-income families and/or those at risk of poverty, which are:
- Workers with low levels of qualifications.
- Women – particularly in part time work and/or with caring responsibilities.
- Formal or informal carers.
- Parents including lone parents.
- People from Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities.
- Disabled people or people with a long-term health condition.
Or a particular focus on the following high priority sectors including:
- Hospitality
- Retail
- Health and Social Care
- Manufacturing
- Administration
The Robertson Trust is increasingly aiming to build participation with people with experience of poverty and trauma into the work. This includes what they fund and who they work with. Meaningful and ethical co-design with people with experience of poverty and trauma will be one of the key criteria for assessing applications through the Programme Awards.

Eligibility Criteria

This open call for Programme Awards is available to organisations working in Scotland with an annual income of more than £100K. Annual income is based on the money you received in the last financial year, as presented in your most recent set of audited annual accounts.
Programme Awards are open to:
- Organisations working in Scotland with an annual income of more than £100,000.
- The following types of organisations:
  - Registered Charities active in Scotland
  - Asset Locked Community Interest Companies (you must be able to demonstrate a satisfactory asset lock demonstrating how they do not distribute assets or profits to individuals or third parties),
  - Housing Associations
  - Credit Unions
  - Partnerships led by one of the organisations above can include other types of organisations (such as companies or public bodies) – see In Partnership?
- If the proposed project is being delivered by a subsidiary company with a different legal structure to that outlined above, the application (Stage 1 application) should be made by the parent company, which must meet the published eligibility criteria.
- Organisations already in receipt of another award from The Robertson Trust are eligible to apply through Programme Awards. However, the proposed work should be different and/or additional to what they already fund.

Ineligible

Organisations with an annual income of less than £100K.
Other types of organisation which are not listed above.

For more information, visit The Robertson Trust.