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DfES Lifelong Learning Directorate
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Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA)
Challenge
The Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) was introduced to provide support for over 16s staying on post-GCSE in education. It was a major part of the DfES' attempts to remove obstacles discouraging young people from moving on beyond basic qualification.
This was a very large undertaking, with several thousand eligible students each year, in about 3,000 schools and colleges. Clearly this required the highest standards of planning and implementation.
Solution
From the outset of the programme Oakleigh provided a small team to support DfES staff. The purpose was not to take over the delivery but to give support to the department's own staff in performing the tasks, both helping delivery and leaving the department with a lasting inheritance of skills and experience.
The support was continuous throughout the life of the project and covered a number of key stages:
- Setting out the roles of all key stakeholders for each stage of the scheme. used by the EMA field team to bring on board some 3,000 schools and colleges, as well as local partners in each of the 47 LLSC areas.
- Delivery of the management information solution: internal and external stakeholder consultation and producing a framework for monitoring and evaluating the EMA scheme. Then Oakleigh produced a plan for the delivery of management information on different aspects of the scheme.
- One of the core deliverables was the training of staff at over 3,000 schools and colleges in the use of the EMA ICT solution. Oakleigh's role included quality assurance of the training programme delivery and monitoring the operational readiness of the schools and colleges.
- Trialling and system/user acceptance.
Outcome
This major initiative was implemented on time and meeting all ministerial commitments. Although Oakleigh played a key part in the delivery, there was a substantial knowledge transfer to the departmental staff who worked alongside the consultants.
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