IPS employment support for people with drug and alcohol addictions
This project is also known as 'West London Alliance'
Aligned SDGs
- IPS employment support for people with drug and alcohol addictions
- General overview
- Location
- Involved organisations
- Outcome metrics
- Results
- SyROCCo reports
- Other resources
- Spreadsheet of data
- IPS employment support for people with drug and alcohol addictions
- General overview
- Location
- Involved organisations
- Outcome metrics
- Results
- SyROCCo reports
- Other resources
- Spreadsheet of data
General overview
Stage of development: Complete
Policy sector: Employment and training
Date outcomes contract signed: Aug 2018
Start date of service provision: Jan 2019
Anticipated completion date: Sep 2022
Actual completion date: Jun 2022
Capital raised (minimum): GBP 400k (USD 538.75k)
Max potential outcome payment: GBP 2.38m
Service users: 1k+ individuals
Intervention
Individual Placement Support Service helps adults (16-70 years old) with drug and alcohol addictions, who are out of work, to gain and retain competitive employment.
Target population
People aged 16-70 years old with drug and alcohol addictions, who are out of work. All service users were voluntary and either receiving treatment, in recovery or previous users of Drug and Alcohol Treatment services.
Location
Country
- United Kingdom
Service delivery locations
- West London Boroughs (Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Kensington and Chelsea, and Westminster)
Involved organisations
Configuration of contracting parties:
- Intermediated contract with payments made through SPV (investor backed)
- Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)
- Hounslow CCG
- Harrow CCG
- Hillingdon CCG
- London Borough of Barnet
- London Borough of Brent
- Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
- London Borough of Hounslow
- London Borough of Ealing
- London Borough of Harrow
- West London Job Centre Plus
- London Borough of Hillingdon
- West London CCG
- Barnet Job Centre Plus
- London Borough of Westminster
- Central London CCG
- Ealing CCG
- Brent CCG
Outcome metrics
- Metric 1: Engagement - Service user completes a vocational form at their second meeting with the Employment Specialist.
- Metric 2: Job starts - Service user starts paid employment up to nine months after engagement.
- Metric 3: Job sustainment - Service user sustains job, achieved up to nine months after engagement with the project. In this metric, we are conflating job sustainments of <16 hours and >16 hours.
- Metric 4: Health and wellbeing improvements - Improved service user wellbeing, evidenced with PROM (reduction of TOP score - Treatment Outcome Profile) and SURE (Substance Use Recovery Evaluator) forms completed 6 months after engagement with the project.
- Metric 5: Reduced health care usage - Change in forecasted healthcare usage costs - Innovative measure to find out whether forecasted use of NHS services would decrease by those using the service.
Results
This project started delivering services in January 2019 and finished in June 2022. Data on outcomes was self-reported by the project on the Life Chances Fund end of grant form. Data was last updated in December 2025. These are final 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 provider's description of the project:
'The programme delivered on an Individual Placement Support (IPS) model, which is evidence-based comprising of 8 principles[1] and originates from the USA. This was delivered across 8 West London Boroughs (Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster) and uniquely funded by 19 stakeholders including a Social Impact Bond. The model was endorsed by Dame Carol Black[2] in ‘An Independent Review into the impact on employment outcomes of drug or alcohol addiction, and obesity.’ Demonstrating positive evidence for mental health services, IPS services were recommended for Drug and Alcohol services. The programme operated as a lite model, with an adaption of time unlimited support where the service worked with people for up to 12 months.
In 2019, the IPS into Work service was the largest in substance misuse, running alongside Public Health England (PHE) trials in 7 areas across the United Kingdom. The IPS into Work service focussed on helping people affected by substance misuse to find and sustain paid work. Outcome measures included service user engagement, job starts, sustainment, improved well-being and reduced health care use.
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.
The provider's interpretation of the figures:
'Working collaboratively with MHEP, the outcome metrics were selected for the programme in 2018, taking account of what outcomes contributing partners were prepared to pay for and evidence from IPS services for people with mental health issues. Some of the metrics were entirely novel. The referral and engagement expectations which were based on people in treatment in the geographical area were impacted significantly due to Covid. But the percentage of people engaged who went into work, and sustained work, were in line with expectations. The above report does not reflect this. The need to collect evidence manually also meant the outcomes reported are likely to between 15 and 20% less than achieved. The change in health usage metric did not work, in part because all health forecasting was severely impacted by Covid. The linked infographic shows what the independent evaluation from Strathclyde University found. This better reflects the outcomes of the project.'
Linked resources from the provider: Strathclyde University Evaluation Infographic and An evaluation of Via’s IPS into Work Service.
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The following articles are taken from the Systematic Review of Outcomes Contracts Collaboration (SyROCCo) Machine Learning tool.
The tool is a collaboration between the Government Outcomes Lab and machine learning experts from the University of Warwick, that allows you to navigate and explore data extracted from nearly 2000 academic and grey literature publications related to outcomes-based contracting.
Spreadsheet of data
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