Main recommendations for the remaining period of SCORE Phase II The current donors (SECO and NORAD) of SCORE have indicated to be interested to continue supporting the programme after 2017. Considering the possibility of developing a new phase for SCORE, the SCORE team at ILO headquarters (consulting with SCORE country teams) is recommended to use the results of this Mid-Term Evaluation to timely prepare the ground for a new period of SCORE during the remaining two years of SCORE phase II. In this period SCORE headquarters and the SCORE country teams should work on the following tasks.
SCORE headquarters should extend the current timeframe for implementation of SCORE in China, Indonesia and Vietnam until the end of 2017 to allow that a new Phase 3 can seamlessly follow-up on the previous SCORE phase in all SCORE countries. SCORE headquarters and country teams should discuss a redistribution of the overall budget among all 9 current SCORE countries to ensure that sufficient budget is available for continuing Phase II until the end of the period and SCORE headquarters should investigate the possibility for assigning extra budget to the remaining two years of Phase II with additional SECO and NORAD support or with additional extra-budgetary ILO resources. (Priority: urgent. Recourse implications: need for extra budget or reallocation of existing budget among the current SCORE countries).
While extending the time frame of the current phase for China, Indonesia and Vietnam until the end of 2017, for these countries the strategies and targets for reaching financial and institutional sustainability should be extended until the end of 2017. In all SCORE countries, SCORE teams should focus their attention on building and maintaining strategic relationships and achieving technical, financial and institutional sustainability of the training provision and its results at the SME-level, instead of focusing on quantitative output targets. This also requires further developing multiple sustainability models in each SCORE country. New sustainability models should be tested and piloted and results analyzed and documented in order to have solid sustainability models before the end of Phase II to be included in a possible next SCORE Phase 3. ILO should consider ending SCORE training provision in countries or sectors, where sustainability prospects are very weak. (Priority: urgent. Recourse implications: minor, pilots will require some extra time for supervision and analysis and there could be costs of non-successful pilots).
SCORE headquarters and all country teams are recommended in the remaining two years of Phase II to work on systematization of experiences and analysis of SCORE results at the SME-level, to complement the current anecdotal and testimonial based ‘proof of value’ of SCORE for SMEs in the form of cost-savings and increased competitiveness. The proof to be generated of SCORE effects and impacts should be at least sector specific and where possible also country and enterprise-size specific. New more tailored and contextualized criteria and indicators should be explored to avoid that specific insights get diluted or lost or loose relevance at the generic global level. Also outcome mapping and outcome harvesting methodologies could be used to gain better insight on effects on beneficiaries and stakeholders.17 This will also help to show evidence of changes in gender relations and conditions. SCORE headquarters should ensure that the total experience of 9 years of SCORE Phase I and 2 implementation will generate proof out the programme itself and not from other external (and sometimes already rather old) SME researches. (Priority: urgent. Recourse implications: significant, because this research will require extra involvement of consultants).
The SCORE team at global level (consulting with the national SCORE teams) is recommended to closely monitor the changes in approach and procedures to allow more flexibility in the certification of SCORE trainers and in changes in approaches and practices on quality control of the SCORE trainers. ILO should measure the quality of trainers’ performance and the satisfaction of SMEs of trainers’ performance on a yearly basis (twice until the end of SCORE Phase II) to have good insight in the effects of changes of these quality control procedures and certification over time and also between different approaches in different countries. On the long run, depending on ILO’s approach in the further future on branding the SCORE approach and trainer, the market can also play a role in this, as good trainers will be successful while not so good trainers will gradually lose business. However, SCORE cannot wait for this to happen. Trainers are the core actors in the delivery of the SCORE concept to SMEs and ILO cannot compromise (temporarily) on quality if it wants to remain involved in providing SCORE world-wide. The insights from this monitoring should be used in developing a clear approach on corporate quality control of trainers’ performance and guarding the unique concept and features of the current SCORE provision in future phases (also see the recommendations for the future phase of SCORE). (Priority: urgent. Recourse implications: minor, but some additional efforts and indicators need to be including in the yearly monitoring and reporting).
To increase efficiency of SCORE implementation, SCORE headquarters and SCORE country teams need to ensure that working with individual trainers subcontracted and coordinated by the SCORE country teams is minimized. These individual arrangements lead to micro-management by the SCORE teams, taking away precious time from other more important and strategic activities. Additionally, these individual arrangements make quality monitoring and control more time intensive. While working with institutional training providers will increase the costs of trainers, because fees will be higher, savings by eliminating micro-management will likely compensate for these extra costs. SCORE teams working with individual consultants are recommended to negotiate with them to form an institutional structure for cooperation with the SCORE country teams (as has happened in Ghana). (Priority: Medium. Recourse implications: positive. On the short term investment in time to create these structures is needed, but after that savings could be considerable).
Main recommendations for future follow-up and replication of SCORE The theory of change and intervention logic of SCORE Phase 3 should include lessons learned from the first two phases and the SCORE team at headquarters and SECO and NORAD are recommended to consider some fundamental changes in the design of SCORE to ensure that SCORE is well embedded in ILO’s mandate and that its implementation becomes future-proof. The following revisions are suggested.
SCORE Phase 3 should include in its theory of change and intervention logic a more ambitious developmental objective to ensure that SCORE can continue to be branded as an ILO project. This developmental objective should refer to the promotion of decent work and compliance with international labour standards. Sustainable SCORE service provision to improve SME working conditions, productivity and competitiveness, as is now stated in the SCORE Phase II project document as a development objective, is in fact more a business model and not an objective. A new phase of SCORE should mention the strengthening of sustainable, competitive and responsible SMEs with improved management-workers dialogue and cooperation and adherence to decent work, international labour standards and gender equality at the top of its theory of change and intervention logic. (Priority: important. Recourse implications: none)
The previous recommendation implies a repositioning of SCORE, moving the focus from productivity and competitiveness of SMEs to a combined focus of productivity and competitiveness and responsibility and compliance to standards and requirements in national and international supply chains. SCORE headquarters is recommended reviewing its communication strategy and marketing approach to ‘sell’ SCORE to SMEs not only with the (difficult to quantify) unique selling point of costs savings and increased productivity but also with the selling point that integration in supply chains increasingly requires compliance with international labour standards and certification of this compliance. Participation in SCORE can help SMEs to prepare for this and decrease the costs and efforts for certification. This combined selling proposition will increase the value of SCORE for SMEs and therefore increases the potential for cost-recovery of the SCORE training provision. (Priority: important. Recourse implications: none. Over time this change can lead to increased cost-recovery through increased sales of SCORE modules)
ILO is recommended to develop a stratified approach towards financial and institutional sustainability of SCORE training provision. This approach should recognise the multiform nature of the SME sector and introduce specific cost-recovery and payment mechanisms as well as partnership arrangements for specific categories of SME’s. A basic design of such a stratified sustainability approach could look as follows:
For the top league of SME’s the SCORE training provision could be offered against full-cost recovery and it could largely follow a commercial BDS provision approach. SCORE training providers and sector associations could organise and provide SCORE service provision in direct interaction with the companies.
For a second group of companies ILO, training providers and sector associations need to development partnerships with other financial and BDS service providers to ensure that SCORE can be offered sandwiched in a package of financial and possible other BDS services. In this way the cost of SCORE training can be financed within loans or leasing services to companies and the SCORE training will increase performance of companies (through cost savings) to repay their loans. Alternatively other partnerships with insurance companies (as is being developed in Colombia) can be developed to enable cost-recovery through savings in disbursements by these companies through improved OSH performance of companies. Similar partnerships can be developed with other service providers or public entities that can achieve cost savings (e.g. reduction in unemployment benefits) by linking up with score. Partnerships with certification bodies can be considered to achieve reduced costs in (preparing for) certification. In these constructions costs of money will have to be considered in pricing of SCORE modules and flexible pricing mechanisms should be offered to cater for specific SME demands.
For the final group of companies, the offering of SCORE will have to consider subsidies and this will require partnerships with public and private entities that are willing to provide such subsidies. On the one hand, this could be Government Institutions that have an interest in SCORE to ensure that OSH in companies is kept to standards, human and labour rights in companies are respected etc. On the other hand these could be private entities such as lead buyers that have an interest in compliance with certification requirements in all tiers of their supply chain. If such public or private perspectives for subsidies don’t exist, ILO and the implementing SCORE partners should refrain offering SCORE to this group of SME’s.
(Priority: important. Recourse implications: none. Over time this strategy can lead to increased cost-recovery)
SCORE headquarters is recommended to systematize supply chain experiences during Phase I and 2 and to develop this as a new additional approach and methodology to reach out to SMEs. Working along supply chains will have multiple advantages for SCORE.
Through contacts and agreements with national and international lead buyers in supply chains, the supply chain has an in-built possibility to identify and reach out to lower tiers suppliers.
Because lead buyers in supply chains generally are interested to track and trace and certificate their suppliers, they have a financial interest in supporting suppliers to increase certification rates and compliance to standards. As shown in the current pilots, this presents a possibility for cost sharing between lead buyers and suppliers to take SCORE modules.
The combined selling argument mentioned in the previous recommendation can be built in this supply chain approach.
Certifying bodies could be interested to include SCORE elements in their support and training programmes and there could be possibilities for cost-savings in certification processes, because SCORE can prepare for a number of certification criteria. In case SCORE fully prepares for certain criteria, taking SCORE could even serve as a ‘waiver’ in certification processes.
Working along the supply chain, could coexist with the current SCORE approach to work within specific sectors and clusters and to partner with employers’ and sector associations to promote and market SCORE among their membership. (Priority: important. Recourse implications: positive. Working along supply chains is likely to be more cost-effective and cost-recovery possibilities are greater).
The changes in approach on trainers’ certification and quality control (see recommendation in previous section) need to be evaluated at the end of Phase II of SCORE. The new SCORE Phase 3 requires a clear vision of ILO headquarters and the SCORE team to what extent ILO should ensure constant quality and characteristics of SCORE training and support services worldwide and to what extent specific characteristics could vary among countries and sectors. In the case ILO continues with SCORE, it has to ensure that trainers work with the same approach. This then will require central and country level guidance, monitoring and quality control by ILO. ILO headquarters will have to decide how and how much structural capacity for trainers’ certification and quality control can be secured. (Priority: important. Recourse implications: significant, because quality control and monitoring of trainer’s performance will have a considerable cost that cannot be fully absorbed by the market).
