This partnership brings together ELITE’s deep local roots, specialist knowledge, and trusted relationships with Fedcap’s decades-long expertise in sustainable employment—particularly for individuals with disabilities and underserved communities—along with its established infrastructure and geographic reach, creating new opportunities for ELITE to grow and expand its impact.

With more than 30 years of experience, ELITE has worked tirelessly to enable more than 20,000 disabled people and individuals with barriers to work to access and sustain meaningful employment. Through its award-winning social enterprises operating across South Mid and West Wales, ELITE creates pathways into work by providing tailored supported employment, training and advocacy. It is recognised for its holistic approach, empowering individuals to thrive in the workplace.

Andrea Wayman, Chief Executive Officer of ELITE, said: “ELITE has been committed to building a world where disability is never a barrier to work. By joining forces with Fedcap, we’re gaining a partner that shares our values and extends our reach, helping us expand our impact.

“As a charity, we’re proud to support local authorities, Welsh Government, and other partners in designing services that work for local people facing barriers to employment. Combining with Fedcap strengthens that position— bringing us added expertise and scale, while keeping our identity, values, and local connections at the heart of what we do.”

ELITE will retain its charitable status, leadership, and strong Welsh identity, ensuring it continues to serve communities in the way that has made it so valued. The partnership will enable ELITE to expand its current services across more regions, pilot new programmes aimed at supporting individuals with autism, mental health conditions, and complex disabilities, and benefit from Fedcap’s operational infrastructure and best-in-class programme models.

Christine McMahon, President and CEO of Fedcap said: “The partnership with ELITE aligns perfectly with Fedcap’s mission of empowering individuals facing barriers, especially individuals with disabilities, to work and achieve economic mobility. By combining our strengths, we will be able to innovate, scale, and deliver a greater impact for individuals who too often remain excluded from the workforce.”

Through this combination, ELITE will maintain its brand, leadership, and deep community roots while gaining access to broader resources and new opportunities for growth and sustainability.

Brian Bell, President of Fedcap Employment said: “We’re delighted to be working alongside ELITE Supported Employment, an organisation with an outstanding reputation and deep commitment to supporting people with disabilities into meaningful work.

“There’s a natural synergy between our charities as we’re both embedded in the communities we serve and put people at the centre of what we do. Together, ELITE and Fedcap will offer more opportunities for people in Wales who face the greatest barriers to work – and help employers across the country access this untapped talent.”

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Almost 400 members of staff from 26 offices, including 20 people from our partners, rallied round good causes from homeless shelters to foodbanks in the North East, North West and South Central regions of England, and across Scotland.

Charities which benefited from the army of volunteers included Abernecessities, a baby bank in Aberdeen which provides disadvantaged families with essential and basic necessities; One Can Trust foodbank in High Wycombe; autism and neurodivergent support charity Daisy Chain on Teesside and environmental charity Let’s Grow Preston, in Lancashire.

Brian Bell, Fedcap CEO, who spent Community Day with Fedcap’s Oxford team in an Oxfam store, said: “Fedcap has been on a social value journey over the last 12 months. While social value has always been at the core of our business, we have recently introduced a more widespread approach to maximise the amount of value we give back to society, and as a charity ourselves, we’re very keen to support other organisations.

“Our first ever Community Day was a great way to celebrate this, with our people dedicating 1,640 hours across 37 different charities, contributing a social value impact equivalent to £25,000, which will go towards our company target of delivering 25% added social value.”

Lindsay Harling, Head of Commissioning and Procurement, who is responsible for driving Fedcap’s Social Value and Sustainability agenda, said: “Spearheaded by our Social Value and Sustainability teams, Fedcap has delivered numerous social value projects throughout 2023. These have included creating Back to School bags containing stationery for parents struggling with the cost-of-living crisis and opening up discreet WeCare stations in our offices for customers to help themselves to tinned food, toiletries and hygiene products as and when they need them.”

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Not for profit organisation Fedcap is putting the voice of its customers at the heart of planning services for the future.

The UK-wide business has implemented a Customer Advisory Group to seek views from previous and existing customers when designing new services.

The group will meet regularly with the Executive team to not only share their experiences of support they have received but be consulted on new products and services and play a significant role in helping set the strategic direction to continually improve the work Fedcap does.

Brian Bell, CEO of Fedcap, explains: “We’re building a fundamentally different kind of organisation – a not for profit business that improves people’s economic wellbeing, helping them to find the best possible work, improve their health and wellbeing, and make a difference in their community.

“We care passionately about the people who use our services and, as our business grows and our support offer broadens, it’s really important that our customers remain at the heart of everything we do and are an integral part of the decisions we make.

“We already hold customer listening groups to understand their experiences of Fedcap, but we wanted to go further with a group of customers who we can speak to regularly, hold us to our values, advocate for us and provide an impartial view on our current service and the future avenues we look to explore.”

Ryan Westcott, 32, from Brighton, who has been supported by Fedcap to find work through the Department for Work and Pension’s Restart Scheme, is one of the group’s founding members.

With the support of his adviser, Ryan has transformed his life, overcoming addiction to find sustainable employment, while also volunteering with young people struggling with trauma.

Ryan is looking forward to taking an active role in supporting Fedcap’s Executive team to shape our services for the future.

He said: “Fedcap gave me encouragement. They were very caring and human. I was not a number – there was an actual aspect of care there. It’s really important to understand what someone’s needs are, so they feel heard.”

“It’s a very good thing what Fedcap is doing, and it comes down to the level of the quality of care that they’re providing for their customers.”

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Fedcap, which has 85 years’ experience improving the social, health and economic wellbeing of disadvantaged people within our communities, has designed a programme to upskill its current staff while attracting new talent to the business.

A range of apprentices will be available – from Level 3 (GCSE equivalent) right the way up to Level 8 (Master’s Degree) and open to our people regardless of age, role, experience and educational background.

Our first apprentices all work on the Restart Scheme, supporting people into sustainable jobs in the South Central area of England, on behalf of the Department of Work and Pensions. They will be completing Level 3 in Customer Service.

Rhea Clayton, from our Banbury office, is excited to start her apprenticeship this week. She said: “I feel lucky to be given the opportunity to join Fedcap’s apprenticeship scheme. I want to learn more about dealing with customers and their needs.”

Lynn Thompson, Fedcap’s Chief Financial Officer, who started her career as an apprentice herself, said: “We believe Fedcap is a great place to work and believe the success of our business is through our people.

“We’re really proud of our apprenticeship programme. We think it will add real value to the business and create real opportunities for our people to learn new skills and develop themselves.

“I know the value of an apprentice scheme because I was once one too. I can see the value in what it brings to the business and how it inspires people to progress.”

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Fedcap’s customer contact centre has received national recognition for the part it plays in improving and even saving the lives of its customers.

The 28-strong Fedcap Customer Success Centre (CSC) team have won the Team of the Year – Hidden Heroes category at the Employability Related Services Association’s (ERSA) Awards.

The team is a crucial cog in the business, ensuring DWP’s Restart jobs programme in the South Central region of England maintains a high performance of getting people back into the jobs market. But the team is not merely a back office function, but are quite literally lifesavers with every member of the team dealing with a least one call from a suicidal customer.

When a lady called in saying life was getting too much, Customer Service Adviser Josh Parker stayed on the phone with her for over an hour, keeping her calm and finding out as much information to pass to the police.

Together the team has developed a protocol for dealing with this type of situation, led by Katie Langhorne, an ex-police officer trained in communicating with people in distress.

Paul Norris, CSC Delivery Manager, said: “We do feel a bit hidden away at times… but I’ve never managed a team who so visibly want to make a difference to people’s lives and who are so dedicated to finding ways to improve the way the business operates.”

Speaking at the ERSA Awards ceremony, Susan Paterson, Fedcap’s Operations Director said: “The CSC is the backbone of our operations, they make everything run smoothly and are a fundamental part of the business.

“But the team consistently goes above and beyond what is expected of them and we are delighted they have been recognised in this way.”

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We’ve officially opened our newly-refurbished office in Edinburgh.

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