The Careers Guidance Lottery

a report by Timothy Riley and Lydia Finnegan, with Malen Davies and Pippa Lane published by London Skills & Employment Observatory (June 2012)

Executive summary

Introduction and aims

The careers services landscape for young people in London is in a period of significant flux. The coalition government’s reforms have aimed to shift the balance of responsibility for delivering careers guidance to young people away from local authorities and to schools¹, resulting in less control from the centre. Therefore, the Education Act 2011 stipulated that schools have the responsibility to ensure that pupils receive independent careers advice from September 2012. Prior to this, local authorities had a statutory duty to fund universal careers guidance for young people, but this requirement has been lifted. Also lifted is the statutory requirement of schools to provide careers education to their pupils. In addition, in April 2012, a new all-age National Careers Service (NCS) was launched with the aim of providing impartial information, advice and guidance for all.

These changes to the youth careers services have worried a number of commentators. They note that whilst schools have been given new responsibilities to provide independent careers guidance for pupils, they have not been provided with any additional funding with which to do so. Moreover, whilst the NCS will provide universal online and telephone resources, it will not provide a face-to-face service for young people (aged 13 to 19). Overall, there is concern that ‘the existing funding for face-to-face career guidance services for young people is being allowed to vanish without a trace’ and that this will have a strongly negative impact on services on offer to young people² at a very challenging time for them in the labour market.

The aim of this project has been to provide an indication of the effect of these changes to the provision of careers guidance in schools in London, through a survey of local authority 14–19 leads and a number of case studies of the different models being applied.

Findings

This research presents a mixed picture in London about the availability of careers services for young people in schools from September 2012. On the one hand, nearly as many local authority 14–19 leads believed the level of careers guidance would remain the same or increase in their borough as thought that the level would decrease. As of February/March 2012, no borough was envisaging that there would be a widespread collapse of provision leading to inadequate services across the board.

On the other hand, there were still significant concerns. Around half of 14-19 leads answering the survey thought that there would be at least one school in the borough where the service was not adequate. Moreover, one respondent felt that ‘schools with greater financial issues [would] cut back and these [would be] the same schools with the most student need.’ There was also concern about the potential for an accountability deficit at a local level; who was ultimately responsible for the quality of provision or for ensuring provision was available?

But when this research was undertaken, in February and early March 2012, arrangements were still developing and subject to change in most boroughs.

Recommendations

• The Treasury and the Department for Education should urgently reconsider the decision to remove funding from careers services for young people. We believe there is a compelling case for investment in those services to help young people to make considered and appropriate career choices.
• In the event that the government continues with its current policy we urge schools, London boroughs and London government to consider the following recommendations:
• Schools should aim to improve the careers services on offer to their students and consider offering impartial careers services to students earlier, such as at Key Stage 3. They should also ensure they keep abreast of best practice in the careers guidance sector and, where possible, look to purchase careers services with other schools locally, as consortia should achieve better economies of scale.
• Local authorities should become careers services champions and encourage schools to offer impartial, independent and suitably accredited guidance.
• Local authorities should consider providing a careers guidance offer to schools or develop a framework of approved careers advice providers from which schools can purchase services at reduced rates.
• The Mayor and London Councils should develop a pan-London vision for careers guidance and consider the merits of a London Careers Guidance service for young people.
• The Department for Education should hold a comprehensive review to examine the state of careers guidance for young people in the early years of the policy change.
• Ofsted should give careers guidance increased importance in the assessment of schools.
• The National Careers Service should continue to develop its website based on best practice in the sector and responding better to local labour market trends.

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¹ The definition of ‘school’ to which this report refers to is wide, in accordance with the Education Act 2011, and includes community, foundation or voluntary schools, community or foundation special schools (other than those established in hospitals), academies, free schools and pupil referral units.
² Watts, T. (2011), The Coalition’s Emerging Policies on Career Guidance, Careers England Policy Commentary 15, http://www.derby.ac.uk/files/policycom152011.pdf, [last checked 03/02/2012].

Full text (PDF 48pp)

Hazel’s comment:
I am feeling pleased with myself – I have learned how to write nested lists in HTML.

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