AEIAG0056

Written evidence submitted by the International Centre for Guidance Studies (iCeGS), University of Derby

Summary

We welcome this important inquiry, the key points we wish to promote include the following:

• Adopting a more comprehensive umbrella term to describe the service rather than a reductionist acronym CEIAG will help to raise the profile and value of career guidance and development services.
• A career guidance and development system will only effectively engage young people to become successful career managers if they can see it as a service which will support them throughout life. The service needs to be seamless, clearly articulated, accessible, inclusive, and fully integrated into all learning and skills provision. This will ensure that

individuals can access help and support when needed and to assess the benefits of their choices.

• To ensure that young people with SEND engage with the service, it will need to provide inclusive services irrelevant of age or need. The service will need to include specialists with the training and knowledge to support this group. Disparate funding for provision needs to be rationalized in order to provide a more coherent offer to young people and adults with SEND.
• To support and ensure behavioural change in schools, an introduction to the Gatsby Benchmarks and ongoing CPD should be included within the ECF for newly qualified teachers.

• A new centralized service requires clearly articulated accountability, informed, and supported by key stakeholders including, employers, education and skill representatives, trade unions, professional bodies, and services users.
• Adoption of a national career development framework which will connect across life stages and be inclusive of skills and learning development should underpin the work of a new service.

• A new national service needs to have centralized funding which will ensure every young person has access to a professional qualified careers adviser
• A review of conditions of service for the careers profession needs to be conducted to ensure government have the workforce in place to achieve their skills transformation ambitions.

• Career Health checks need to be adopted as a tool to be offered to individuals every decade in order to reflect on their skills, career, and financial sustainability.

• The Gatsby revolution needs to continue in schools and colleges. This provides the building blocks on which we can build truly transformative career guidance and development provision.

Our response

Is the current provision effectively serving young people?

Although the term CEIAG is probably the most popular and recognized within the education community, reducing a complex provision of support to an acronym (CEIAG) is reductionist and unhelpful. Most people requiring career guidance and development services would not recognize the acronym and this proves confusing when it is used to describe services to service users, who do not understand the differentiated provision when expressed in this way. It is only those in professional practice who are likely to be able to differentiate the elements of CEIAG. As such, the range of terms used to describe these support services needs to be streamlined, rationalized and clearly articulated. We would prefer that the use of the acronym CEIAG be replaced with a more inclusive and understandable umbrella term such as ‘Career Guidance and Development.’ The term acknowledges both the full range of professional career guidance interventions and the outcome of these interventions for the client. This is the term which we will use throughout this document.

• Adopting a more comprehensive umbrella term to describe the service rather than a reductionist acronym will help to raise the profile and value of career guidance and development services.

There is consensus[1] across the career development sector that although there has been much improvement in terms of some career guidance and development provision over recent years, there is still much to do. The artificial stratification of services in England divided between young people and adults is unhelpful. A lack of a clearly defined career development infrastructure for young people and adults impacts on government’s ability to truly transform the education and skills environment and to achieve their policy goals.

This inquiry focuses on career guidance and development for young people. It is important to recognize that career is viewed by most practitioners as an iterative process of construction and reconstruction, therefore, a lifelong process of decision making and implementation for life, learning and work[2]. Trying to differentiate between life or education phases and various parts of a complex service does acknowledge the importance of the need to continually review and develop skills and knowledge. If we are going to raise young people’s ambitions and empower them to take control of a series of complex education, employment, and life processes, they need to understand how support services will help them throughout life, not just once or twice, but as part of a clearly articulated visionary service. This service can help all individuals in society to make the most of their life opportunities and to become empowered, contributing citizens. To achieve this there needs to a transformation of thinking which is committed to integrating career guidance within all learning and skills development opportunities. These services need to be available when they are required throughout life and not just at key transition points for young people.

• A career guidance and development system will only effectively engage young people to become successful career managers if they can see it as a service which will support them throughout life. The service needs to be seamless, clearly articulated, accessible, inclusive, and fully integrated into all learning and skills provision. This will ensure that

individuals can access help and support when needed and to assess the benefits of their choices.

To ensure inclusivity, The Equality Act (2010) requires that young people with SEND are entitled to support to make decisions about their next steps. This is in line with that provided for young people with no disabling characteristics even if these outcomes may not lead to economic activity[3]. Those tasked with developing holistic career services which engage with all young people, must take note of this even if interventions do not result in paid employment and ensure that the support for this group is incorporated into any career guidance and development system. As it stands, this is not the case as the Education and Skills Act 2008 and subsequently, the Children and Families Act (2014) stipulates that it is Local Authorities who have a duty to provide an assessment for young people with learning difficulties or disabilities that are progressing to post-16 learning or training rather than schools themselves. There is a lack of clarity about the role of career guidance professionals in supporting the EHCP process.

An effective service will need to ensure that provision is articulated for all, and specialist career development professionals are recognized and included in part of the offer. The current offer for SEND provision does not meet this vision. Funding for various parts of the service is held by individual organizations, local authorities and third sector organizations. This is not in the best interests of vulnerable young people or adults. A re-visioned national career service needs to address this so that the provision is articulated as an inclusive lifelong provision.

• To ensure that young people with SEND engage with the service, it will need to provide inclusive services irrelevant of age or need. The service will need to include specialists with the training and knowledge to support this group. Disparate funding for provision needs to be rationalized in order to provide a more coherent offer to young people and adults with SEND

Bringing careers into the curriculum

Our view is that careers work should begin in the primary phase of learning. There has been much evidence to support that young people’s identities and gender stereotypes are entrenched at an early age.[4] The curriculum in primary education allows many opportunities for young people to be introduced to the world of work through role models, stories, and encounters with members of the local community. It is at this stage that stereotypes can be challenged, and young people can have their aspirations raised[5]. The Career Benchmarks: Primary Pilot[6] undertaken by Northeast Ambition was acknowledged as a good example of offering younger children access to information about opportunities as early as possible.

The funding model and pressures within schools to fill sixth forms continues to act as a major barrier to ensuring that young people have access to all the information, they need to make an informed decision about next steps. We welcome the focus of the Baker Clause but recognise that systemic structures continue to impact on young people’s choices. The focus on this by Ofsted may help to ameliorate this over time, but a culture of impartiality focusing on what is in the young person’s best interest is difficult to achieve without incentives or clearly articulated benefits for schools. Ensuring every school has a professionally qualified team including a careers leader and independent careers adviser supported by senior leaders can help. The Early Career Framework (ECF) for newly qualified teachers (NQTs) and ongoing CPD should include an introduction to the Gatsby Benchmarks and integrating career within the curriculum as a key activity. This would help to normalise and integrate careers conversations throughout school life.

• To support and ensure behavioural change in schools, an introduction to the Gatsby Benchmarks and ongoing CPD should be included within the ECF for newly qualified teachers.

Bringing the responsibility for career guidance and development under one responsible body

It is our view, as previously stated that the most effective provision of career guidance and development services is through a visionary, all age, holistic service. We use the term ‘visionary’ in recognition that this is not without challenge. Currently the provision of career services is fractured, under-funded, poorly legislated and misunderstood. Responsibility for provision lies between several government departments and has stakeholders from many more. Currently there is much duplication between the various providers, most notably the National Careers Service and Jobcentre Plus[7]. This ‘competition’ invariably impacts on the customer and their ability to access the right help and support required to progress. The National Careers Service for example was not built into the Plan for Jobs, resulting in lost opportunities for individuals to maximize career change opportunities. Allied with this has been the loss of professional careers practitioners moving to work for DWP as Work Coaches due to higher salaries, resulting in skills shortages across the sector[8]. Bringing the provision of career guidance and development under one body such as National Skills Service would offer the opportunity to create greater coherence. However, the success of this would be dependent to the extent to which accessibility and visibility are ensured.

We welcome the suggestion that the new agency would be located in one single government department but would argue this is a cross-governmental issue and that other government departments are beneficiaries particularly the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy. It is in the interests of stakeholders connected to education, health, mental health, social care, justice, welfare, employment, and skills to have a properly funded, clearly articulated all age career guidance and development service. Research evidence demonstrates that when career guidance and development is done well it has positive impacts on all these issues [9] [10].

We would suggest that going forward, a new all age service should be supported and informed by key stakeholders including employers, educational and skills representatives, trade unions, professional bodies, and service users. We would specifically recommend the inclusion of the service user voice, as to date this has been lacking in the construction of services. This would ensure that the service would have accountability to constituent groups and stakeholders. This may also require a review of standards, legislation, and quality assurance as the various parts of the sector are subject to a variety and often multiple inspection. In advocating for this approach, we would suggest that a holistic, all age career guidance and development service should work to one ethical framework, one career management framework of outcomes and one framework of quality standards and benchmarks and process of accountability. The use of a national careers management Blueprint similar to those developed in Australia[11] and Scotland[12] offer a framework which integrates and clearly articulates all career learning. The CDI Career Development Framework[13] already exists and could be adopted for work with adults. The adoption of a national framework approach could connect together all career learning from primary through to adulthood offering a system inclusive of all learning and skills development.

• A new centralized service requires clearly articulated accountability, informed, and supported by key stakeholders including, employers, education and skill representatives, trade unions, professional bodies, and services users.
• Adoption of a national career development framework which will connect across life stages and be inclusive of skills and learning development should underpin the work of a new service.

Going froward we would advocate that career guidance and development provision should be centrally funded. Previously the funding of career guidance for young people was removed in 2011 and was in the region of £200 million.[14] Funding a new service to replace this lost resource would address issues of social injustice and ensure that all young people irrelevant of their background, education or geographical location would have access to services which could help improve their life chances. This would be a significant step forward and one which would redress the funding vacuum which has resulted in schools being fully financially responsible for the providing career guidance and development provision with no dedicated funding.

Provision of professionally qualified career guidance has become a major challenge for schools, colleges and the National Careers Service. Research conducted by the CDI[15]  recently identified serious concerns for the sector as 28% of respondents indicated they were likely to leave within the next two years, 33% were looking to retire and 40% were leaving due to poor pay.

• A new National service needs to have centralized funding which will ensure every young person has access to a professional qualified careers adviser
• A review of conditions of service for the careers profession needs to be conducted to ensure government have the workforce in place to achieve their skills transformation ambitions

One area that has yet to be fully maximized by the National Careers Service is the widescale offer of a mid-career review[16]. It is worth considering how could be extended as a Career Health Check’ to younger people and made available to all citizens once a decade to ensure they are planning for their future in terms of their skills, pension, and future career plans. Adoption of this tool within a national service would add a significant benefit in supporting all individuals to regularly reflect and plan their skills and pension needs.

• Career Health checks need to be adopted as a tool to be offered to individuals every decade in order to reflect on their skills, career, and financial sustainability.

The value for money of the National Careers Service and Careers & Enterprise Company.

The Careers & Enterprise Company and the National Careers Service have differing but connecting remits. This relationship is currently within the auspices of the Holman Review. There are several points which needs consideration. The funding models for the organizations are different, National Careers Service Prime contractors are procured every 3-5 years and their funding is dependent on output related activities linked to targets set with designated priority groups. The new contract is currently being reprocured for £187m[17]. Satisfaction and progression reports are produced at regular intervals documenting the impact of their work on the customers they work with. In 2020 93% of customers were satisfied with their experience and 97% experienced some form of positive outcome[18].

The Careers & Enterprise Company receives in the region of £28m[19] annual grant funding, which is used to support Careers Hubs, train Career Leaders, and implement best practice relating to the Gatsby Benchmarks. We acknowledge the excellent work being undertaken by the Careers & Enterprise Company (CEC) however, the Gatsby project is still not complete. Through the investment in research to assess the impact of the implementation of the benchmarks we know there is still much to do. The CEC reports (2021) that 80% of schools and 65% of special schools are providing personal guidance interviews to most students[20] although this is progress it is still not enough. A paper published by the Careers & Enterprise Company[21] clearly presents the financial benefits of investing in personal guidance. The paper suggests that for every £1 invested there is a return on investment of £3. This compares favourably with the recent review by the NAO of the Kickstart Scheme [22] which identified the return on investment (ROI) of £1.65 for every £1 invested.

The CEC have been instrumental in establishing the career guidance and development infrastructure in schools but on average schools are still only meeting half of the benchmarks: the CEC have reported that 43% of schools can offer a stable careers programme and 38% can address the needs of all young people[23]. This transformation of career guidance and development in schools and colleges is obviously developmental, and it will take both time and resourcing to be fully realized.

• The Gatsby revolution needs to continue in schools and colleges. This provides the building blocks on which we can build truly transformative career guidance and development provision.

We are concerned about the long-term viability of the CEC. We remember the demise of the Connexions service which, despite its problems represented a considerable investment from the public purse. The CEC have made much progress and it would be financially and socially irresponsible to dismantle what has been put in place over the last eight years.

A major concern is that neither the CEC or the National Careers Service has a remit to support some of the most disadvantaged groups, such as young people who are NEET and adults recently unemployed. This lack of alignment presents challenges in ensuring that a universal careers service truly exists in England. We hope that this may be rectified in the near future through the establishment of an inclusive all age service.

Future opportunities

This inquiry presents an important opportunity to shape the future of careers guidance and development provision in England. There are real strengths in terms of the work that the CEC and the National Career Service currently do. There are also opportunities. A national strategy is needed which clearly outlines the future direction of an all-age service, that is visible and accessible to all who need it; a career guidance guarantee which offers professionally qualified guidance to all citizens at times they need it; a career health check which will support individuals to examine their skills, plan future training and how their career will continue to progress.

Our view is that a statutory body should be responsible for and have an overview of an all-age career guidance and development service. This would ensure coherence and consistency and reduce duplication of provision and funding which is currently the case[24].

March 2022