DfE Statutory Guidance for Schools and Local Authorities on Careers Guidance and consultation on extending the age range Date 15 May 2012 Author Summary Mark Upton LGiU/CSN Associate The Department for Education has published statutory guidance on the provision of careers guidance for pupils in school years 9 to 11. The guidance follows closely the tenant of the new duty which comes into force in September 2012 for schools in England to secure independent and impartial careers advice for their pupils. The guidance also advises on the relationship between schools and local authorities in relation to their respective statutory duties. This briefing will be of interest to executive members/cabinet portfolio holders and senior officers with responsibilities for children and young people and for local economic development. Overview The Department for Education has published statutory guidance The Education Act 2011, the duty to secure independent and impartial careers guidance for young people in schools statutory guidance for Head Teachers, school staff, Governing Bodies and Local Authorities for secondary schools and local authorities in England on the provision of careers guidance for pupils in years 9 to 11. The keys aspects of the guidance are: That from September 2012 schools will be under a duty to secure access to independent and impartial careers advice and guidance. Till then, local authorities will remain responsible for providing such services. While schools have this new duty for their pupils, local authorities will maintain statutory responsibility for encouraging, enabling or assisting young people's participation in education and training. But there will be no expectation that local authorities should provide universal careers services or continue Connexions in its present form once the duty on schools has been commenced.
While schools will be free to make arrangements that fulfil the needs of their pupils the duty requires that advice and guidance is provided by somebody who is not employed by the school to ensure that it s independent and impartial. Schools should secure face-to-face careers guidance where it is the most suitable support and particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds and those who have special educational needs, learning difficulties or disabilities. Schools should consider a range of wider careers activities such as engagement with local employers, work-based education and training providers and local colleges and universities. Pupils should receive independent and impartial advice about all of the mainstream education, training and employment opportunities regardless of their individual circumstances. Briefing in full Background The Education Act 2011 sets out a range of changes to the duties of schools, colleges and local authorities in relation to careers advice. Schools will, from September 2012, be under a duty to secure and fund access to independent, impartial careers advice and guidance for their pupils, which are currently provided by local authorities via Connexions services. The Act also removes compulsory careers education from the school curriculum; this non-national Curriculum requirement under the Education Act 1997 continues to remain in force in Wales. The Government is developing new destination measures at Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5 to look at the success of schools in helping their pupils to progress on to positive post-16 destinations. Consultation is taking place in summer 2012 on extending the duty down to Year 8 and up to Year 13 associated with raising the age of participation in education and training to 18 by 2015. See DfE Consultation on careers guidance for schools, sixth form colleges and further education institutions (close of consultation: 1 August 2012). While schools will be free to make arrangements that fit the needs and circumstances of their pupils, the duty requires that advice and guidance is provided by somebody who is not employed by the school to ensure that it is independent and impartial. But they will have no additional money beyond their dedicated schools grant, so the money to pay for these services will need to come out of existing funds. Local authorities will maintain their statutory responsibility (section 68 of the Education and Skills Act 2008) to encourage, enable or assist young people's participation in education and training. They will be required to assist the most vulnerable young people and those at risk of disengaging with education or work through their Early Intervention Grant which from 2011 has subsumed the ring-fenced funding for Connexions services. Local authorities are also expected to have arrangements in place to ensure that 16 and 17 year olds receive an offer of a suitable place in post-16 education or training, and that they are assisted to take up a place. This will become increasingly important as the participation age is raised.
Section 69 of the 2008 Act is repealed meaning that the Secretary of State will no longer have the power to direct local authorities to provide careers services such as those that have been provided by Connexions. Indeed, separate statutory guidance issued to local authorities Statutory Guidance for Local Authorities on Targeted Support Services for Young People (April 2011) makes clear that while it is for local authorities to determine what services are necessary to fulfil their statutory responsibilities there will be no expectation that they should provide careers services or continue Connexions in its present form once the new duty on schools commences in September 2012. In the interim period, local authorities are still obliged to provide universal information, advice and guidance to all young people. A National Careers Service was launched in April 2012 providing specialist information, advice and guidance on careers, skills and the labour market, covering further education, Apprenticeships and other types of training, and higher education. It replaces the Next Steps service, which focused on adults, and provides a whole age service as promised in the Conservative Party Election Manifesto. The Service is a key element of the Government s further education and skills strategy, ( New Challenges, New Chances: Further Education and Skills System Reform Plan: Building a World Class Skills System ) which sees high-quality information about careers and skills, and independent, professional advice and guidance for people who need it most, [as] a vital part of an efficient labour market which drives growth. Although the national careers service will include face-to-face services for adults, young people will only have access to telephone and webbased services. Face-to-face services will be for schools to commission in accordance with the statutory guidance. The provision of careers services is handled separately in England, Wales and Scotland. England is the only nation where there has not been an all age service. In other nations careers guidance remains a Government service operated through a single organisation. Key elements of the Guidance From September 2012, section 29 of the Education Act 2011 places schools under a duty to secure access to independent careers guidance for their pupils in school years 9 to 11, which must: Be presented in an impartial manner and promote the best interests of the pupils to whom it is given; and Include information on the full range of post-16 education or training options, including apprenticeships and other work-based education and training options. The term, independent is defined as external to the school and, impartial as showing no bias or favouritism towards a particular education or work option. The guidance is statutory (issued under section 45A (Provision of careers guidance in schools in England) of the Education Act 1997, as substituted by s.29 of the Education Act 2011) which means schools must have regard to it when carrying out their duties; and replaces the interim guidance, The Education Bill changes to the delivery of careers guidance published in April
2011. It has been issued to all community, foundation or voluntary schools and special schools that provide secondary education and, for local authorities that maintain pupil referral units. Academies and Free Schools will be subject to the same requirement through their Funding Agreements. The guidance will be reviewed by March 2013 following a consultation (see above) on extending the age to which the new duty will apply when young people are required to participate in education or training until to 17 from 2013 and 18 from 2015. The guidance sets out the expectations that schools must have regard to in carrying out their duties, which for the purposes of this policy brief are summarised as: Schools should secure face-to-face careers guidance where it is the most suitable support and particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds and those who have special educational needs, learning difficulties or disabilities. Where schools deem face-to-face careers guidance to be appropriate for their pupils, it can be provided by qualified careers professionals. They may work individually or in consortia or partnerships with others to secure careers guidance services and can commission independent careers guidance from accredited National Careers Service providers or from other providers or individual careers guidance practitioners, as they see fit. Schools should consider a range of wider careers activities such as engagement with local employers, work-based education and training providers and local colleges and universities. Pupils should receive independent and impartial advice about all of the mainstreams education, training and employment opportunities regardless of their individual circumstances. To assist local authorities in their own duties, schools should support them in recording young people s post-16 plans, offers, circumstances and activities. Schools have a responsibility to act impartially and recognise where it may be in the best interests of some pupils to pursue their education in a FE college or a university technical college, for example. They are encouraged to arrange visits for 14 to 16 year olds to local colleges, work-based education and training providers and universities. Where appropriate, to make local college and work-based education and training provider prospectuses available to pupils to assist informed decision making. The guidance reminds schools that under section 72 (Educational institutions: duty to provide information) of the Education and Skills Act 2008 all schools are required to provide relevant information about pupils to local authority support services. It goes on to advise that schools should also work in partnership with local authorities to ensure they know what services are available, and how young people can be referred for support. From 2013, schools will be under a duty to notify local authorities whenever a 16 or 17 year old leaves education.
Apart from these elements which have been summarised for the purposes of this brief - the guidance makes clear it is for schools to decide the careers guidance to be made available based on the needs of their pupils. Comment The reaction to the guidance The publication of the statutory guidance has received severe criticism from the careers guidance trade and profession; Careers England, the national trade association, describing it as dismal and a highly disappointing minimalist read by the Institute for Careers Guidance, the professional organisation for practitioners. This criticism is a symptom of a wider opposition to the reforms as a whole. Many in the sector believe the duty placed on schools to secure the provision of independent and impartial careers guidance will not be robust enough to make this a reality and, in particular could be deemed to be satisfied by schools merely securing access for their pupils to telephone and online career advice resources. They also see that schools freedom to buy in careers services as they see fit may result in some pupils being provided with services that do not meet high professional standards. The critics claim that the strength of the Connexions brand has been its impartiality at armslength from schools and prior to 2008 from local authorities - that it is up to date and informed by local market information and that the personal advisers are trained and qualified. The new arrangements undermine that and collaborative approaches, frequently referred to as the The Partnership Model involving close working relationships between independent careers providers, schools, further and higher education institutions, employers and other stakeholders. At each stage of the reforms, it would seem the trade and the profession has had high hopes that their concerns were being listened to, only for them to be dashed. Hopes driven in part through a series of statements made by John Hayes MP, Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, with support from the Education Select Committee and then, Simon Hughes MP s report on access to university education, all supporting the idea of strengthening the professionalism of careers advisers and recognising the value of face-to-face guidance. At the core of their hopes, was the Conservative Party Manifesto commitment to follow the path taken in Scotland and Wales, to create a national all-age Careers Service. This, the sector saw would provide a seamless integrated service that would replace the separate services for young people and adults provided respectively by Connexions and Next Steps. But, it is becoming clear that the National Careers Service (NCS) will in practice be a rebranded Next Steps service for adults with an all age online and telephone service. That s because face-to-face careers guidance will only be available to young people if schools (and indeed colleges) to the extent that the institutions are willing to pay for it and, schools will be free to commission such services outside NCS suppliers and frameworks and, even, if they do procure from those providers those services will not be branded as National Careers Services.
The trouble is that, as far schools careers guidance is concerned, the key (and indeed, you could argue the only) driver is school autonomy and not, professionalisation, safeguarding the partnership model or establishing an all-age service, however worthy these aims might be. Unlike the National Careers Service, reforms to young people s careers services are not being led by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, but by the Department for Education. While John Hayes, a Minister in both departments but based at BIS, has been steering these reforms through Parliament it is fair to say, that he has had to back track on numerous occasions, no doubt redirected from Sanctuary Buildings. If that was not clear when the Education Bill was introduced to Parliament, then it was crystal clear when the Government s own Advisory Group threatened to resign last summer when its remit was curtailed by Government, without consultation, and confined to the National Careers Service. Many in the sector are now looking to Ofsted to ensure the necessary arrangements are in place for students to access impartial advice from an external service. But they will be left disappointed, again, as while inspectors already examine how school advice and guidance services prepare pupils for their next steps Ofsted have made clear they do not regulate how schools provide guidance to pupils, with accountability in their view lying with the school governing body. Are these concerns, well founded? So, are the concerns expressed about the reforms and guidance, well founded? In terms of the statutory guidance, Careers England believes that it leaves too many loopholes for schools that are not committed to offering a comprehensive, independent careers service. However, it was unrealistic to believe it would be anything other than a slight document. This Government has a rather different approach to statutory guidance than the previous administration. Guidance full of must dos in area outside child protection would just run contrary to the DfE approach on school autonomy and is consistent with the nature of the guidance for local authorities on targeted education support services. The Guidance as published is fully consistent with the promises made during the passage of the Education Bill about the role of face-to-face careers guidance, in leaving some local discretion but emphasising its role with those pupils with disadvantaged backgrounds. Careers England has argued that this could easily be read as implying that face-to-face guidance is only relevant to such pupils. This may be the case, and if it was it would be a significant improvement on the sector s original concern that the duty can be met by simply referring pupils to the National Careers Services website and telephone helpline (an inference taken from the interim guidance which is now revoked). This also needs to be considered alongside the fact, notwithstanding the recent spending cuts, that in many areas most pupils never had such a face-to-face service as Connexions was never resourced to achieve that and that not all Connexions Personal Advisors are trained Careers Advisors reflecting in part the wider offer provided by the service. That doesn t mean it is not a worthy aim to increase the professionalism of the advice provided. Much is happening through the Careers Professional Alliance and the Quality Careers Consortium to do just that, following the Careers Profession Taskforce Report in October 2010.
These concerns may be unfounded with the Institute for Careers Guidance (ICG) describing its recent schools survey ( Facing up to the Future ) as a resounding endorsement for face-to-face guidance with nine out of ten schools surveyed confirming that what their pupils needed most was face-to-face guidance from an independent professional. Over half are planning to buy in impartial services from external sources, with a third - understandably at the time of the survey - unsure of their plans, and only 8 per cent of schools planning to offer nothing at all or just refer pupils to websites and other online services. Overall, the ICG found that nine out of ten schools are planning to use a blend of teachers, visiting speakers, websites and externally provided guidance, depending on budgets, and despite the concerns expressed telephone helplines and similar services are the least popular approaches. A blended approach would respond to National Youth Agency research ( Into the Future: Young people s and teachers views on career advice ) which tells us that young people find information they receive from teachers and school career advisers to be useful with around two-thirds feeling that advice they receive in schools covers the options they are most interested in, and while they would welcome a personalised discussion they want to come from a trusted adult who knows them well rather than an expert in a particular field. Nonetheless, that same research found that young people are aware that the employment market is fast moving and are concerned that the information they get can be out of date. Consequently they want to meet people actually working in the career they are interested in which indicates, that as found by the recent ACEVO Commission on youth unemployment that young people value direct contact with employers and hearing from young people already in work. That is not to say that all was and is perfect in careers advice provision for young people, the ICH had already accepted that provision is already a patchwork quilt and Ofsted, the Wolf report on vocational education and the ACEVO Commission on youth unemployment all report that many young people have a poor understanding of jobs available in the labour or opportunities in further education and what they need to do to secure them. Indeed the recent LGA Youth Summit that brought together a number of Councillors and Young People found that there was a lot of negative feedback around current careers advice provision, such as the over emphasis on academic routes, the lack of work-based advice (i.e. dealing with interviews, CV writing etc.) and understanding of all the opportunities available, with provision described as unimaginative basic and limited. With that in mind the publication of the statutory guidance and, these reforms in general, has been a missed opportunity; in terms of the guidance: to fill that gap of a lack of a strategic vision for careers services for young people at a time when it is most needed with youth unemployment and the number of young people not in education, employment or training at all-time highs and when schools should see it as central to their job to prepare all their pupils for progression towards work; The guidance does not explain the rationale for repealing the requirement to provide careers education, which does not logically sit with the transfer of careers information, advice and guidance to schools and comes when the evidence tells us that not only young people want
more contact with employers in their education, but that it increases their chances of not only getting a job, but a good one; It also doesn t refer to the benefit of schools working in partnership with local authorities in discharging their respective duties, not only local authorities duty to encourage, enable and assist young people participation in education and training but also their role in economic development and regeneration and, how local authorities can support schools in the transition and the on-going operation of these reforms. How will schools cope? The Department for Education in response to its critics says that it makes no apologies for giving schools responsibility for providing independent careers advice. They know their students best. This might be as well, but are schools in the best position to commission such services. Indeed, Brian Lightman, Association of School and College Leaders general secretary has questioned whether individual schools would have sufficient funding or information to buy in the type of highquality careers advice needed by young people. Regardless, of the reforms themselves and the potential impact for schools, the situation is challenging as schools have suddenly been given a new responsibility to procure a service which they had previously received free of charge losing not only support from Connexions but also Education Business Partnerships. School autonomy means that schools must solve these problems largely on their own and, importantly, out of their existing funds. In many areas, local authorities and the Connexions Service have undertaken the role of communicating the new policy to schools and helping them to work through the implications. Many schools are not starting from a standing start, as they may employ Careers Co-ordinators (who may or may not be teachers) or careers professionals to deliver services and it does seem from the Institute of Careers survey that schools are willing to pay for careers guidance; though when careers guidance is competing for funds with a range of other services not to mention staff budgets it remains to be seen whether they will have enough funding to secure the kind of support that will reasonably meet the needs of their pupils. The key determining factor will be funding. Indeed it has been the most controversial issue of these reforms. The cuts to local authority general and specific grants, including those that now make up the Early Intervention Grant, has affected the existing Connexions services which according to the ICG schools survey has adversely affected four out of five schools, half of which said they now have a reduced or seriously reduced careers service for pupils. A further 13 per cent said careers guidance services for pupils have ceased completely since the closure of their local Connexions. Within the reforms and the changes in the funding streams it has been widely acknowledge - though not by the Government - that 200 million that had previously been used to pay for career services has not been passed onto schools; apparently, this means that schools will have to find an extra 18,000 per annum to spend on careers advice.
What has happened, as was the case with Schools sport, dedicated funding has found its way into the general schools grant, as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review negotiations but not its presentation, so that Ministers can claim that central grant has been relatively protected. With schools sport this was exposed, and was subsequently made up in part through funding from the lottery and DCMS. In the case of careers services, schools have been passed a legal duty to provide a service for which they previously receive for free and not obligated to provide. Consequently funding has not just been pruned in line with cut elsewhere in public expenditure, over which there has been much debate, it has been allowed to vanish altogether without any public announcement to this effect. Of course careers services are not the only educational support services to face shrinking budgets with the Department for Education acknowledging that schools only had been relatively protected, with education spending falling by 13 per cent between now and 2014-15 that fastest fall in any four year period since the 1950s. While DfE claim that there are 1 billion in savings available in the same period from back-office functions and procurement but experience tells a different story. Whatever the argument, and given the current dire situation on youth unemployment and NEETs the loss of 200 million is so clearly a false economy, which cannot be explained away with the funding and support through the Youth Contract and the Work Programme for a Government who claim to be interested in prevention rather than cure. Nonetheless, the ICG survey shows how schools are coming up with innovative solutions now rather than imply waiting for [when the duty comes into force in] September. Some schools are coming together through consortia to procure a careers support resource that is then shared across the consortia. In Surrey, for example, a network of six secondary schools has negotiated with the local Connexions service to purchase the services of a Personal Advisor. In South East London and Kent, a number of schools have formed a Schools Careers Partnership to facilitate the sharing of good practice and enable the exchange of services where appropriate. How will the market, react? Whether schools will have enough funding to make a difference in part is dependent upon the market coming up with products and services which are more benefiting the new environment, affordable and have an increased focus on effectiveness. Simply cutting down the current service offer to size might not offer schools the best way forward and provide value by conceiving careers support as part of a school s broader flexible staffing needs, targeting pupils who require more support and collaborating with other sources of capacity including local employers and volunteers. According to a University of Derby study conducted last year ( Careers work with young people: Collapse or transition ) existing Connexions staff and other careers professionals are establishing small companies or social enterprises with the aim of selling their services to schools. There is also evidence that some educational agencies who provide supply teachers are signing up ex- Connexions staff. In a market environment it is likely that other kinds of players will enter the field; these may bring new innovative ideas, but as experience tells from other new markets such as welfare-to-work and in apprenticeships and training, not all will be correctly motivated. It is here
that the steps taken by the Careers Standards Board, to introduce a Quality in Careers Standard which alongside the National Careers Service s matrix standard for providers, will prove valuable. The local authority role For local authorities the options are clear; they can focus solely on supporting vulnerable young people and, indeed, many local authorities have already done so. According to work conducted in the summer 2011, around 61 of the 150 top-tier local authority areas had, removed the universal careers element of their Connexions service. A key issue is defining vulnerable young people, with the expectation that local authorities through their Early Intervention Grant will address those young people at risk of becoming NEET. Others might work to sustain universal careers guidance service. The 2011 survey identified 15 local authorities maintaining a substantial universal service; though this may be a transitional arrangement ahead of the transfer to schools. Another route would be a midway house and would vary from area to area depending on need and the state of the local employment market. This would see local authorities, for example, shaping the provider market, facilitate school co-operation, providing commissioning support, collating local employment information and stimulating the supply of work experience opportunities and apprenticeships. As referred to earlier, many local authorities and the Connexions Service have been helping schools to understand and work through the implications of the reforms. In Blackburn with Darwen, the local authority has engaged all local schools in a collective contracting arrangement which if successful will mean the contract for universal careers services is effectively transferred from the local authority to the consortium organisation (Education Improvement Partnership) and that a comparable level of service is preserved. In Lincolnshire the local authority has creating, a new careers guidance service company formed out of the restructuring, it will be funded by the council until September 2012. It will then sustain itself through contracted income from schools, National Careers Service commissions and targeted local authority funding. External links The Education Act 2011, the duty to secure independent and impartial careers guidance for young people in schools statutory guidance for Head Teachers, school staff, Governing Bodies and Local Authorities Consultation on careers guidance for schools, sixth form colleges and further education institutions For more information about this, or any other LGiU member briefing, please contact Janet Sillett, Briefings Manager, on janet.sillett@lgiu.org.uk