Education: Careers Advice

Lord Taylor of Blackburn Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox]

Local authorities deliver both universal careers guidance and targeted support for vulnerable young people under the Connexions brand, and there is widespread evidence that a lack of focus on careers guidance led to provision of variable quality, which is what I was referring to. That is why we have decided to end the Connexions area-based grant that the noble Lord is referring to. Local authorities retain the responsibility to help young people not in education, employment or training to re-engage. We are concerned about children at every level: children in schools, and children who have just left school and are wandering the streets with no training and no work to go to. Do not worry, we are really on top of this, and any advice that the noble Lord can give me, I am happy to have.

[Lord Taylor of Blackburn]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, mentioned the independence of these advisers. Will they really be independent or will they just be yet more teachers who find themselves with a little spare time in their timetable and are given this job to do?

[Baroness Wilcox]

That sounds a bit like the careers guidance when I was at school all those years ago. No, the whole point is that these are going to be specially trained careers advisers. They will be external to the schools. It will not just be—forgive me—the teacher who maybe has time to go to the library for the couple of rows of books that we used to get pointed towards. This is real careers advice; we need it now, and we are determined to provide it.