Careers Guidance

Pat Glass Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2013 Westminster Hall

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

Mr Benton, I recall that you chaired the very first Westminster Hall debate I ever took part in, when I first arrived here in 2010 and had absolutely no idea what was going on. It is, therefore, a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, when I hope I know a bit more about what is going on—we will see. It is also a pleasure to follow the Chair of the Education Committee, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), and to welcome him back to Parliament and witness his speedy recovery.

I want to talk today about the Committee’s report, and a little about the Government’s response. In taking evidence from many of those involved in the education of young people, the Committee visited careers services and schools, looking at what good practice was emerging, and identifying where deficiencies were most acute. Most importantly, perhaps, we also spoke to young people themselves about the services they received. The crux of our findings is wrapped up at the start of our report:

“The Government’s decision to transfer responsibility for careers guidance to schools is regrettable.”

We had a lot of discussion in the Committee about using “regrettable”. We could easily have used much stronger language, but we were looking for something that would be helpful to the Government rather than something that would be seen as lecturing.

Secondly, we found that international evidence suggests that a school-based model does not deliver the best provision for young people, and we concluded that the weakness of that model had been compounded by the Government’s failure to transfer any budget to schools with which to support the service. That led, predictably and perhaps inevitably, to a drop in overall provision, with fewer than one in six schools providing anything like a reasonable service.

In its inquiry, the Committee was very realistic about the historical performance of career services and Connexions, and did not see the previous service provided to young people as good or not in need of considerable reform. It was clear to us that the Connexions service had fallen well short of expectations in most areas, with the probable exception of its services for vulnerable children, where I think that the level of provision and service was at least reasonable if not good. It was also clear that the service delivered far from the high expectations that the Government had of it on its creation.

However, the Government’s response has been not to reform the Connexions service but to abolish it altogether, transferring the statutory duty to schools, and not providing any of the £196 million of funding that was previously available for the service. That is leaving schools and pupils high and dry, and it is clear that young people will make less informed decisions and choices about their future education and training as a result. That will have a major, negative and long-term impact on the lives of some young people, and it will be those who do not have access, within their families and family circles, to well-informed professional advice who will be hardest hit and lose out the most.

It is fair to say that we were dismayed by what we found, but we chose our wording carefully. We spent a long time discussing what we wanted from the report. We wanted the Government to recognise that the current situation could not continue, and to take action to improve it. We wanted to agree on language that did not solely focus on the problems or lecture the Government about what was going wrong, but provided an honest analysis of what we found, and offered positive recommendations about how the current situation could be improved. We were particularly disappointed, therefore, by both the tone and content of the Government’s response.

The Government’s response tells us:

“While the Committee’s report does acknowledge the failings of the Connexions service we are disappointed that the Committee describes our decision to transfer responsibility for careers to schools as regrettable.”

We found it regrettable not because of the transfer, or even because it happened against international evidence that suggested it was the model that was least likely to succeed, but because responsibility was transferred with all its limitations but without any funding. It was surely bound to fail, and the failure would be regrettable.

Instead of acknowledging that they might have got it wrong, and considering the Committee’s recommendations for improvement, the Government’s response appears to focus on criticising how the inquiry was carried out, stating that we cited evidence of one survey carried out by the careers sector that suggested a reduction in service. I want to tell the Minister that we based our findings not just on one survey: we listened to a huge amount of evidence from schools, local authorities, careers specialists, employers, sixth-form college representatives, further education colleges, teachers’ representatives and head teachers’ representatives, and we listened to what young people told us about the service they received. If that is not enough, I suggest to the Minister that he look at what is happening in schools now. Careers provision for schoolchildren has largely collapsed.

I was a member of the Education Bill Committee more than two years ago, and we discussed at length what was happening then. The then Minister, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), at least acknowledged that there were problems, recognised what was happening and promised to look at the matter, but I understand that he was subsequently blocked from doing so by the Secretary of State for Education. That is regrettable. If the Minister is not convinced by our report, I suggest he talk to the people we talked to and come back and tell us that the system works well.

The Government’s response also complained that the Committee chose not to highlight examples of good practice. I disagree. We went to places such as Bradford, and looked at where local authorities and schools were working together, pooling resources and delivering a good service. It was clear, however, that even where there was good practice, they were doing it on very little funding, or by borrowing from Peter to pay Paul—taking money from other parts of the education service to deliver the bones of a careers service for young people.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

Does the hon. Lady recall that in Bradford, where nearly all the schools signed up, money was taken from each of them, but the bulk of it was still provided by the council? Adding all that up, if I recollect correctly, the service provision of careers guidance—in a place such as Bradford, where the council had made it a priority—was still lower on the ground in schools than it had been.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pat Glass]

I welcome that intervention. I absolutely agree that where we saw good practice, it still fell short of what had previously been provided. I understand that the Government have had to make cuts, but that is happening across the country to a greater extent than in Bradford, where we saw what other authorities can only aspire to.

The Government response criticised the Committee for carrying out the inquiry when the new arrangements had been in place for only one term. They felt strongly that greater consideration could have been given to allowing the new arrangements time to bed in before drawing such firm conclusions. The Government’s arrangements may have been in place for only one term, but the funding has been withdrawn for almost three years. We decided to look at the matter now rather than later, because we had strong evidence that the system was collapsing around young people, who were making less than informed decisions that will affect their whole lives.

I want briefly to consider what has since happened. Heather Jackson and Professor Tony Watts have resigned from the National Careers Council, in which the Government have such high hopes, as did we. The reasons they cited for their resignations are concerns regarding the council’s recommendations to the Minister in early May, and its failure to draw attention to the Education Committee’s report, with its strong recommendations on steps to be taken to address the current crisis in schools, including the urgent need for enhanced accountability and quality assurance. The inquiry was carried out at the right time: had we waited, we would now be taking evidence about an even greater crisis in independent careers advice, not an improving situation.

On the disappearing budget, the Government argued:

“While there was no explicit transfer of resources, when we made the decision to stop the Connexions service, by making savings on that and other centrally driven budgets we were able to prioritise and protect expenditure devolved to schools during this Spending Review period.”

I am sorry, but I say to the Minister that that is smoke and mirrors at best, and it insults the intelligence at worst. To transfer a major statutory duty to schools without any funding, at the same time as local authority budgets were being slashed and schools were having to pay for educational support services that they previously received free, either from local or central Government, and to expect them to deliver a proper service from a frozen or shrinking budget is simply disingenuous.

I have a number of questions that I wanted to put to the Minister, but I am conscious that if I go on much longer, other people may not be able to speak. If I write to him, will he be good enough to respond to those detailed questions?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills (Matthew Hancock)]

indicated assent.

[Pat Glass]

Finally, I remind the Minister that in an educational system that is becoming increasingly diverse, the need for good-quality, independent careers advice has never been greater. If it is not available, it will not be the young people who have access to good family networks, whose parents work in the professions and who have good contacts who will most lose out; it will be the young people who do not have those things, and who need good-quality advice—about what they do next for courses and where they go next for jobs—that currently is simply not available.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Hancock]

My hon. Friend says I should have tried harder, but it is about balance. We must be aspirational, but realistic and helpful.

The funding issue has been raised many times. Times are, of course, tight for funding, but the central point is that the legal duty to secure independent and impartial advice in schools needs to be delivered from the school budget. Schools have a whole budget to deliver this, not just the £7 million that the Department for Education put into the National Careers Service. Frankly, we must be much more ambitious and look forward not back. I have taken up the mantle that was laid down. We understand what happened. There has been a big change and the question now is how that statutory duty can be properly enforced and put in place as powerfully and effectively as possible.

Of course, autonomy and accountability matter. People say that schools will not do this, but I also heard the evidence that 98% of schools say that it is very important. We must hold schools to account so that they deliver, and that can be done through Ofsted. Michael Wilshaw of Ofsted says that from September it will give priority to inspection of career advice, and the destination data that we are working extremely hard to expand.

[Pat Glass]

In schools, what gets measured gets done, so how will we ensure that careers advice is policed and happens for all children, not just some?