Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many schools currently use Gatsby Benchmarks to improve their careers provision.

The department does not hold the number of schools that use the Gatsby Benchmarks. However, The Careers & Enterprise Company’s ‘State of the Nation’ report (attached) highlighted the results of over 500 schools that self-evaluated their careers provision against the Gatsby Benchmarks. Around half of these schools were achieving at least two of the eight benchmarks, although a fifth of schools were not achieving any of the benchmarks.

The government published the attached ‘Careers Strategy: making the most of everyone’s skills and talents’ on 4 December 2017. As we set out in the strategy, schools and colleges will continue to be responsible for making sure that their students can access independent careers guidance. We will use the eight benchmarks of good careers guidance, developed by The Gatsby Charitable Foundation, to set a standard of excellence for schools and colleges to follow. To support this, we have asked The Careers & Enterprise Company to take on a more ambitious role by coordinating support for schools and colleges across all the Gatsby Benchmarks.

The careers strategy and our updated statutory guidance for schools both promote Compass, a free online tool for schools to evaluate and monitor improvements in their careers provision against the benchmarks.