Connexions survives IAG rethink

By Ravi Chandiramani Thursday, 29 October 2009

The government has snubbed former Cabinet minister Alan Milburn's call to devolve funding for careers advice from Connexions to schools.

Connexions PA and young person. Credit: Stefan Hill

But this week's long-awaited information, advice and guidance (IAG) strategy states it will consider such action if services do not improve.

Its document, Quality, Choice and Aspiration: A Strategy for Young People's Information, Advice and Guidance, states: "Local services are now on notice to improve and if improvement is not forthcoming we will not hesitate to take further action." Local authorities' delivery of IAG will be reviewed formally in 18 months time, it states.

Milburn's recommendation came in this summer's report on social mobility, in which he slammed the quality of Connexions. However, the IAG strategy acknowledges many services are, according to Ofsted, delivering good advice, and says some schools' IAG provision "is not impartial or is simply dull and ineffective". It also states that transferring responsibility for careers advice now would disrupt efforts to integrate youth provision during a time of heightened turbulence, as councils prepare also to take responsibility for 16 to 19 funding.

Reacting to the announcement, Central London Connexions chief executive Chris Heaume said: "Connexions has never been shy of strong performance management. It will enable us to see what we are and aren't doing well. This will focus and galvanise people."

In a bid to boost the IAG workforce, the strategy announced the launch of a Taskforce on the Careers Profession. This will examine what employers, the profession and government can do to attract well-qualified people from a range of backgrounds. There is also a skills review under way to investigate the requirements of careers specialists, being undertaken by the Children's Workforce Development Council and Lifelong Learning UK. It will report in the spring, feeding into the careers taskforce, which reports back in the summer.

Alongside the IAG strategy, the Department for Children, Schools and Families issued schools with statutory guidance to help meet their duty to provide impartial careers advice.

However, one observer said the IAG strategy "sounds like a bit of a holding operation to last until the general election".