Evidencing the Impact of Impartial Careers Advice

The impact of independent and impartial Careers education, information, advice, and guidance (CEIAG)

A roundtable discussion between members of the House of Lords and representatives from the major national sectoral bodies for Careers was held on May 15, 2024, where the results from the consultation, and research priorities, were discussed.

Key Findings from the House of Lords consultation and roundtable discussion:

1. The Gatsby benchmarks have provided a framework for good evidence to be generated as to the scope and scale of CEIAG delivery to school aged young people, but the absence of a similar framework for provision to young people aged 16-24 who are NEET is a barrier to evidence generation demonstrating impactful practice.
2. There is reasonably good evidence of the immediate, positive impact of CEIAG for young people being ‘career ready’ and reducing their risk of becoming NEET aged 16-24 years. There is much less evidence about the long-term impact on social mobility, or for specific groups that we know to be more vulnerable to employment outcomes later in life.
3. While there is good evidence around scope and scale of provision and shorter-term impact, there is much less about the conduct of professional careers practice, new ways of delivering guidance, and practice that best supports the needs of young people that are more vulnerable to poor employment and career outcomes in later life.
4. There are multiple priorities but the most commonly occurring can be grouped into four areas:
   • Empirical evidence that allows us to produce stronger models and estimates of the long-term impact of Careers support for young people.
   • Stronger data on how Gatsby 8 (Personal guidance: every pupil should have opportunities for guidance interviews with a career adviser, trained to an appropriate level) is being met and the impact of advisers having L6/L7 qualifications as set out in the Career Guidance Guarantee.
   • The development of new, evidence-based models of delivery of quality Careers guidance and support.
   • Greater use and accumulation of evidence from standardised measures of the short-term outcomes of Careers support, and their deployment to understand short-term outcomes for those most vulnerable to poorer outcomes later in life.
5. National bodies, universities, and delivery organisations all have a role to play in conducting research and filling evidence gaps, but the sector would benefit from greater alignment of effort and more collaborative working, supporting more work at scale.

Key Points from the Roundtable:

The roundtable discussion explored these points in depth, and some additional areas for focus, including:

• The need for research on how much schools spend on career guidance and association with quality of provision and outcomes.
• A better understanding of the level of awareness among young people of the Gatsby benchmarks and the opportunities which these require schools to provide.
• The opportunity for insight on long-term outcomes through the linking of databases enabling the tracking of people through life stages.
• The relative effectiveness of face-to-face versus virtual careers guidance for young people and an understanding of the contexts in which each is appropriate and brings benefits.
• The opportunity and value of learning from other countries, particularly the other constituent counties of the United Kingdom. England has a quite different approach to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and there seems much to learn from these nearby contexts.
• The need for the sector to have a better understanding of the demand for research and evidence among parliamentarians and those influential in the policy development process – think tanks, political advisors, senior civil servants.

Career Connect will seek to engage colleagues from across the sector in this effort over coming months.

The Next Steps…

Following on the first recommendation from the consultation for a national best practice framework for provision of IAG services to NEET young people, Career Connect held a one-day workshop in September 2024 with our eight local authority partners in the North West to explore current best practice.  We also held a workshop at the Career Development Institute national conference in November 2024, to present and validate the emerging framework, together with the Education Development Trust.

We will be doing more over the coming months to develop and promote the framework with the aim of ensuring that all young people aged 16-17 can benefit from the new Youth Guarantee.

We will also be releasing a report on transitions from school to post-16 provision for the growing number of young people with social, emotional, and mental health conditions.