Scottish Government

Main Findings

• The All Age Guidance projects have delivered substantial benefits to clients. In addition to the tangible outcomes identified, there is evidence of benefits in terms of the career planning skills that clients have developed.
• The longitudinal structure of the research demonstrates how the benefits have continued to accumulate months after contact with Careers Scotland.
• In relation to the Smart Successful Scotland objective of matching supply and demand in the labour market, of almost 40,000 people that used the service in 2002/03, we estimate that 25,800 started a new job within nine months. Of these, 17,000 (66%) reported that the information, advice and guidance had been an influence on their decision.
• The research found that the majority of clients:
• reported that the support influenced their career decisions
• felt that they now had more confidence to make career development decisions
• believed that the support had provided a significant enhancement to their career prospects
• In terms of Lifelong Learning, the research shows that the percentage of the Scottish adult population who would find advice or guidance about careers, about training or about other learning opportunities very useful rose from 12% to 21% between March 2002 and April 2004.
• 17,500 AAG clients had started and/or completed a training or education course, of which 13,112 had been influenced by the information, advice and guidance provided through the AAG projects.
• The projects also contribute to several of the Executive's Closing the Opportunities Gap targets. Seventeen percent of the sample was over 45 (6,754), eight percent were single parents (3,179) and four percent were from ethnic minorities (1,589).
• The analysis shows that the support had a disproportionately large effect on older people (+45) and single parents in enhancing their skills, confidence and employment prospects. While 38% of the full sample believed the information, advice or guidance they received had affected their decisions a lot, this figure was 42% among those over 45 and 58% for single parents.

Introduction

The provision of careers information, advice and guidance has, over the past five years, become an increasingly important theme within public policy, particularly in relation to the promotion of the concept of lifelong learning. In 2000, the Scottish Executive announced the provision of almost £9m of funding for the development of All Age Guidance (AAG) services. These were projects set up to provide a single source of information, advice and guidance on careers, training and education in each region for people of all ages. In early 2001, the Duffner Committee report followed by the Scottish Executive response, proposed the introduction of Careers Scotland which after its launch took responsibility for delivering the AAG projects and developing a national service.

The rationale for the provision of careers development support is both economic and social. The economic benefits relate to improvements in the functioning of the labour market leading to increasing productivity in the economy and providing a more rewarding experience for individuals. There are also specific arguments for improving guidance to people excluded from traditional labour market processes in terms of increasing the pool of available labour as well as in terms of social justice. Overall, the changing nature of labour markets means that transitions are made by individuals more often and at varying stages of their lives.

Policy

Recent work by the OECD concludes that effective career development guidance systems are crucial if government education and employment policies are to work and there is a similar emphasis within the EC. It is a theme which Scotland's policy makers have also embraced. The Scottish Executive's Lifelong Learning Strategy, Life Through Learning; Learning Through Life (2003) has a strategic goal of supporting "A Scotland where people are given the information, guidance and support they need to make effective learning decisions and transitions".

Smart Successful Scotland, the strategy for the Scottish Enterprise Network, also recognises the role of career development guidance in the context of economic development. It suggests that "the capacity to respond rapidly to the current and future needs of the Scottish labour market is critical to success in an age of lifelong learning. Those economies most adept at matching supply and demand in the labour market will possess a key competitive advantage". One of the levers to delivering this, it says, "is the creation of a one-stop, all-age Careers Advice Service".

Finally, the AAG Projects also contribute to several of the Executive's Closing the Opportunity Gap targets by supporting the reduction of unemployment among working age people.

Methodology

The evaluation of the AAG projects began in late 2001, although the formation of Careers Scotland and its launch in April in 2002 significantly changed the methodology and shape of the work. This was restructured as a longitudinal study involving:

• an initial telephone survey of 559 AAG participants carried out in February 2003, three months after clients' contact with Career Scotland
• a second telephone survey of 371 of the same participants carried six months later
• a programme of 36 face to face interviews with a subset of these participants
• an omnibus survey of the Scottish population, carried out every six months from April 2002 to March 2004, to assess interest in careers information and advice and the profile of Career Scotland.

Profile

The AAG projects have worked with 39,732 clients split almost equally between men and women. There is evidence that the projects attracted a large proportion of those in work (40% of the sample were in either full or part-time work at the time they contacted the project), women with dependent children (30% of women in the sample have dependent children) and single parents (8%). The projects also attracted higher proportions of socio-economic groups C1 and DE than are represented in the adult population. The large proportion of DEs (49%) provides evidence that the projects have been able to attract some of the more socially excluded groups that they targeted in the individual bids.

Services and support

A large majority of the clients contacting the projects did so to discuss possible careers options or career planning (78%) and most information was provided verbally during face to face interviews (87%) or in leaflets (69%). For advice and guidance, 93% of the sample had spent time with an advisor.

Satisfaction with the services, including access, was universally high.

The emphasis on tailoring support to client needs is one of the characteristics of the service that has come across strongly from the surveys and has made a major contribution to the high levels of satisfaction. The case studies regularly make reference to the way interviewees were treated as individuals and given the time and support they needed. It is important that, however the service develops, this sense is retained although there is clearly a balance to be struck between the numbers of clients served and the resources that can be allocated.

Outcomes

The results of the surveys demonstrate a significant number of measurable outcomes achieved since first contact with the AAG project. As importantly, the number achieving employment or training and learning outcomes continued to increase over time.

Further evidence of these outcomes and the fact they continued to shift over the nine months of the study is provided by the tracking of clients' economic status. This showed those in employment rising from 46% to 72% of the sample, while the proportion of unemployed fell from 50% to 16%.

Because Careers Scotland were able to collect data on the number of clients from day one, we were able to apply the results to the full client base over the year April 2002 to April 2003, the period over which the clients interviewed used the service. In total 39,732 received AAG support. This suggests that the AAG projects have had an influence on:

• 66% of those starting a job/new job or 17,045 clients
• 70% of those applying for a job or 23,084 clients
• 75% of those starting or completing a training or education course or 13,112 clients
• 77% on those applying for a training or education course or 18,356 clients
• 71% of those finding additional financial support or 5,078 clients
• 75% of those making new or better care arrangements or 1,788 clients
• although 9% of the baseline survey reported no outcome at that stage, after nine months only 2% of the sample reported no outcome at all
• 75% of single parents starting a job/new job or 1,311 clients

Qualitative findings

The most noticeable factor from the depth interviews with participants was the unpredictability of career development and the wide variety of cases that used the service. In nearly all the cases there were positive changes in status over the period, but the outcomes were often very different from original plans. This reinforces the role of the adviser in developing more generic career development skills rather than advising on specific sectors.

Despite the major changes that had occurred in the interviewees' lives nearly all believed that the AAG service had positively influenced their career decisions. The impression was that the majority of the participants are now in a better position or engaged in a more satisfying career than prior to their contact with the service.

Additionality

It is likely that many of the new clients would have progressed into employment, education or training regardless of the Careers Scotland advice and support. After all, according to the ONS claimant data for Scotland in 2002, typically around 70% of those on the claimant register would expect to find employment within six months. The issue is, therefore, whether Careers Scotland helped clients to progress more quickly and/or to develop a range of skills that allowed them to find appropriate or better quality training, education and careers. The evaluation evidence suggested that many of those who were unemployed when they first used the AAG service may well have found some kind of employment anyway, but it also indicated that the influence of the service on decision making was such that we can conclude that outcomes achieved were different from those that would have been achieved without the service, pointing to a better match between individuals and jobs.

At a national level, therefore, there is evidence of more people making more informed decisions, including specific groups that would previously have found access to information, advice and guidance more difficult. The projects have influenced outcomes, which are perceived by clients to be better than otherwise. They have also enhanced skills and confidence which, in the longer term, should strengthen the labour market.

Raising awareness

The measurement of awareness using the six monthly omnibus survey indicated two main points:

• the percentage of people who would find advice or guidance about careers, about training or about other learning opportunities very useful rose from 12% to 21% between March 2002 and April 2004. This is just over a fifth of the adult population
• the percentage that had heard of Careers Scotland rose from 37% to 76% of the population between March 2002 and April 2004. This compares with 85% who have heard of Learndirect Scotland and 80% who have heard of the Job Centres. The advertising campaign is no doubt responsible for the step increase in awareness between October 2002 and April 2003.

Within two years Careers Scotland has played a major part in raising awareness of advice or guidance about careers. While a high proportion of people are now aware of its existence, the data also suggests that most people would still approach the Job Centre or local colleges/learning institutions for careers advice and guidance.

Conclusions and observations

From the start, the speed with which the AAG Project bids were prepared and partners brought together helped push adult guidance rapidly up the agenda and made people think about alternative approaches and methods of delivery. The capacity building and particularly the recruitment that was undertaken as part of this process provided Careers Scotland with a larger pool of people to work with and a base to build on when it was launched in 2002.

Realigning the regional projects into a single consistent service was a major challenge for Careers Scotland. The method of bidding for funds and the lack of cohesiveness and consistency in bids made it difficult to bring the projects together and it is to Careers Scotland's credit that not only has this been done, but that the evidence from those that used the service in its infancy was so positive.

While the results show significant activity and changes in the status of clients, equally important given Careers Scotland's role, are the proportions that feel more confident about their career development as a result of the support. It would be expected that, even without support, a proportion of those unemployed would find jobs or training. What is impressive in these results is that the majority of clients:

• reported that the support influenced their career decisions for the better
• felt that they now had more confidence to make career development decisions
• believed that the support had provided a significant enhancement to their career prospects.

Although the direction that individuals' careers took were highly unpredictable, most interviewees stressed the value of the support they had received, even where it seemed to be unconnected with the outcome. This highlights the importance of building the generic skills of clients, the time that careers advisers were able to give and the confidence that this instilled in clients. The importance of discussing options, even where they are rejected, was considered valuable.

The omnibus survey has demonstrated the growing interest in careers information, advice and guidance and in Careers Scotland itself. Much of this is likely to be the result of Careers Scotland's awareness raising and promotional activities, particularly the national advertising campaign. This was reflected in the increase in clients in the third quarter of 2002/03. As demand increases, there will be implications for Careers Scotland's targeting and delivery process, in particular its adoption of a market segmentation approach that targets particular categories of support to different types of clients.

From the Duffner Committee report to today, there has been a sea change in the availability and delivery of careers development support. The Committee's role in identifying the importance of these issues has been supported by the value attached to careers support by a very high proportion of clients (and an increasing proportion of the public). The evaluation shows that these services have made a major impact on the career development of a large number of people, both in terms of finding suitable employment and training and, just as importantly, providing the support, skills and confidence to make informed career decisions. Against the backdrop of substantial organisational change, this must be seen as a major success for all those involved.