European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network
Work Package 2: Widening Access
Peer Learning Event held in Manchester, 1-3 February 2010
Reflection Note
Füsun Akkök, Expert Consultant for WP 2
1.
Introduction
1.1 This Reflection Note is an overview and synthesis of the peer learning event held in
Manchester on 1-3 February 2010, pulling together the personal and policy learning achieved in the
visit. The activity was attended by 20 representatives from 12 countries (Cyprus, Czech Republic,
France, Germany, Iceland, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey and United
Kingdom) and 21 hosts and presenters. The final version of the programme is attached to this Note
as Annex 1. Based on the previous analysis and surveys in WP2, the new tools and methods
specified in different national contexts for further development to extend access included: webbased services, telephone services, e-guidance, written materials, and mixed models of ICT-based
and face-to-face services.The members had expressed their wish to learn, specifically, about usage
of technologies in widening access to career information and different services of career guidance
for different groups, new creative tools, how these tools are managed and funded and the
qualifications of the personnel who implement the services. Therefore, the general theme of the
Manchester study visit was to demonstrate how technologies are used to widen access to career
guidance services for all targets groups within an integrated all-age model in a cost-effective
manner. In all countries, at the policy and implementation level, significant efforts are in action for
the development and effective use of ICT tools. Therefore, as one participant indicated, “when
there is a project to develop ICT tools, we can have an interesting example about organisation,
skills of practitioners and attitudes of the public”.
1.2
The aims of the meeting were:
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
To learn from the experience of England and Wales on ICT tools and the new “adult
advancement and careers service” plus the feedback provided by the participants.

To enable participants to learn from related developments in Germany and France, as
presented during the meeting.

To share and discuss the participants’ experiences for the development of universal and
differentiated services in their national contexts.
1.3 In relation to the first of these aims (i.e. to learn from the British experience and the feedback
provided by the participants):

In England, based on the Leitch Review of Skills (2006), a Prospectus published in
October 2008 set out the Government’s plans to create a new “adult advancement and careers
service” initiative1 placing emphasis on combining e-guidance (Learndirect) and face-to-face
services (NextStep) within a universal framework. This new service will ensure closer
relationships with Jobcentre Plus2 and its unemployed customers. Ten prototype initiatives
have been designed to explore ways of bringing together different sources of advice to provide
a personal package of support responding to the people’s needs. These prototypes incorporate
different approaches to testing out the efficacy of career provision within employer, training
provider and/or community outreach activities in various settings. The new service will be
driven by local innovation and partnership working across organizations and services, and will
combine skills and training advice with practical guidance on how to overcome the full range
of barriers people face in getting on in working life. The launch of the new adult advancement
and careers service is planned for August 2010, with the aim of helping every member of
society to get on in learning and work. The service will offer joined-up advice, a single access
point for public funding, a range of tools, and a seamless service including various sources of
support. The introduction of the “Skills Accounts”3 and the “Skills Health Check”4, and the
1
The Learning and Skills Council has commissioned work to produce a brand name to replace the current
working title.
2
Jobcentre Plus is the UK’s Public Employment Service.
3
A Skills Account will help individuals to take control of their learning and working life and can be used to
acquire information on courses and on available financial support.
4
The Skills Health Check is a diagnostic tool designed to help individuals to assess their skills and abilities
against their career aspirations, identify their opportunities and choices, and develop a personal action plan.
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requirement to produce “impact data” linked to outcome-related funding, are other significant
features within this new and emerging service. To our knowledge, the UK Careers Advice
Service (formerly Learndirect Advice) is the largest national career information and guidance
service in the world that operates on a distance guidance basis; it has achieved massive levels
of penetration to extend levels of access to such services on a lifelong basis.

The Careers Advice Service national telephone and online services were visited and the
participants had a chance to meet with the learning advisers and career coaches and listen
to telephone calls. Also, Nextstep face-to-face advice service partners around Manchester
were visited.
Presentations were made to the participants by key individuals from
different organisations involved in providing career guidance services in Wales and
England. Together, these visits provided an impressive picture of the telephone, web- and
face-to-face services available and highlighted the specialised services available for
different target-groups. Thus:
o
The Careers Advice Service is a universal service, available to all, well marketed
and well-known. It attracts 12 million web sessions and 1 million phone/email
sessions each year. It supports the learner’s journey through a free phone line, an
email web form and a call-back service, with impartial and confidential services.
The Careers Advice Service provides free in-depth careers and skills advice to all
adults regardless of qualification level, tailored to individual needs by information
advisers, learning advisers and career coaches. The quality measures are
impressive. Calls are recorded for training and quality purposes, and quality
standards and quality benchmarking are in place. Impact and evaluation measures
are well-defined and well-applied. This is a good indicator of the coherence and
consistency of the services provided. As a good example of its efforts at
penetration, the Careers Advice Service is offered in 8 languages.
o
Nextstep provides face-to-face services and has included a strong partnership
element, interfaced with the voluntary and community sector. Nextstep offers a
range of services, dependent upon individuals’ needs and entitlement, including
individual and group work. Its Manchester contractors offer these services to
individuals and businesses in the Greater Manchester area, and also have separate
contracts to offer a careers advice service to young people in some local areas.
Advisers use a range of skills, strategies and tools to identify individuals’ barriers.
Services focus on assisting individuals to overcome barriers, by raising awareness
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of their existing skills and knowledge, which puts them in a better position to be
realistic about their employment prospects and training needs. Skills Action Plans
are significant outcomes of the services, identifying the individuals’ long and
short-term goals, with time-bound actions jointly agreed between the adviser and
the individual. Referrals to other relevant services are made as appropriate for the
person. There is a network of subcontractors delivering the Nextstep service,
operating from a wide range of outreach centres in collaboration with partners,
with priority given to people with a learning difficulty or disability, low-skilled
women and people who are aged 50 and above.
o
Connexions is a service for all young people aged 13-19 helping young people
manage the transition from school to adult and working life and differentiated to
meet individual needs. The service is designed to offer local solutions to local
needs, to increase the number of 16-19-year-olds in education, training and
employment. As channel strategies, personal advisers are assigned to all
secondary schools and colleges, and high-street Connexions centres in towns are
located as outreach services; outreach personal advisers also work in community
settings, and home visits may be carried out. Using web.2.0 technology, virtual
personal advisers’ services via website and SMS are some recently added tools.
Other services include on-line prospectuses of local education and training
opportunities, on-line and face-to-face careers and labour market information
services, and an employer vacancy team providing job brokerage via face-to-face,
SMS and on-line services.
The new strategy for young people’s information, advice and guidance, “Quality,
Choice and Aspiration”, aims to modernise IAG and careers education, to make it
accessible to young people, and to keep pace with the rapidly changing economic
climate.
o
Connexions Direct is a website and helpline offering information, advice and
guidance to young people. The service provides a wide range of factual
information and a careers database. Advances in video technology facilitate
accessibility to services via YouTube. New interactive software has been tested
for further accessibility, and the idea for the future is to push the content out to the
spaces which young people frequent.
o
Careers Wales is a strong model of an integrated all-age service with a cohesive
and co-ordinated approach. Its career guidance services are offered face-to-face,
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on the telephone and in web-based form. Face-to-face provision is one of the main
tools in various settings, including schools, colleges and career centres. The
telephone service has been separately branded with a single telephone number.
The helpline service is an all-age service, which is different than England where
young people use Connexions Direct. The Careers Wales web-based service,
Careers Wales On-Line (CWOL), is regarded as one of the innovative and worldleading developments and was launched in 2004 to develop a “flexible, accessible
and highly innovative service that will reach people of all ages and situations”
(www. http://www.careerswales.com). It is an interactive service and provides
24/7 bilingual access to information, tools and resources to support lifelong
learning and career planning. CWOL has been significantly enhanced recently and
there are different sections for different target groups, including young people up
to age 16 (split for years 9-11), young people aged 16-19, adults, employers,
parents and career professionals.
1.4 In relation to the second aim (to enable participants to learn from the related developments in
other countries), two presentations were made:

The presentation on the information, media and ICT tools for career guidance in
Germany indicated the importance given to improving access by using the ICT
tools in career information centres and internet interactive programs. Different
internet portals, e.g. Job Market, Coursenet, Careers Net, were mentioned. Planet
Career is an on-line combination of self-assessment instruments and job training
information available to students in secondary education. The developing role of
ICT to widen access and the possibility of a nationwide phone service which is
under development for information counselling, were also mentioned.

The ONISEP representative from France provided details of the new
multiplatform that has been launched last year after many years of documentation
to ease access to career counselling through simplified access to information and
resources via a single phone number, a single e-mail address and the possibility to
chat on-line with career advisers. Depending on the specific needs of the
individual, immediate responses are provided, or more detailed and structured
written reports are sent after a few hours. If needed, individual interviews with
careers advisers are a possibility as well. Phone, mail and chat are the tools of the
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multiplatform and respond to the needs of students and their parents in the high
schools and higher education.
1.5
In relation to the third aim (to share and discuss experiences ), plenty of time was allocated for
discussions and reflections on the new adult advancement and careers service for England. A
number of key questions related to widening access at national level through integrated all-age
services and how to do it in cost-effective way. Three key questions were addressed as an
input to the discussions around the general theme of the visit:
a) What are some of the pivotal inputs to integrating the ICT tools and face-to-face services
successfully?
b) Are there specific delivery modes for specific target groups?
c) What are some strengths and weaknesses of using ICT in guidance?
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Annex 1
EUROPEAN LIFELONG GUIDANCE POLICY NETWORK
Widening Access – Field Visit
City Inn, Manchester 1-3 February
PROGRAMME
DAY 1 - Monday 1 February
Morning
Arrival at City Inn, One Piccadilly Place, 1 Auburn Street, Manchester M1
3DG (Tel: 0161 242 1014. www.cityinn.com)
Registration
1.00pm
Lunch in City Café restaurant
2.00pm
Meeting starts – Sky Lounge
Welcome, introductions and domestics
Aled Williams, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
2.10pm
The adult advancement and careers service – policy and delivery
Adam Micklethwaite, Deputy Director, Adult Advancement, Department for
Business, Innovation and Skills
Louise Proctor, Lifelong learning Director, Learning and Skills Council
3.10pm
Refreshments
3.30pm
Careers Wales Online
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Mike Moss – Welsh Assembly Government; Mark Freeman and Paul Messer
– Careers Wales
4.15pm
Online and interactive programmes in guidance in Germany
Bernhardt Jenschke
4.45pm
Discussion, reflection and debrief
Moderated by Füsun Akkök
6.00pm
Close
Aled Williams
8.00pm
Dinner in the City Café
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Coordinator: elgpn@jyu.fi
With the support of the
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DAY 2 – Tuesday 2 February
Breakfast in City Café restaurant
8.30am
Welcome, Plan for the day -
Aled Williams
Walk to bss, Westminster House 11 Portland Street Manchester M1 3HU
9.00am
Visit to the Careers Advice Service
Setting the scene – context and overview
Rod Chambers, LSC
Then split into two groups for
Operational infrastructure and management
Bernie Jordan, bss; and Tour of the service, meet careers advisers and listen to
telephone calls
Marketing the Careers Advice Service
Delivering CAS online
12.30pm
Lunch
1.00pm
Introduction and overview of Careers services for adults in Manchester
Cat Settle, LSC and Carol Jamieson, Manchester Solutions
Travel by taxi to choice of Nextstep and advancement network prototype
projects around Manchester
European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network
http://elgpn.eu
Coordinator: elgpn@jyu.fi
With the support of the
Lifelong Learning Programme
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2.00pm
The Nextstep face to face service
a) Stockport College
b)Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council
c) Highway to Opportunities, Oldham
Overview of services: demonstration of delivery tools, meet career advisers,
questions
4.00pm
Return by taxi to City Inn
Refreshments available in Sky Lounge
4.00pm
Connexions Direct
Presentation by Kath Miller, Department for Children, Schools and Families
5.00pm
Discussion, reflection and debrief
Moderated by Füsun Akkök
6.00pm
Close
Aled Williams
8.00pm
Dinner in the Sky Lounge
European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network
http://elgpn.eu
Coordinator: elgpn@jyu.fi
With the support of the
Lifelong Learning Programme
of the European Union
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DAY 3 – Wednesday 3 February
Breakfast in City Café restaurant then meet in Sky Lounge
8.30am
Welcome, plan for the day
Aled Williams
Refreshments available throughout the morning
on
the
8.40am
Presentation by Francois Hiller, France
dematerialise” online and telephone service
9.15am
Delivering careers advice and guidance to young people
national “service
Kieran Gordon, Chief Executive, Connexions Greater Merseyside
10.15am
Developing a skills diagnostic tool for the adult advancement and careers
service
Dr Alex Fradera, Senior Consultant, SHL
11.15am
Discussion, reflection and debrief
Moderated by Füsun Akkök
11.45am
Preparation for work package synthesis report and next meeting in Iceland
Led by Füsun Akkök, Gudbjorg Vihjalmsdottir and Jean Marie Lenzi
12.45pm
Close
Aled Williams
European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network
http://elgpn.eu
Coordinator: elgpn@jyu.fi
With the support of the
Lifelong Learning Programme
of the European Union
Page 11