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Education and Skills Bill

My Lords, I hope I can reassure not only my noble friend but all those who have spoken in the debate that we see careers advice, information and guidance as being extremely important and worthy of a great deal of attention at the highest levels within the department. I start by responding to Amendment No. 67 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Verma. She is right: it is the amendment that came up when I was surprised to be sitting in the hot seat. I am delighted that the noble Baroness has tabled the amendment for debate again today so that I can respond. She explained very eloquently the need for young people to have access to the widest possible arsenal of tools to help them in making their decisions about future career options. The national service, Connexions Direct, offers information, advice and support to young people in England. It has been extremely successful. The service provides profiles of more than 800 jobs through its jobs4u careers database, which is an important resource. This does not detract from other resources, such as horsesmouth.co.uk. The jobs4u careers database includes case studies of personal experiences in specific roles, and the profiles are frequently updated. If a young person cannot find information on the specific role that they want, Connexions Direct will provide more information for them via the website, and find an appropriate case study. It is about giving young people access through the internet to real-life examples of careers. The provisions that the amendment would make are already available, and it is our intention that the service should continue to offer advice and information of this kind, and to make sure that we are connected to the services that other providers make available to young people. Amendment No. 20, which would require the Secretary of State to commission an independent review, is not necessary. Noble Lords will be aware that there have been reviews on this subject, as the noble Baroness highlighted. They have been undertaken in recent years. That is not to say that further consideration of this vital subject is not important, but the end-to-end review of careers education and guidance, which reported in July 2005, and the Leitch review of skills, completed in December 2006, also addressed the issues of careers services for adults. We have listened carefully to the arguments for an all-age careers service and we do not disagree with them per se. We see that there is a need for a joined-up service that meets the needs of people at all ages. Teenagers face different challenges from adults, not least learning choices and the personal issues associated with the transition to adulthood. The Connexions service, working in partnership with schools and colleges, is best placed to meet these needs. Clause 56 will transfer, as noble Lords know, the delivery of the Connexions service to local authorities. This will help local authorities to embed Connexions within integrated youth support arrangements to improve support for the most vulnerable people, which must be key. The Government have accepted the recommendation of the noble Lord, Lord Leitch, to establish a universal adult careers service, which will be operational from 2010-11. The key elements of this service are described in the Adult Advancement and Careers Service prospectus, which was launched yesterday, I believe. We will ensure that links are made between the adult and young people’s careers services; for example, through case conferences between adult advisers and Connexions advisers. We are talking about an all-ages strategy, which is very important. Amendment No. 68 would extend the requirement for schools to provide careers education to include learners aged 16 to 18. Section 46 of the 1997 Act, which is the focus of this amendment, already allows regulations to be made to extend the age for careers education in schools and requires further education institutions to provide a programme of careers education. Therefore, new primary legislation would not be required to extend these duties to pupils above the age of 16. I do not believe that this amendment is necessary, but I believe that the subject is extremely important. High-quality, impartial information, advice and guidance help young people to make choices that position them for success in life. As my noble friend highlighted, and as I know from when I was working with students to find out what they saw as priorities, information, advice and guidance came top of the list.