Education and Culture Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Official Report 466KB pdf

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Skills Development Scotland

Our next item of business is an evidence session on Skills Development Scotland.

I welcome to the committee Danny Logue, director of operations, and Malcolm Barron, head of operations for the south-east, from Skills Development Scotland; and Derek Cheyne, Unison SDS branch secretary, and James Corry, Unison SDS chairperson of the non-departmental public bodies group, from Unison Scotland.

We will try to cover a number of areas this morning, and I will begin the session with a general question. For the benefit of the committee, will SDS witnesses outline the organisation’s main priorities and its main challenges?

Thank you for the opportunity to come and speak today.

SDS has several main priorities. First is our focus on the careers service that we provide to individuals of all ages, which prioritises young people in schools and other, adult groups. Our second priority is how we respond to the needs and demands of the customer groups that we work with, particularly employers, parents and individuals. Another priority is the delivery of modern apprenticeships and national training programmes on behalf of the Scottish Government. We are delivering 25,000 modern apprenticeships each year.

Other priorities include the modernisation of the careers services. That involves building on research on what has been happening internationally and locally in the context of developments such as the curriculum for excellence. We want to develop our service in relation to the career management skills that support young people and adults to fulfil their career ambitions.

How we respond to the needs of employers is another priority for us. Employers are looking to fulfil their skills and recruitment needs, and we have been working with them through sector skills investment plans and regional plans. We recently launched a web service called our skillsforce to help employers find out what is available through public channels, such as local and national authorities, our organisation and jobcentre plus.

Other priorities include the partnerships that we work with and the infrastructure in local authorities and local communities. Developments are happening through things such as opportunities for all and our work with community planning partnerships, particularly on the delivery of single outcome agreements. We are focused on service delivery agreements, with which we align our services to those in local communities.

My last point on priorities relates to our staff. The majority of staff in Skills Development Scotland deliver services to individuals. We have record levels of investment, and the question is how we engage, develop and invest in the services and the professionalism of our staff.

On the challenges as we go forward, we must ensure that SDS and its partners align the services and resources that we have; for example, we play a strategic role at the local level in aligning single outcome agreements and community planning partnerships.

The other challenge for us is the policy framework. I mentioned career management skills, curriculum for excellence and how we align our services with schools. We also take forward our policies post school in, for example, the opportunities for all initiative, in which some changes are happening. Those areas are therefore key priorities. There are also challenges around working with our partners to address youth employment.

My last point on challenges is that, as in any time of change such as the one that SDS is going through now, it is important that we work with our staff and partners to fulfil the ambitions that were developed and highlighted in the report “Career Information, Advice and Guidance in Scotland: A Framework for Service Redesign and Improvement”, which the Scottish Government published last year. There is a big challenge for us in how we engage and work with staff and with our trade union colleagues who are here today.

Thank you. I will not ask any supplementary questions at this stage. You outlined a lot of priorities and challenges, so I will move straight to questions from members and we will get into the detail of the issues.

If I am an employer and I approach Skills Development Scotland to seek its assistance to engage a young person in training, what options do I have in terms of public money support for that training opportunity?

I will start, but my colleague might add to what I say if I miss anything.

There are one or two programmes that support training. The first is obviously the modern apprenticeship programme, which will provide some support if the employer is offering an apprenticeship. For small businesses, there is the employer recruitment incentive, which is available for targeted young people. There are additional support mechanisms—

What does that mean in monetary terms?

In terms of the cost?

It is £1,500.

Is that a wage subsidy?

In effect, it is a wage subsidy to take people on.

You will know that some local authorities supplement that support and put in additional resources. On top of that, there are some supports if the employer wants to put the young person through initial training. If we set aside the modern apprenticeship programme, there is also the flexible training opportunities programme, which can be targeted at small businesses and help to recover half of the cost of training; it is therefore a shared responsibility with the employer.

My understanding is that most of the employers who approach SDS are predominantly being pushed down the modern apprenticeship route. Somebody might want just to have some vocational training, but SDS is pushing them into an apprenticeship.

My sense of it is that we look to see what the employer’s needs are. There would be no point in pushing someone down a particular route if it was not appropriate either for the role involved or for the employer. It is positive if a young person can secure a modern apprenticeship, which prepares them well for the future and gives them good opportunities to work from. However, it is a question of listening to find out what the employer’s needs are and responding to that appropriately.

A constituent came to speak to me about the modern apprenticeship programme because they are concerned about it. They have a teenage daughter who works in a restaurant one day a week because she is at school, and her employer said “You’re doing very well; we can put you through an apprenticeship.” She works only one day a week, and yet she will have an apprenticeship. On the face of it, that seems a good thing, but people are concerned that the term “apprenticeship” is being abused and that it is not what people think it is. Does that view have any legitimacy?

We have emphasised, as the Scottish Government has done, that the focus on modern apprenticeships is very much employer demand and that the modern apprenticeship frameworks that have been approved through industry and the modern apprenticeship group must be followed. There is a record number of modern apprenticeship frameworks, which are available at various levels.

The purity of the modern apprenticeship programme is essential. It is about employed people in a particular job, who have employed status, undertaking a modern apprenticeship framework. Other organisations and companies have used the term “apprenticeship”, but they would not gain financial support from Skills Development Scotland to support that particular framework—it has to be in one of our areas.

You raised an issue to do with vocational skills in schools and the ambitions in curriculum for excellence on skills for learning, life and work. How do we balance educational attainment in school through curriculum for excellence with the search for valuable work experience, which complements what the young person is doing in school and prepares them to move into the world of work?

We are about to publish a number of reviews. The first is a review of modern apprentices themselves. What have people been doing in their modern apprenticeship? What happened to them after the apprenticeship finished? Secondly, early in the new year we will publish a survey of 2,500 employers who have been involved in modern apprenticeships, who have given feedback on the value of the scheme and how it meets their business needs.

Does that mean that it is conceivable that a person who is working only one day a week could be fulfilling the requirements of a modern apprenticeship?

No, because they are still at school. I think that the young person in your example was at school four days a week—

Yes.

So they are still a school pupil. They would have to be employed by the company in relation to undertaking that particular modern apprenticeship once they left school.

They are employed, one day a week.

Yes, but they are still a school pupil, so that cannot be a modern apprenticeship.

Okay. What about fixed-term apprenticeships? How many people in the programme are on, for example, a one-year fixed-term contract?

The funding that we provide employers is for the duration of the modern apprenticeship framework that is being undertaken, which will depend on the framework and the level. The key issue is that a young person or adult must be employed by the company to undertake the modern apprenticeship. They are employed from day 1 and have employed status.

In the survey that I mentioned, we are following up the 2,000 young people who finished about six months ago. Where are they now? Are they still employed by the same company or have they moved on to another job in another organisation?

I had an exchange of correspondence with Skills Development Scotland earlier this year. A number of modern apprenticeships are completed within three to six months, and a very high number are completed within one year. I do not expect you to give us all the statistics just now, but can you give the committee statistics on how many people are completing modern apprenticeships in such timescales, so that we can see whether the vast majority of apprenticeships are three or four-year apprenticeships or are being completed within six months or a year? Am I correct in saying that the majority are probably completed within a year?

I think that the majority would be longer than that. We can provide the committee with detailed information on all the frameworks and the average duration of apprenticeships for individuals who follow a particular job route.

What is Skills Development Scotland doing in the context of its equality action plan, particularly in relation to gender in the modern apprenticeship system? I was a member of the Equal Opportunities Committee when we took evidence on underrepresentation of ethnic minorities in areas such as the building trade. Where are you with your action plan?

We undertake equality impact assessments on all the programmes and services that we provide, including modern apprenticeships. We regularly undertake such assessments.

There are probably two issues in the question. On the split between male and female apprentices, a number of years ago about 73 per cent of the cohort were male. The proportion has dropped to 57 per cent, with females at 43 per cent. We have seen a gradual increase in the ratio of females to males in modern apprenticeships. That is partly reflected in the range of modern apprenticeships that are now offered to young people and adults.

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We also work closely with a range of organisations that promote equality—whether it is between males and females or in terms of young people—in relation to take-up. There are a number of initiatives and incentives in that area, including in relation to encouraging young people with additional support needs. Malcolm Barron mentioned the employer recruitment incentive as a good example. It targets young people who have particular needs and promotes them to employers in relation to undertaking a modern apprenticeship.

Career-wise, the Scottish Government has recently been looking at ways of encouraging young girls into modern apprenticeships in science, technology, engineering and maths. There is a lot of activity and there are a lot of people in this space. Perhaps it needs to be a bit more joined up, given the range of initiatives and organisations that are involved.

A lot of work is happening. Some of you will know about last week’s modern apprenticeship awards, which demonstrated the range of young people and adults who follow modern apprenticeships.

Finally, there is our web offer—the my world of work website—in which we encourage young people and adults from different backgrounds to consider career routes that traditionally they would not necessarily have considered.

I am sure that Derek Cheyne and James Corry will want to speak about this, but our advisory staff are also there to challenge gender stereotyping. The whole point of careers guidance is to broaden horizons and make people think beyond what might be immediately obvious to them.

The next question touches on Mr Findlay’s earlier question. We have had a lot of discussion about the college sector and how short courses and flexible courses seem to appeal to women. Is there flexibility for part-time working within the modern apprenticeship programme? Are the shorter modern apprenticeships gaining support from people who, as we are hearing in the evidence on the college sector, do not want to commit to a three or four-year course?

The critical thing is that they achieve the qualification. If it is possible to do the qualification on a part-time basis, that should be available. Older people in particular have developed skills over time but may have had no official recognition of those skills, which means that the portability of a qualification does not exist for them. That is the kind of thing that would be picked up in relation to the issues that you mentioned.

You mentioned the my world of work website and the careers advice service that your staff provide. A number of members want to come in on that.

I start by asking the Unison representatives how the role of careers advisers has changed over the past 12 months.

We represent about 70 per cent of the front-line staff in Skills Development Scotland. Our members are keen to participate in the modernisation of the service but they have concerns about the value of careers websites in supporting individuals’ career development or career management skills. They are concerned that the websites remain untested or that a lot of assumptions are being made about the value of those websites. They are further concerned that the input in schools in relation to the new model is based on the assumption that pupils will use the my world of work website and may not need individual contact with a careers adviser. There is no research to date that implies that that is correct.

Historically, we offered a system whereby pupils who were perceived as academic could self-refer to see the careers adviser. That was very useful because it gave an opportunity to young people and allowed them to recognise the benefit of seeing a careers adviser.

With the new system, we are asking young people first to register on the website and use some aspects of it, and then to come forward and perhaps see the careers adviser. Any person who deals with young people or has a son or daughter will know that that is a tremendously idealistic approach. Young people need a lot of encouragement to get them to carry out tasks that they are asked to do.

Our members’ concern about the new delivery model is that many young people may not necessarily come forward and seek to see a careers adviser. We are assuming that young people will still undoubtedly go to college or university, but will they make a well-informed choice about their college or university course or will they make a last-minute decision? Our members are concerned about that. They welcome the my world of work website, which is a very useful information tool, but massive assumptions are being made that it offers high-quality advice and guidance.

Young people need advice and guidance on how to interpret and evaluate careers information. That is the important thing for our members, and they are concerned that the new service overrelies on web-based services and makes a lot of assumptions. That is their concern about how advice and guidance will move forward over the next 12 months.

What we are saying about our members is not just anecdotal. We recently conducted a survey with them and found that the vast majority think that there is an overreliance on web-based services. There are fears that we will place far too much emphasis on those services in the future as opposed to face-to-face services, which our members value as crucial when young people are making decisions about their future.

Since 3 September, many of our members have been in schools. Some 140,000 pupils in Scotland are in secondary 4 to 6, and our members have been raising the profile of the my world of work website in an attempt to encourage young people to register on it. It appears that the registration figures are not very high to date, which should be a worry to all of us here as parents and people who are concerned about how young people will make a successful transition from school to the world of work.

We are making the massive assumption that many young people will manage their own careers over the next six months or so, and we and those in higher education are concerned about the possible drop-out and retention rates of young people. The new model ultimately says that 75 per cent of young people will be directed to or have their needs met by the website service for information, and we are concerned about that. We want the organisation to look at that issue over the next 12 months and consider what fine tuning is required.

You mentioned—

I am sorry to interrupt but, before we move on, can we get a response from the SDS management to the serious concerns that have been raised?

I will try to give some background.

The development of the service was informed by work that was done by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Bank and the European Commission, which identified a number of elements that need to contribute to a modern careers service. Those elements included highly qualified staff, in which area we have made a huge commitment; web services, which are an immediate access point for many young people nowadays, and which allow young people access over a longer period of time during the day and the week; the service being lifelong, because people change their jobs many times during their careers; and the need for the service to be a basis for developing individuals’ career management skills. The service should allow individuals to manage their careers as they work their way through their working lives and respond to the different challenges and changes that confront them.

Currently, 146,000 people are registered on the service, more than half of whom are young people under the age of 19. In the past two months, there have been between 15,000 and 18,000 registrations per month. The work that James Corry and Derek Cheyne are doing to promote the service that is offered on the my world of work website is therefore bearing fruit. Young people are registering. We have had strong support from directors of education and headteachers around the basis of the service and what is included in it.

My world of work is not purely an information and advice service. There are a number of tools to help young people to develop the career management skills of self, strengths, horizons and networks, in order to better prepare themselves and allow them to understand how they might plan their careers. The scenario up to now is that young people are working their way through that service and using those tools. Clearly, we want to publicise that more, and that work is going on, as Derek Cheyne and James Corry outlined.

The scenario beyond that is that we recognise that some young people need face-to-face support. We have identified some young people who are particularly at risk, and we want to target that support to them. They do not necessarily have support at home and they might not have access to the internet or various other sources of information. Those young people suffer from a number of disadvantages, which is why we are trying to target them with a coaching approach that takes them through what they require to better prepare themselves for the transition.

As Derek Cheyne and James Corry outlined, we are encouraging some of our more capable and better supported young people to use the resources, but the simple scenario is that, if they find that they are still confused, uncertain and unsure about what their next step should be, they should get advice from a highly qualified, professional careers adviser.

I want to clarify something before I bring in Neil Findlay. If an individual who is not obviously struggling has been advised to use the website, how do you know that they are using it properly? How do you know that they are gaining the information that they require from it and making the right choices via it if they do not come back to you and say what they have done?

The other aspect is obviously the support of the school and the guidance staff within it. We have talked about that and worked it through. The identification of those who are most at risk is not done only from information that we hold. It is also based on the school and what it knows about the pupils, given that it works with them day and daily. The scenario is therefore that there is additional background.

The other point is that, if a parent feels that their son or daughter is struggling, they have an opportunity to make the application as well.

I have two points, but to pick up the point that has just been made, I note that, first, many kids will not tell their parents that they are struggling and, secondly, even more of them will not tell their teacher, so there are massive gaps.

I am looking at a table that shows the picture to 31 October 2012 and it tells me that, across the regions, 17 per cent of 12 to 25-year-olds are registered. In areas such as East Renfrewshire and East Dunbartonshire, the figure is as low as 10 per cent. The highest figure in the table is 37 per cent. I do not know what measure of success you regard an average in Scotland of 17 per cent to be but, to me, it is worrying.

Before the witnesses respond, will you tell us what the table is and where it comes from? That will give us a chance to—

I have my own source for the table, but it shows registrations for the my world of work service from 1 April 2011 to 31 October 2012.

As Malcolm Barron said, a lot of work has been happening with schools, particularly in the past six months, and we have seen 15,000 to 18,000 new registrations in each of the past few months. In time, there will be more of the investment in staff that James Corry mentioned.

We are working closely with local authorities and schools. Our chief executive has been out to meet local authority chief executives, and my world of work is one of the key topics that they have talked about. We are keen to work—and we have been working—with local authorities and schools to ensure that we see more registrations and more use of the website.

There are three aspects to the issue. First, the development of career management skills is embedded in curriculum for excellence. It is mentioned in “Building the Curriculum 4” as a key life skill along with literacy, numeracy and other skills. Work to develop career management skills is happening in the classroom, and we are working with teachers and schools to look at that.

The second aspect is the work that we have undertaken with schools across the country in which we have run a number of sessions with groups of pupils to look at two things: career management skills, and my world of work and how they can use it.

The third aspect is the one-to-one coaching service in schools, which Malcolm Barron mentioned. Again, there is a targeted group for that, as was mentioned earlier. We work closely with school staff to identify the group of young people who will need that important face-to-face service if they are to achieve.

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No one will be left behind. Even if those who look as if they are sorted because they happen to have a certain number of highers or whatever want to see a professionally qualified careers adviser in their school, we will look at that. As we have said before, 2012-13 was very much a year of development in taking forward the modernisation of services, and we see a three-year horizon for developing services with regard to the professionalism of staff, the investment in the skills that we have in Skills Development Scotland and work with schools in rolling out and further developing curriculum for excellence. A lot of activity is going on, and throughout 2012-13 we will be learning a lot of lessons that we will want to build on.

Just imagine that I am one of the 80 per cent of pupils who do not register, but I am in your green category and have been told, “There’s the website, Mr Findlay—on you go”. If I do not register—and if I do not tell my guidance teacher or my parents that I have not registered—what careers advice am I going to get? Who is going to check that I am getting any careers advice at all? I cannot see where that is going to happen.

We are playing out the worst-case scenario here—

It looks as though we are talking about 80 per cent of pupils. That is not a worst-case scenario—it is a common one.

If a young person finds that they are struggling, they will come forward. They have done so in the past in schools, and there is nothing to stop them doing so now. If that young person comes forward and asks for help, we will first of all identify the issue. I am sure that if the issue is simple the careers adviser will deal with it there and then; after all, that is what they are there for. If more detailed action is required, we will encourage the young person to register on the website and use its resources to ensure that their engagement with the adviser is much better informed and that they get much more out of the process than if they come to the whole thing blind and spend a lot of time on basic information instead of really dealing with the issues that they want to address.

I apologise to the committee for taking up time on this matter, but I want to pursue it. Under the previous system, if you did not register, there would at least have been some sort of one-to-one meeting or class contact with a careers adviser. Someone would have registered the fact that you had been spoken to—the basics would be known. Now, if I am in the green category—and have therefore been identified as being okay to be directed to a website—but I do not register, how will the school or SDS identify me? At the moment, I am not convinced that I would definitely be picked up. You talked about young people coming forward to ask for help—perhaps I do not want to come forward.

But if you had been in that situation last year—if you had not spoken to the school, had not come forward or had not gone to your parents—you would not have been picked up either.

I think that there have been missed opportunities this year. To some extent, young people have been guinea pigs for the modernisation of the service. I understand that we should be supporting those most in need but I note that early entrants to university courses such as dentistry, medicine or veterinary medicine this year have not, in the main, been seen by careers advisers, which can have a fundamental effect. It is all very well saying that many people who go into those professions come from families who are articulate and understand the process, but many do not understand it and need additional support. We know that people this year have not had that support, which might have an impact later for parents, or with people being unsuccessful or whatever. It is important to point out that, although we are at a very early stage of the process, people have already been missed.

I will come back to Neil Findlay in a moment, but Clare Adamson would like to ask a supplementary.

I have a couple of questions for the witnesses from Unison.

You mentioned that you have surveyed your members—indeed, the survey is also mentioned in your submission. Are you willing to share the details of that survey with the committee?

My second question relates to the comparisons that are being made between what is happening now that we have the website and the previous system. A figure of 80 per cent has been mentioned with regard to pupils who have not registered, but do you have a figure for the percentage of pupils who self-referred to the careers service in the previous system, before my world of work was introduced?

We plan to produce an MSP briefing on the survey results in the next week to two weeks. We need to share that information with our members first, as they participated in the survey. That survey was completed by almost 400 members of staff at SDS, which currently has a staffing complement of 1,150. The 40 per cent of the staff who completed the survey were predominantly on the front line or on the operations side of the organisation, which currently has some 995 staff.

In terms of the discussion over the past five or 10 minutes, from our members’ point of view we ask whether we can consider taking a step back. We talk about registrations on websites but, frankly, our members would ask what that means. Someone who registers on the Skills Development Scotland my world of work website is provided with information, but our members would argue that we then make massive assumptions about what young people actually do with that information. I go back to the previous point. Our members would argue that it is incredibly idealistic to presume that young people will be very proactive, will look at that information and will put their career plans in place. Our members’ experience of working with young people is that they need a guiding hand or support throughout the academic year to ensure that they make well-informed and realistic career decisions.

We welcome the fact that young people are registering on the my world of work website, but I will tell you a story. I registered on the Very website because my daughter, who is eight years of age, loves Monster High dolls. I registered on the website because it saved me £10 when I got her Monster High doll. Have I registered on the Very website?

That is beyond my expertise.

Of course I have. Have I been back to the Very website? No. We need to be careful when looking at the raw numbers of people who have registered on websites. What counts is not whether someone registers on the website but what they do with the information on it and whether that helps them to become better at career planning and development.

From a trade union perspective, we look to the leading academics in Scotland—Sheila Semple and Cathy Howieson—who are currently carrying out research into the merits of the my world of work website and how it helps young people to develop their career planning and career management skills as compared with other career-related interventions such as face-to-face interviews with careers advisers and group talks. We hoped that that academic research would be used over the year of transition in Skills Development Scotland to help to shape and develop the my world of work website. However, at the moment, Skills Development Scotland appears to be a bit reluctant to participate in that exercise. We think that that is a shame because there is a lot to learn from that academic research.

Let me bring in Mr Logue, to respond to that, and I will come back to you.

Can I ask a question before that, convener?

Okay—a quick one. On you go.

James Corry says that Skills Development Scotland is reluctant to take part in that research, and Unison’s written submission states that

“SDS have now instructed all staff not to participate in this research which could have played a valuable role in improving service delivery.”

I would like to ask SDS why that is the case.

You can address both points, Mr Logue.

Thank you.

I go back to a point that Malcolm Barron made earlier. The self-referral model of young people accessing services in schools was introduced in 1984—I was involved in the pilot scheme. We are going back a number of years to when young people either could decide to see an adviser or could be referred by guidance staff. In 1985, we discussed the introduction of a careers database called microdoors; in 1993, we discussed careers company websites; and in 2002, the Careers Scotland website was introduced. Development has been cyclical, from websites such as the previous Careers Scotland one to web services such as we now have in the various tools that are contained within the SDS website.

It is not all about the services that we have now starting to exclude people; in the past, people have chosen whether to see an adviser, and not everyone needs to see an adviser face to face. Since 1984, there has been an on-going discussion about the value of such one-to-one contact, and various pieces of research have been done through the UK Commission for Employment and Skills. The Scottish Government’s career information, advice and guidance strategy also talks about web services and the my world of work website.

Within SDS we have just launched a research and evaluation strategy. Early in the new year, a detailed plan will be pulled together that will contain our own timeline for independent research and evaluation of the services that we provide across the board. As well as the survey work on modern apprenticeships that I mentioned earlier, we will look at our career management skills service and my world of work. All of that is programmed and planned to be taken forward from next year.

From an SDS perspective, another issue with the current survey on career management skills is that we introduced our career management skills service only in October. It is far too early to start evaluating career management skills in relation to what we are delivering in schools when we have only just introduced that service. Going forward—again, in partnership—we want to look to see how we can all work together on the issues that Derek Cheyne and James Corry have mentioned. Working with the other partners they mentioned, we want to look at how we might consider such research going forward.

Sorry, but I am not sure that you answered the second question directly.

Was that the question on why we are not involved in that research?

Why did you instruct your staff not to take part in it?

As I said, we are conducting our own research and evaluation strategy, which has just been agreed by the organisation’s senior management team. Early in the new year, a detailed plan will be produced that will include how we will undertake research and evaluation across all our services.

We know that it is important to work with staff during any period of change and uncertainty. To start evaluating a service that we have only just introduced would place an extra burden on staff in relation to the services that we provide. We felt that any evaluation of career management skills would be inappropriate at this stage because it is too early. I met both the University of Edinburgh staff to say to them that we feel that this is too early and that we would prefer to do the evaluation at a later date.

I am not sure how that necessarily precludes staff taking part in research conducted by Unison—

Sorry, the research has been commissioned by Unison. It is independent and impartial research.

Are the researchers the same Howieson and Semple from whom Careers Scotland commissioned research in 2009?

In 2008-09, on behalf of Skills Development Scotland—or Careers Scotland as it was then—Semple and Howieson conducted academic research on careers websites. To be fair to Skills Development Scotland, Semple and Howieson looked at careers websites such as the PlanIT Plus website to which Danny Logue referred and the old Careers Scotland website.

One argument that was made was that there was too short a timescale between the initial and secondary questionnaires that the researchers gave the young people. Understandably, some argued that the timescale was too short to see what difference had been travelled in terms of careers management skills. However, the timeline between those two questionnaires was not in the academics’ control because Skills Development Scotland wanted the survey results.

The academic research that is currently being carried out—as my colleague mentioned, this is not Unison research but impartial academic research—is, frankly, a follow-on from the research commissioned by Skills Development Scotland. The research is ultimately asking what impact, if any, careers websites have on the career management skills of S4 pupils, alongside other formal career-related interventions, such as group talks and careers interviews. Equally important—I am glad that Malcolm Barron mentioned this—the research is also looking at other personal socioeconomic factors, such as whether there is a history of low income in the family, whether anyone in the family has previously gone to university or college and whether there is any parental support for the young person’s progression from school to the world of work.

We hope that, once that academic research is published, it will benefit the organisation. We hope that, as impartial independent academic research that has not been funded by the organisation, the research will be looked at by the Scottish Government and by Skills Development Scotland. We hope that the research will help to inform—not on its own but as one of various pieces of research that have been done—and shape the service going forward.

From our members’ point of view, it is a bit of a public relations disaster that the organisation has decided not to allow its staff to participate in a piece of research that is being carried out by leading academics in careers guidance north of the border. That is the organisation’s decision and we accept it, but our members think that it is not exactly a good thing. The independent research that is being carried out by academics could help shape the new model going forward, especially given that, as Danny Logue said, this is the year of transition.

Mr Logue outlined all the research work that is going to be undertaken. Do you accept his point that, given that the service was introduced only in October, it is a bit early to jump into research?

10:45

I appreciate that, but you need to understand that the researchers will not report back tomorrow. The research will take further cognisance of young people’s career management skills early next spring and report back next summer. It will not outline fundamental implications for career management skills, but it is certainly a piece of academic research that should be considered in the year of transition.

We have spent a lot of time on this. I will come back to you, but other members want to come in.

I have just a couple of quick supplementaries. First, Mr Logue said earlier that the advisory staff were there to challenge gender stereotyping. If a young person does not get a careers interview and relies on the my world of work website, how can any gender stereotyping be challenged by an adviser? Secondly, if a young person feels that they need a careers interview, what are you doing to tell them that that is still an option? Are there posters in schools? How do they physically go about getting a careers interview if they want one?

I will take the second question first, if you do not mind. I think that that might be a bit easier. On the interview, I suppose that—[Interruption.]. I am sorry, but I have lost my point. Can you repeat your second question?

If a young person in school wants a careers interview, how do they go about getting one? Are they encouraged to do that? I have not looked closely at the website, but does it encourage young people to seek a careers interview if they are still not sure what to do? Is there stuff up on school notice boards telling them that a careers interview is an option and encouraging them?

The scenario that we planned this year is that every fourth, fifth and sixth-year pupil will have an input from an adviser such as James Corry and Derek Cheyne who will describe the background to career management skills and the services that are available from the my world of work website. I am sure that the advisers would be able to say to a young person who has used those resources but is still finding it difficult to make a career decision that they have the option of approaching guidance staff and asking directly for additional help.

We can respond to such requests in a number of ways, including providing a full interview or a group activity for young people in a senior school who have shared issues. We want to work through such things as we go through the year of implementation.

You are right that gender stereotyping cannot be challenged if a young person does not have a careers interview. However, we must try to create the atmosphere or environment in which such thinking can take place. Schools do a lot of work on gender stereotyping, and the website tries to portray a lot of positive examples in addressing issues such as gender stereotyping. I am sure that we could do campaigns through the web service that would promote and highlight such issues. We did a campaign recently about Universities and Colleges Admissions Service applications, but we could build campaigns on issues such as gender stereotyping into the schedule.

I did not get an answer to my question about the percentage of people who self-referred. If you have that answer, I would like to hear it.

I cannot give you that off the top of my head, but I can get back to you on it if that would be helpful.

That would be useful.

We can provide that information to the committee.

We have talked a lot about careers interviews. The notion that a one-off careers interview will fundamentally change a young person’s life has been debated for many years. With career management skills—again, this is linked to curriculum for excellence—we are looking at how we build young people’s capacity to manage their careers, not just at the transition point of leaving school but throughout their working lives, given the changes in the economy and employers’ demands. The process is fundamentally about making the connection with young people’s experiences in schools.

Schools have responsibility for delivering curriculum for excellence. We do not want programmes to be bolted onto the young person’s experience of the curriculum, as happened for the past 30 years when the careers service delivered careers education programmes; we want the work that we are trying to develop on career management skills to be embedded in the learning experiences that the young person has at school: in their academic learning, in their work experience and in the vocational and employability skills that they gain, which we have talked about. There is a whole-school experience in that regard in relation to what SDS does and what teachers and other partners do in delivering within the curriculum.

This is rather an old example, but when I was at school we were sent—I think once in the entire time that we were at school—to have a look in a card-index file in a wee broom-cupboard. Things have moved on substantially since then. There is the website, but in addition to that, are you saying that the whole system of career management and careers advice is no longer a stand-alone item but is integrated into curriculum for excellence and the working school life?

Rather than what we used to call careers information, advice and guidance being something that is done to a young person and which depends on the person coming to see somebody, we are trying to develop the capacities and skills of the young person—or adult; we are not excluding adults. In building the curriculum and looking at all the skills for learning, life and work that we have talked about, we are trying to consider how we ensure that the young person’s experience is actually articulated in terms of the support they receive in starting to develop their skills and manage their careers.

Malcolm Barron talked about the self; it is about how the young person develops their particular self, looking at their strengths in the context of what they want to do and looking at the whole horizon around planning for when they leave school and other transition points. Then it is about utilising the networks and various infrastructures that are out there to help people to gain the employment, careers and learning that they want. It is about embedding all that experience in the school, as you said, rather than it being something separate.

What was the total cost of the my world of work website, and what savings has it generated?

I do not have that information with me, but I can provide the committee with information.

That would be great.

Mr Barron mentioned inputs. What is an input? Also, how many young people have not been assigned a traffic-light colour?

I am not sure that I understood your question about inputs.

Maybe I can help. I think that you said that every fourth, fifth and sixth year would have an input.

Right. I beg your pardon. That means that a group session would be delivered to pupils by a careers adviser, which would cover the kind of things that I outlined. Does that help, or do you want additional information?

It is group input, not one-to-one input.

It is a group situation, yes.

Will you also comment on how many unassigned young people there are?

I am not sure whether the committee is familiar with the approach, so please bear with me. When we did the analysis we tried to identify the young people who were most at risk. If we are not sure which category some young people fall into, we have a discussion with the school. The key point is that we and the school try to identify the young people who are most at risk of not making a successful transition from school to the next stage, and we consider what additional support we need to provide to help them to make a successful transition. We have a shared interest in doing that, so we share information to ensure that nobody is unassigned.

That means that you have X red lights, X amber and X green. How many do not have a colour?

We identify a number of young people on whom we want to target our resource. In effect, after we have had the discussion with the school, there will not be anyone who has not been assigned a group.

The group is not fixed. I do not want the committee to get the idea that we are simply putting a stamp on someone and that is that. It is all about working with the school to target the best possible support at the people who need it.

We must move on, but a number of members still want to ask questions about this area, so I will take one question each from Colin Beattie, Liam McArthur and George Adam.

Looking at some of the figures that have been provided to the committee, I note that Unison says that there are 100,000 in the green category, 35,000 in the amber category—I would appreciate confirmation of that number—and 200 to 400 in the red group. Obviously, you work with schools to determine who these students are, but what are the criteria for putting students into particular slots? Are they based on academic ability, attitude or what?

A number of factors play into that. The strongest predictor of young people who are most at risk of not making a successful transition when they leave school is their indication that they will leave at the earliest possible opportunity from fourth year or that they will be a Christmas leaver from fifth year. However, we supplement that with other information that we discuss with the school. If a young person is in care, for example, they are more likely to be at risk and other factors, such as whether they are receiving social work support or have had issues with the police, are built into our consideration and worked off. Does that help?

Just to clarify, can you confirm whether it is the school, rather than SDS, that determines the allocation?

It is a combination of the two. For example, if we are talking about fifth or sixth-year pupils, we might well have seen them already or have received information about them. One predictor will be academic achievement and how the pupil is getting on at school, but the range of factors tends to be taken together. We might have some information and will use other information from the school.

I welcome two fellow Mo Bros to the meeting and salute their contribution to the Movember campaign.

What do you mean? I have this all the time.

Yeah—what’s “Mo Bro”? [Laughter.]

I assume that it is not a style choice.

That is a dangerous route to go down, Mr McArthur.

I thought that I would go there—I have waited long enough.

I welcome the statement in Unison’s written submission that careers advisers

“will not turn people away when they seek help just because they haven’t registered on a website”,

because that very much chimes with what Danny Logue told me when we met in Orkney a number of months ago. Given that registration is not a requirement for being seen by a careers adviser, given the common consent across the board on the website’s contribution to expanding the information that is available, and bearing it in mind that we are still a little unclear about what that precise contribution is, should we not be moving away from the perception that registration on the my world of work website is a requirement for being seen by a careers adviser? After all, registration does not seem to be happening in practice and is a potential inhibitor for those who are self-referring for careers advice.

One of the key things that we are trying to get young people to do is to develop their career management skills and our web service has been designed to replicate those skills in that kind of environment. It is helpful if the young person can register and use the tools. Not all the facilities on the web service need registration, but young people must register if they want to access a lot of the tools. That helps them to get a better understanding of what they need to think about if they want to get the best value out of their engagement with, say, Derek Cheyne and James Corry.

There is a difference in wording there. You can encourage people to go down that route, but the current perception is that registration is a requirement before you can be seen by an adviser. That seems to me to be unhelpful, if we are seeking to assist the widest possible cohort of young people.

I understand your point. Nevertheless, I encourage young people to use the website because it will help them now and in future. You are quite right; we are not trying to stop young people getting the advice and support that they need. If they tell us that they need that support, we will provide it. That said, I encourage young people to use this fantastic resource, which will support and benefit them in the future.

11:00

There are and will continue to be problems with that. Our well-qualified and conscientious members are not turning away those in the green category, but they have to see those in the amber category—and amber is split into light and dark—six to eight times. There is no spare capacity for them to see a high number of greens. Although our members say that they do not want to turn away people who come to them for help and support, not to do so will be extremely difficult if they are working to the highly prescriptive model that says that they must see the ambers six to eight times. The figures do not add up.

I said earlier that this year is very much a year of development. As Derek Cheyne has mentioned, we have identified the amber group as being a priority group. We have looked to quantify the resource involved. We have said that those people might need to be seen between six and eight times, but for some young people it will be less than that; it depends on their needs. I do not think that the system is as rigid as has been suggested. It is about responding to individuals’ needs and assessing what support they require from the one-to-one service.

We said earlier that any young person who falls outwith the amber category can still get access to an adviser. We are building on good practice from the careers services in their previous manifestations and the Careers Scotland website, which is where we have come from historically. What we have now is much more of an interactive service. We want to encourage young people to access those resources. If they have to come and see an adviser, they will be far better prepared and informed to have a discussion about what their needs are with that adviser. As we have said, the website is a valuable resource for delivering the service. We feel that that is a more effective way of delivering the service.

If I could just come in on that—

Very briefly.

Our members are concerned that, ultimately, we are making people in the green group jump through hoops. After the initial registration, as Malcolm Brown said, they have to access elements of the website that will, arguably, make them well informed for face-to-face interaction with a careers adviser.

We have talked a lot about young people who are at risk, but for our members the devil is in the detail. What do we mean by that terminology? Our members—the careers advisers, the personal advisers and the key workers—feel that we should be engaging with young people who are at risk of not achieving their full potential. Ultimately, that means being able to see quite easily, without asking them to register on the website, an academic pupil or a young person who has no history of anyone from their family being in higher education. We think that the debate should be about working with young people who are at risk of not achieving their full potential, rather than being about focusing on young people who are at risk of not achieving a positive destination.

That is the difficulty for our members, because as careers advisers and as parents, they feel that the suggestion that some 75 per cent of pupils will have their needs met by a website is an extremely worrying development. They have no concerns about the my world of work website—it is an extremely good website—but it is an information tool that should complement and supplement careers advice and guidance, and it should never be seen as a replacement for those.

I will let Mr Logue respond to that briefly.

We are not saying that 75 per cent of young people will be satisfied just by using the web service. We know that a number of them will no doubt access face-to-face services as well, so it is not a black-and-white 25:75 split in how we allocate the service. I keep making the point that the service that we have now and the tools that are available as part of it are very much an enhancement and a development of the previous Careers Scotland website.

I should have said this at the start, but it would be helpful if witnesses could please not touch the microphones—they will come on and off, as if by magic.

Like the convener, I gained my experience of the guidance service in around 1984-85. I was probably very challenging for the advisers I saw. I see my own daughter going through the service now and she is probably equally challenging, so I appreciate what members of the service have to go through.

All young people are different, so flexibility is extremely important. In my view, some young people need the opportunity to receive face-to-face management and some could probably do without it, as we have discussed. Should people need face-to-face management, are there still the same number of careers guidance people in schools for that?

There is a slight increase in the number of dedicated staff who work in schools this year from last year. The number was slightly increased to ensure that those particular needs could be responded to in the classroom.

That is an interesting comment. One of our members’ particular concerns is about the way that Skills Development Scotland is developing. In 2009, for example, it had more than 1,400 staff. We appreciate that there are public sector financial difficulties, but there has been a reduction of 20 per cent or so in front-line staff over the past two years. I am talking about careers advisers, key workers and personal advisers not only in schools, but in local centres that deal with the unemployed. Statistically, it could be that more interventions—whatever an intervention means in drilling down—may be carried out in schools, but our members are concerned that there is a considerable lack of front-line staff available for both school work and post-school work. There has been a reduction of some 20 per cent in front-line staff over the past two years because of a voluntary severance and early retirement programme.

When SDS was created a number of years ago, we had a voluntary severance programme that did not focus on any front-line staff at all. One of the criticisms that we took then was that we—including the four of us who are sitting here—came from careers service companies, regional councils before that, and then Scottish Enterprise or Highlands and Islands Enterprise, where no front-facing staff could access voluntary severance. We were criticised for that, including in discussions that we had with the trade unions.

For the past year, we have designed and developed the service and identified the resources that we need to take it forward. The chief executive and I have made a commitment to all staff in all the roadshows that we have done. The front-line, face-to-face staffing resources that we now have at our disposal are what we will need as we go forward to deliver a modern careers service in schools and, importantly, post-school.

We have spent quite a lot of time on that area, but members obviously had a number of questions that they wanted to pursue. I ask Neil Bibby to take up the next issue.

I will ask about SDS funding for college places. I understand that SDS will procure 4 per cent of the provision of the 116,000 full-time equivalent college places in 2012-13. What does that mean in terms of head count and full-time equivalents this year and next year? How do you devise full-time equivalents? I think that you use head count or starts to begin with. Is the calculation the same as that used by the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council for the remainder of the 116,000?

For the 2012-13 academic year, we had agreement between the Scottish Government and the funding council to support 5,800 student places in colleges, and there was £13.1 million to support those places under the new college learning programme. We have been working with all the colleges and the funding council across Scotland to agree proposals that the colleges submitted to undertake that programme.

For 2013-14, the Scottish Government and the funding council have asked us to look at supporting 11,000 places within that programme. It is worth highlighting the components of that programme. There are a number of areas, but a key component is employability skills. We have asked the colleges to look at vocational skills in the taught learning part of the programme, but we felt that it was crucial to build real work experience into that for the individuals who are taking part. That is being supported by something called the certificate of work readiness, on which we have worked with employers. The certificate allows young people and adults to demonstrate their skills and achievements to employers. We are delivering 5,800 student places this year, which will increase to 11,000 for 2013-14.

What is the full-time equivalent for those head-count figures?

That is 5,800 places.

Is that full-time equivalents?

Yes.

What is your definition of full time?

I cannot remember. Is it more than 16 hours?

The programmes are negotiated with the colleges, which organise them for various durations. I will check this and get back to you, but I think that they tend to be about 16 to 20 hours. It varies, depending on how the college delivers the programme. It might be better if we get back to you with a specific answer.

You can write to us.

Yes.

Has the Scottish Government asked for that information?

Yes. The key point about duration is that we have built a mixture of taught learning in the college environment and work experience. Colleges are utilising that work experience in different ways. As Malcolm Barron said, we will ensure that that information is sent to the committee.

Thanks.

On the employability courses that you provide, I take it that the employability fund will be an expansion of the college learning programme, as opposed to adding something new to the programme.

Yes. Next year, the college learning programme will be part of the wider employability fund that will be available to take forward a range of initiatives in that area.

So there will be extra this year, not just in terms of students and hours: you will be teaching more and the courses will be more wide ranging.

Yes. The part of the new college learning programme that colleges deliver will be increased to 11,000 places. In addition, the employability fund for 2013-14 will encompass other employability programmes that we have had before, such as get ready for work and training for work.

How do these employability courses differ from what was happening two or three years ago in colleges?

We built in key components that are different from how colleges were in the past. First, lots of college courses are vocational. We are building employability skills as well as vocational skills into the college provision. A further key component is the work experience element that we have built into the programme, which means that it can be quite different from other mainstream courses.

In addition, there is the certification of work readiness, which we feel is very important. That came from feedback from employer groups and representatives, such as the Federation of Small Businesses and the chambers of commerce, and from employers themselves. In terms of young people’s ambitions to move into the labour market, the new courses allow them to make a connection between what they are doing in college and the needs of the local labour market. It also allows young people to demonstrate the skills that they have gained when they have undertaken the programme.

We have discussed at regional college level the way in which the employability skills programmes fit within the wider employability skills pipelines in each local authority. That is where our building blocks are. We ensure that there is an alignment of the services and resources that SDS provides with those that we are delivering through the colleges, the wider employability fund for next year and, importantly, the finances that local authorities spend in this space. It gives us a degree of alignment and integration in the employability skills pipelines in local authority areas.

Sure. When we met college chiefs there was a lot of discussion about hard-to-reach young people. I take it that the majority of participants on these courses are hard-to-reach young people.

Yes. We work very much with local centres and local partners. In each local authority area, there are established local employability partnerships, which have youth employment action plans. That allows us to identify the young people in the area who require various types of support, and the programmes are working closely with colleges to align the support to those young people’s particular needs. That is why it is important that, within each area, the services are joined up. SDS is at the forefront of establishing service delivery agreements with local community planning partnerships. That enables us to align our resources and services with what is happening locally.

With any new initiatives that the Scottish Government asks us to deliver, such as the new college learning programme and the social enterprise and third sector challenge fund, we ask partners to engage at the local level with the local employability partnership to ensure that there is no duplication and that all the provision in the area is aligned.

11:15

Mr Findlay has requested a short supplementary question.

You mentioned the get ready for work programme. Some people are concerned that such programmes are just part of a circuit whereby people go on a course, go back into unemployment, and then go on another course. I understand that, although get ready for work was for under-18s, that is to be changed, and that people will be allowed to repeat it. Is that the case?

There has always been provision for young people over the age of 18 to enter the get ready for work programme if it is suitable for them. That has applied particularly to young people with additional support needs, but also to young people who are making their first transition. Recently, we re-emphasised that that is an option, because there are now more young people who leave school later and who fall into that age category. It was not so much of a factor before, but it has become a factor. That is the key point.

Having given that answer, I have forgotten your second question.

It was about the repeated cycle.

I think that that is a genuine anxiety about what we do. We monitor achievement rates within the get ready for work programme, as we do with all the programmes, to see what impact it is having, and we look at individual providers.

That is a concern, but we aim to ensure that young people progress within the programmes. The key thing is that they are getting work experience, additional vocational skills and employability skills. The one thing that we cannot do is guarantee a job at the end of the programme.

Previously, people could not repeat the programme, but they will be able to do that in future. Is that correct?

Only in circumstances in which it is deemed appropriate. Someone who has been in a particular vocational area might decide, in discussion with an adviser, that they want to change direction. I am sure that we would recommend that option if it were appropriate for them, but only in those circumstances.

I add that SDS has established a data hub for 16-plus learning choices, which supports opportunities for all. That is about how we share information with our key partners, particularly Jobcentre Plus and local authorities, and other partners. It allows us to track and monitor young people collectively within the local employability partnerships.

Gentlemen, I thank all four of you for your evidence. It has been very helpful and very interesting.

I suspend the meeting briefly to allow the witnesses to leave.

11:18 Meeting suspended.

11:20 On resuming—