Organisation and Policy: Influencing Public Policy: Archive: LIFE Appendix 1
Information, Advice and Guidance for Adults
An Appendix to NIACE Cymru's response to LIFE and advice to the Education and Training Advisory Group (ETAG)
1. Access to information, advice and guidance for learners and potential learners has a high priority in the Green Paper. NIACE commends the Welsh Office for earlier investment in a network of local advice and guidance provision for adults which provides the necessary underpinning for the national information services offered by Learning Direct.
2. But information, advice and guidance services for adults across Wales have developed piecemeal. There is a need for greater coherence and a more systematic approach to the funding, planning, management, delivery and evaluation of these services for adults, working to the targets in the National Learning Strategy.
3. Above all, adult guidance services must be:
 | impartial and client centred |
| accessible - in location and ethos |
| consistent and coherent across Wales |
| progressive throughout life |
| integrated within the planning and delivery arrangements for learning programmes |
| of high quality and delivered by appropriately qualified staff, from outreach enablers to professional guidance staff |
4. There are four major issues to be resolved in developing Adult Guidance Services:
| how the broad territory of information, advice and guidance is to be segmented for funding purposes; |
| how a coherent service is to be developed, given the multiple and conflicting responsibilities of the various agencies; |
| how appropriate databases are to be assembled, and more critically, maintained; |
| how public funding is to be channelled into services. |
Definitions
5. In its early documents, the National Guidance Council proposed that a distinction should be drawn between Information and Advice, which should be publicly funded, and Guidance, which might be charged for. However, the boundary between the two is not clear or agreed. At a recent NICEC seminar on ILAs, the idea that guidance should be more closely allied to teaching - seeing it as a process delivered through teaching (group guidance) or as a form of teaching (the tutorial process). If this were adopted guidance could be funded through the mainstream funding channels of FE and HE. This would be consistent with the FEFC(W) funding model, and some current practice, but raises issues about impartiality, and in depth guidance/ counselling for the (relatively small) proportion of people who need this before approaching an educational institution or agency. If guidance is regarded as essential to the effective operation of such accounts (and indeed to the effectiveness of the learning experience itself), it could be strongly argued that Government should fund such access as part of the infrastructure.
Local Networks and Coherence
6. Despite the availability of Learning Direct, most information and advice enquiries are likely to continue to be handled locally, and will require knowledge of local circumstances, informal resources, and close feedback loops into local, regional and national providers of education and training. Since the publication of The Challenge of Change by UDACE in 1985 there had been widespread support in the profession for a model of delivery based on multi agency networks, to facilitate intelligence gathering, referral and responsiveness to different client needs. However, the mechanisms for financing such networks have never been secure, few have managed to survive consistently over a long term.
7. While there is widespread support for the network model, it requires considerable mutual trust among agencies, and a clear structure for handling finances. The allocation of responsibility for this has never been clear. It has been argued that to secure trust and impartiality, the role of convening a network should rest with an agency not directly responsible for course provision. On these grounds the case has been argued, and models adopted, for giving the role to TECs, Local Authorities, Careers Companies or UFI.
8. The role fits reasonably with TECs, which are not providers, but their explicit focus on employment raises problems, especially where they interpret it narrowly. Much guidance will be about academic and non-vocational learning routes.
9. The Challenge of Change argued the case for LEAs, on ground of democratic accountability, and the proposals for Learning Development Plans provide a basis for reconsidering this option in a strategic approach.
10. The role of the Careers Service in adult guidance has traditionally been contentious. Government has been anxious to ring fence limited resources for statutory clients, but the work now includes extensive adult services, especially since the setting up of Careers Companies, and the Adult Guidance Initiative, New Deal and other Employment Service contracts, as well as, in some cases, work on ILA pilots, has encouraged this development. But some in the adult guidance world view them with suspicion because their roots are in guidance for young people, which is sometimes seen as a distinct territory.
11. UFI has the provision of information, advice and guidance in its remit. If UFI is to have a strong local presence (as implied by the funding of local networks under ADAPT UFI) then this function would sit very naturally with them. In some areas UFI consortia already include most or all of the agencies and individuals who one would wish to see in a network. As with TECs, there might be anxieties about the explicit focus on employment related learning, though UFI consortia might deliver services under other brands.
Databases
12. Learning Direct is in the process of assembling the most complex national database to support telephone advice. Some providers operate only at national level, and many can cope with producing data in appropriate formats. However, the level of local detail and the volatility of data means that a national database will always have difficulty keeping up with needs. The original proposals for Learning Direct prepared by the Guidance Council assumed the creation of local guidance networks which would complement the national service, providing a data gathering and validating function at local level, and might be the principal repository of local intelligence. In Wales, networks already exist in a well developed state to do this, but there needs to be work on establishing consistent procedures for gathering and organising data, and for its exchange between neighbouring networks, and with Learning Direct nationally.
13. The principal problem with such models is always maintenance of volatile data, and the limited priority which providers are likely to give it (most recruitment to programmes does not happen through guidance agencies, and operating separate data management systems is not a high priority for providers in public or private sectors). An alternative model is to develop a Web based approach, under which common protocols are developed for presenting information about programmes on the World Wide Web, and agencies (including Learning Direct) can then access these direct. This is a more attractive model for data providers, since they have control over their own data input, yet it will be searchable at national level through common search procedures. This model would fit well with the development of UFI Learning Centres and the National Grid for Learning, which would provide local access for most people, and home access for many. The resource would be available, constantly updated, for professional guidance agencies, in much the same way as similar information is available to travel agents.
14. The difficulty with this model is, of course, the quality of the information, and its impartiality - education and training providers will wish to use their Websites as marketing tools. As always there is a trade off between availability and quality of information. The Web based option increases availability at the cost of impartiality, and requires client education in interpreting information, the central database model increases data quality and impartiality, but risks information not becoming available at all, and would require strong mechanisms to ensure that providers make information available.
Funding
15. Since guidance is the service which enables people to make informed decisions in the education and training market, there is a good case that it should not be charged for at all. If any charges are to be made for education and training it should be for the courses, rather than the guidance which enables people to choose the right course. In this way it contributes to individual motivation, to efficiency among providers (reduced drop out etc.), increased long term employability, and overcoming social exclusion.
16. Guidance development has been bedevilled for decades by short term funding. Projects have repeatedly demonstrated and established good practice and then collapsed when money ran out. Consistency of funding is essential to any adequate public service. Currently CSNA figures show a drop in TEC funding for adult guidance of 33% between 1997-8 and 1997-9, and a 6% drop in the local authority sum. There is real concern that services will disappear before the UFI structures are in place.
17. The Guidance Council reluctantly accepted the notion of a freely available front line service, with a charge for more extensive or specialised services. There is room to doubt whether this model will work in practice. Most of those most in need of extensive services are likely to be publicly funded anyway (long term unemployed, low incomes, people made redundant or in temporary work....) and the focus on widening participation argues for an extension of this approach to all under-represented groups.
Other Issues
Common branding
18. Guidance as a concept is not well understood (the Guidance Council are currently carrying out a market research study which examines this issue among others). It is important that a common identity is established for such services, so that promotion in one place reinforces that in another. The simplest approach would be to use the UFI brand, or Learning Direct, but there are questions about how the public at large will perceive this, and whether the title will discourage some kinds of potential client.
Outreach
19. If guidance is to contribute to widening participation, it is important that guidance staff can go out into excluded communities to promote learning and offer advice in appropriate locations. Staffing levels need to recognise this.
"Barefoot Guidance"
20. Much guidance is provided not by guidance professionals but by managers, supervisors, trades union officers, and others in the community (inside and outside the workplace). Although such people cannot all be expected to have formal guidance qualifications, developing mechanisms to provide them with backup support and training, at a variety of levels, could be a very cost effective investment.
Quality
21. The quality of guidance services needs to be guaranteed, both in terms of the services provided and the qualifications of the staff involved. The Guidance Council has produced quality standards for services which can provide the basis for this, and ought to be mandatory on those offering services.
Guidance and curriculum
22. More explicit development of the links between the curriculum and guidance could be very cost effective. The provision of taster courses, of guidance modules within FE and HE institutions, outreach group sessions in community locations, and open days are all ways in which education and training providers are already offering kinds of "guidance" to individuals. Such models could benefit from more systematic development.
LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND LIFE:
An Appendix to NIACE Cymru`s Response to LIFE
Learning Development Plans
1. LIFE is to be commended in particular for highlighting the role of local authorities (we prefer this to a restricted reference to LEAs) in creating opportunities, especially for those returning to learning. The proposal for Learning Development Plans reflects their vital, and multi-service, role in local communities, as well as their statutory duties to secure adequate facilities for the education of adults falling outside Schedule 2 of the F&HE Act 1992; it recognises the role of local authorities as strategic planners, co-ordinators, partners and providers. We commend the framework proposed. To be effective, local plans must recognise that more of the same will not suffice: we need a shift of emphasis away from those who have already become successful learners and gained qualifications to those who have benefitted least before and who feel that learning is "for other people". NIACE Cymru would wish for an opportunity to support local authorities and their partners in responding to this challenge by working with them:
| to adopt and champion an inclusive definition of learning which reflects the variety of needs, motivations and learning settings relevant to adults, at home, in the community, in education and training institutions, and in the workplace |
| to dismantle barriers to participation and achievement, paying particular attention to the needs of those currently under-represented in learning and securing appropriate progression arrangements |
| to set clear rules and targets to ensure periodic reviews of progress in widening participation, especially among designated under-represented groups |
| to support and encourage promotional campaigns, harnessing the power of the media, such as Adult Learner's Week, to celebrate the achievement of adult learners and to encourage others to join in |
| to act to identify and secure the steps back into learning for those who lack personal confidence and self esteem and do not recognise the contribution which learning can make in their lives |
| to ensure a coherent and appropriate approach to information, advice and guidance services for adults |
| to value and promote initiatives concerned with capacity building, community development and democratic involvement for their contribution to the learning society |
| to offer opportunities for non-certificated learning in informal surroundings which are less threatening for those groups of people who dismiss learning as not for them |
| to accord value to such opportunities, both as feeders through which increasingly confident learners can progress into further opportunities and as legitimate forms of learning in their own right |
| to make provision, through a multitude of local learning centres in non-threatening venues, which offer community access to information technology, the Internet and broadcasting, software, print materials and support from a learning adviser |
| to provide recognition, support and encouragement for the valuable contribution which learning in the family and in the community and learning for all ages can make to educational achievement, community development, economic success, individual well being and social cohesion |
| to reassert the contribution of schools and schooling to lifelong learning. For the lifelong learning agenda this includes the responsibility for inducting children and young people into the process of learning, helping them to learn how to learn and engendering a love of and commitment to learning which will last a lifetime |
| to encourage schools to recognise themselves and their resources as part of a wider network of partners in a learning community and to ensure that they themselves are learning organisations |
In what other ways should local authorities improve the standards and extent of provision in lifelong learning?
| Local authorities have the capacity to address the interface between initial and later learning, the lifelong learning capacity in schools, the opening up of schools and other local authority premises as learning resources, and the further development of family and intergenerational learning, where the potential for reintroducing adults to learning is largely untapped |
| There is a need to promote, strengthen and utilise a corporate approach on the part of local authorities and to take full advantage of their service provider role - in social services, housing, planning, environment, economic development, leisure, personal services- which brings them in close contact with a cross section of the community and offers the opportunity to provide a bridge to learning for many who need it |
| Building on links with TECs and the new partnership with the WDA, local authorities can be the catalyst for encouraging and enabling employers, large and small, to play their part in furthering learning in the workplace and in the community |
| The experience from European projects, Strategic Development Schemes and New Deal demonstrates the strategic role which local authorities can play in harmonising complementary initiatives, for example, for unemployed young people outside education and training, helping them to reengage with the mainstream |
| As major employers, and learning organisations, local authorities have a key role in making a reality of the learning society for elected members, paid staff and volunteers (including school and college governors) |
| As lead agencies in projects funded from Strategic Development Scheme monies or European programmes, local authorities are levers to additional resources which can complement other funding in addressing the Local Learning Development Plan |
| In Learning Towns and Cities, local authorities can be pivotal in bringing together powerful local stakeholders in a strategic approach to social and economic regeneration |
Advice and Support
| The OHMCI Inspection Framework for local authority further education should be a tool through which local authorities can properly address their responsibilities to adult learners in their communities |
| NIACE Cymru has developed "Gearing up to Lifelong Learning: an Adequacy Manual for Local Authorities and their Partners" as a practical tool to assist local authorities and their partners in servicing the learning needs of their communities and would value the opportunity and resources to work across Wales to support local partnerships in playing their full part in implementing LIFE |
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Related Links
| NIACE Cymru Response to LIFE |
| Appendix 2 |
| Appendix 3 |
