Adult Guidance report

The Adult Guidance service, run under the Scottish Enterprise Renfrewshire (SER) contract with Renfrewshire Careers Partnership (RCPL), aimed to provide a service to young people and adults, using economies of scale to provide a more geographically dispersed service and better link with educational and community establishments. With the end of the current three-year contract and the onset of Careers Scotland, the evaluation aimed to: review progress to date, as well as impact; ensure learning points are taken from local practice; and make certain adult guidance services are well prepared and able to meet the needs of the local economy.

The methodology consisted of: interviews with partner organisations and other guidance services; questionnaires with clients; and best practice meetings with organisations in the public and private sector.

RCPL has made a successful transition from being part of SER as RE-Direct to joining the careers service. The service is well received and respected by customers. Suggests impact is very real for most customers, life changing for some, but with a small percentage of adults from the local population being affected, overall impact is not large and difficult to determine. Finds the service to be additional. In terms of multipliers, lack of data and evidence on jobs created meant this could not be pursued in detail. Notes that measures of skill development and focus/motivation is positive. There is no formula to determine value for money, but SER (and client) value is evident. Value for money is less evident for employers, for example RCPL’s employer redundancy interventions.

As Careers Scotland’s implementation proceeds, recommends: greater flexibility and urgency; a more developmental approach to harness staff capabilities, enthusiasm and ‘downtimes’; improve links to partners by pro-actively setting the agenda; the use of private sector methods by monitoring efficiency, measuring service impact, and building existing (well developed) links; and providing better marketing, networking, and influencing, using the methods other areas have developed.