When was connexions founded

The majority of 16, young people surveyed who had been in contact with a personal adviser said that Connexions had a positive impact on their lives, with 68 per cent saying it had helped them make a decision about their future. Ofsted carries out inspections of Connexions partnerships and has rated the quality of service as good.

The NAO found that Connexions was working well in partnership with other organisations. There is a risk, however, that Connexions may not be reaching all of the young people it is meant to assist.

Far fewer Personal Advisers are in post than had been originally envisaged, a consequence of Connexions operating with less resources than originally anticipated. Connexions is meant to provide a broad range of advice and services to all young people; however, it does not always cater for the needs of young people who are not at risk of dropping out of education and training. Although the majority of Personal Advisers already hold professional qualifications, at the time of the study, only half had started their Connexions specific training.

There is also a lack of clarity regarding the respective roles of schools and the Connexions Service in providing careers advice to young people. Publication details:. Published date: March 31, The PDFs on this page have been archived. Links will take you to documents on The National Archive website. Share this page. The NAO found that in order to improve the service: Partnerships should be encouraged to set local and regional targets for reducing the number of young people not in education, employment or training.

These targets would feed into the national target and would allow partnerships to be more responsive to local conditions. Heads had and retain a strong influence over the way the role emerges and the direction it takes.

It became abundantly clear to Ministers that the flagship, or at least most prominent, New Labour policy initiative in the youth field — Connexions — was deeply problematic.

Although obvious to many commentators at the time of its announcement in see the critiques on these pages flaws in its organization, execution and focus became a political issue.

A Green Paper for Youth seemed like a good mechanism for dealing with this. Some of the flak headed for Connexions was down to a basic political mistake. The original Connexions strategy was bulldozed through and in the process alienated key stakeholders.

Perhaps the most significant of these was head teachers. A number had become vocal critics of the new service as were many parents and young people — despite what Connexions-funded research may have reported. Second, there were strong grounds for believing that the quality of general and specialized careers guidance for young people had dropped with the onset of Connexions.

According to a Public Accounts Committee Report , 50 per cent of schools are apparently failing to fulfil their current duties under the Education Act for careers education and guidance.

Third, there was a basic problem with the way in which Connexions was supposedly established as both a universal and a targeted service. This conclusion has been supported by research by Hoggarth and Smith which concluded that Connexions looks more like two services than one, and is not adequately resourced to meet the demands of both universal and targeted youth provision. Fourth, there were growing doubts about the claims made for Connexions with regard to its reducing the numbers of young people classified as NEET not in employment, education and training.

Figures published covering the first full two years of the Connexions partnerships showed a reduction of the proportion of young people designated as NEET from 9 to 7. This was, on the surface, a 14 per cent reduction that comfortably exceeded the 10 per cent target set for Connexions.

However, departmental ministers were reported as coming to believe that it was other policy initiatives such as those within schooling itself that were main contributors to the reduction in youth labelled as NEET Times Educational Supplement March 4, The Public Accounts Committee Report had also drawn attention to the impact of sustained economic growth on such figures. It had, further, drawn attention to the extent to which socio-economic factors outside the control of Connexions and other government institutions make it hard to sustain long-term and continuing reduction in the percentage of NEETs ibid : If we break down the the figures provided by Connexions then the 14 per cent claimed reduction in young people classified as NEET actually translates into 21, young people.

If other factors were significant see above then the cost per person would rise significantly. Sixth, there were questions about the abilities of some front-line personnel. In areas like London, personal advisers appear to have had no other relevant professional qualification, and the hastily put-together training for personal advisers was short-run and contained no supervised and assessed practice element.

Significantly, the rush to impose the personal adviser role on careers officers led to a number quitting the new service and many being pushed into more generic roles where their careers expertise was under-utilized. Furthermore, some careers officers did not have the orientation and range of skills that was necessary for the generic personal adviser role. Finally, the impact of the Connexions strategy on youth work was unpopular in some sectors — especially in the way it had driven moves toward targeting and accreditation — and undermined informal educational character of youth work.

The Transforming Youth Work agenda was specifically designed to align state-sponsored youth work with Connexions targets and concerns. While state youth service institutions such as the National Youth Agency, and voluntary organizations dependent on state-sponsorship such as UK Youth may have gone along with this agenda — there was much muttering amongst local groups and projects about the impact on the work — and this did feed through locally to politicians and then nationally.

One route was through to the UK Youth Parliament where some members were growing alarmed at the closure of open provision and its replacement by outcome-oriented work Young People Now November 10, The Conservative Party picked up on this and came out against a strong emphasis on outcomes.

Introducing a new service is difficult enough. However, when it is built upon such flawed thinking the potential for problems was greatly enhanced. As we saw when discussing the Connexions Strategy the notion of social exclusion that runs through the Service is not built on solid ground.

The Connexions Service reflected a further move towards ways of working that pathologize and individualize young people. There was an overriding concern with personal troubles rather than public issues. Unfortunately, this has been combined with the extension of the surveillance of young people and mechanisms by which they can be tracked and controlled. It can work to cut back of the range of choices they have, and allow for sensitive information including medical details to be spread among an increasing range of people.

It was not uncommon to find senior managers within the new services talking very pessimistically about the future and direction of the Connexions Service. Some did not expect it to work in any very meaningful way meaningful, that is, in terms of achieving the targets that have been set for it.

Others bemoaned the bureaucracy involved. Yet others were worried about the sort of business models involved and the extent to which these may work against the giving of a proper and appropriate service to young people.

The paper continued:. The advice should be impartial, comprehensive and free from stereotyping. It should be available in ways that young people want — for example, face-to-face support and advice from people who know them and their abilities; but also on demand and interactively via the web, text and telephone. HM Government [Youth Matters], para 5. However, there may well be a significant amount of smoke and mirrors here.

In the Youth Matters framework the actual shape of provision can differ from trust to trust depending on local circumstances. There are some very significant questions around the current proposals in Youth Matters for the organization of careers guidance and how its quality will be enhanced.

Hopefully, the proposal to move substantial resourcing into schools for careers guidance and advice will later be matched with money to establish a specialist external service perhaps along the lines of Careers Scotland and Careers Wales at some point.

This is precisely the model that the UK has had in the past…. The issue when information advice and guidance moves into schools is whether the proper degree of independence and expertise can be ensured.

For the moment it is difficult to see how it can. Alexander, R. International comparisons in primary education , Oxford: Blackwell.

Bentley, T. Castells, M. Hutton and A. Giddens eds. On the Edge. Living with global capitalism , London: Vintage. Cisse, T. Issues in constructive engagement, the informal education forum ,. Coles, B. A new agenda for change? Department for Education and Employment Learning to Succeed. Department for Education and Employment Connexions. The best start in life for every young person , London: DfEE.

Accessed March 19, A strategy to build a world-class workforce for children and young people , London: Department for Education and Skills. Department for Education and Skills b Extended schools: Access to opportunities and services for all. A prospectus, London: Department for Education and Skills.

Department of Health Independence, well-being and choice: our vision for the future of social care for adults in England , London: Department of Health. Hoggarth, L. Jeffs, T. Conversation, democracy and learning, Ticknall: Education Now. Johnston, L. Mason, P. Young people, transitions and social exclusion , Bristol: The Policy Press. Killeen, D. Coleman and C. Warren-Adamson eds. Youth Policy in the s.

The way forward , London: Routledge. Labour Party, The Britain forward not back. Miliband, D. Morris, M. A report prepared for the National Audit Office. September , London: National Audit Office. Moulson, R.

Accessed March 22, Accessed March 18, Sennett, R. Personal identity and city life , London: Pelican. Smith, M. Staples, W. Stewart, J. Carter el. Watts, A. Accessed: March 23, How to cite this piece : Smith, M. Last update: July 08, ]. Image: Art critic explaining chaos theory to other art critics by paolobarzman. Last Updated on July 7, by infed. Skip to content The Connexions Service in England was part of a government strategy to reduce social exclusion among young people. We explore its strange roots, the emergence of the personal adviser role, and the current state of development of the Service.

We also highlight some fundamental questions and issues that were present from the start, and discuss the failure of the Connexions project. The Connexions Service — aims and principles Aim. Two key design flaws As Watts has pointed out there were two crucial design flaws. Watts The second flaw identified by Watts was that the original Demos aim of merging the youth, careers and educational welfare services was only part-implemented.

Personal advisors A new occupational grouping was established within the Connexions Service — that of personal adviser. Their role is to: Work with, or as part of, schools, colleges or training providers. Provide one-to-one support and information, guidance and information.

Undertake assessment, planning and review. Work with parents and carers. Access and contribute toward community support networks. Work with other agencies Keep in contact and monitor with regard to progress and outcomes. DfEE 37 The new personal advisers within the Connexions Service were expected to carry a caseload of people requiring integrated and specialist support , people requiring in-depth support , and people requiring general support unpublished DfEE papers.

We discuss this issue in relation to the broader Connexions Strategy. Even if we accept the idea that individuals may need special help, the key questions then concern the most effective points of intervention, and what the most appropriate intervention may be. Within schooling there are also issues related to impartiality.