Client needs for coherent information, advice and guidance services ...

RECOMMENDATIONS
434 We were not formally asked to provide a set of recommendations and have not
therefore drafted an extended section on this. Our surmise is that the National IAG
Board will wish to consider the report in its own time and prepare its own set of
actions (if any). Nevertheless, in so far as a few recommendations have occurred to
the research team, we thought it would be helpful to add them briefly here.
435 First we experienced some difficulties with terminology; hence our use of inelegant
phrases such as ‘standalone IAG providers’, or ‘in-work IAG’, in seeking to describe
different types of providers. Similarly there is a well recognised challenge in
distinguishing effectively between information, advice and guidance. 8 There are also
boundary issues around whether specific types of organisation are IAG providers at
all, or whether they should more properly be seen as part of a broader infrastructure
of support agencies.
436 There is a prima facie argument here for the National IAG Board to look again at
issues of definition, perhaps with a view to segmenting providers and services in a
way which recognises recent changes in the sector.
437 Second, we identified two issues with a direct relevance to coherence on which
further research might shed some important light. These are around:-
• the precise methods of facilitating referrals to other providers (e.g. informal
patterns, firm appointments, physically accompanying clients) and the
implications of each. Clearly they each have strengths and weaknesses;
• the point at which follow-up and after care (‘good’) lapses into hanging on to
clients (‘bad’). It would be instructive to compare and contrast different
practices on this and distil some good practice.
438 Third, we note several times throughout this report that there is a groundswell of
opinion, both from clients and front-line advisers, that what is needed is an
impartial, accessible and free IAG service for adults. There are a number of
components in place, of course (e.g. the learndirect national information and advice
helpline, the jobcentre network and IAGPs), but it was clear that these were not
understood as being part of a bigger, coherent picture; and, moreover, that several
needs were not being met at all (especially guidance services for those currently in
employment). People in the field speak imprecisely of a need for a ‘Connexions
service for adults’.
439 The Steering Group for this project briefly discussed this point at the interim report
stage. Their view was that adults do not yet have a sense of entitlement to IAG, and
that until awareness and understanding of services for adults is improved, the real
extent of demand will not be quantifiable. Taking this forward – even at the level of
a national marketing campaign, let alone expansion of provision – would have major
resource implications, of course. We do not, therefore, offer any simplistic
recommendations but nevertheless bring the point to the attention of the National
IAG Board.
440 Finally we add a point about client satisfaction surveys. Our judgement was that
these were often not being used very imaginatively. They often tended to produce
complimentary – but not very useful – material, perhaps reflecting the drivers for
their introduction in the first place (e.g. a desire to qualify for a quality badge).
441 Area-wide feedback mechanisms could shed more light on coherence issues. Coincidentally,
they might appear less threatening to individual providers.
8 Definitions used by Jobcentre Plus and the Guidance Council are added at the end of the clients checklist in Appendix B.
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