An independent study into the progress of Careers Scotland has concluded that the service has laid strong foundations, compares well with leading good practice across the world and has made impressive progress.

‘Progress and Potential’, published on Friday 11 February, was commissioned to review Careers Scotland’s performance since its creation in 2002 and benchmark its progress against a recognised international standard – the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) career guidance policy reviews.

OECD reviews were carried out between 2001 and 2003 and covered 14 countries. Further studies conducted by the EU and the World Bank linked the OECD reviews to a further 37 countries, effectively making their findings a world-class benchmark.Careers Scotland was not included in either exercise as it was still in its infancy. 

Last year, however, Professor Tony Watts, one of the UK ’s leading academics in career guidance, was commissioned by Careers Scotland to undertake a thorough review and benchmarking exercise.

The review states that Careers Scotland is probably the largest dedicated career planning organisation in the world and represents the most substantial exemplar of the OECD recommended approach to all age career planning services which 'retain a strong and visible identity’ and are close to the labour market.  Its key findings are:

• Careers Scotland has laid strong and robust foundations
• The practices being adopted by Careers Scotland are comparable to leading good practice across the world
• The model is strongly in line with the OECD emphasis on ‘ensuring that resource allocation decisions give the first priority to systems that develop career self management skills rather than assuming that everyone needs intensive personal career guidance’
• The customer segmentation model is impressive and has enabled Careers Scotland to focus its services according to perceived career planning need
• Substantial steps have been taken to addressing the challenges of quality, diversity and performance measurement
• Careers Scotland has been assiduous in developing good working relationships with other agencies
• Progress is impressive but much work still remains to be done in fully implementing and embedding the model
• The organisation has the potential to be a world leader

Catriona Eagle, Director, Careers Scotland (Highlands and Islands) said the report was a tribute to staff throughout Scotland.

“The early years of any organisation are bound to be challenging and Careers Scotland, which brought together work which was previously carried out by more than 80 separate entities, arguably faced greater challenges than many.

“The value of this survey work is summed up in its title - progress and potential. Careers Scotland staff have made tremendous progress in making the country's first-ever all-age career guidance service not only the largest, but one of the best of its kind in the world. The next challenge is to ensure that the organisation builds on that success to fulfil its true potential for our customers, the people of Scotland.

“Professor Watts's report is very encouraging and a real tribute to Careers Scotland staff, whose efforts to establish the service have been remarkable.”

Professor Watts is visiting professor of career development at the University of Derby; he is also senior fellow and life president of the National Institute for Careers Education and Counselling, and a visiting professor at CanterburyChristChurchUniversityCollege.

His study draws on best practice internationally in making suggestions on how Careers Scotland might further improve performance and develop cross sectoral approaches with key partners and stakeholders.

“The practices being adopted by Careers Scotland are comparable to leading good practice across the world and the progress that has been made since 2002 is impressive,” he said. “However, there is still work to do and challenges to be addressed.

“The review concludes if these challenges are tackled, Careers Scotland has the potential not only to achieve its ambition of becoming a world-leading public career planning service but also to make Scotland as a whole a genuine world leader in the career guidance field - with the economic and social benefits which, OECD indicates, this may induce.”

Professor Watts examines a number of the organisation’s developments to measure for progress. Areas selected for endorsement include its:  

• service delivery framework and career planning journey
•  customer segmentation model
•  access to services and channel strategy
• staffing structures
• customer record management system and performance management
• work on measuring the impact and results of career planning 
• commitment to staff training and continuous professional development.

Vivienne Brown, head of career planning services, Careers Scotland in the Scottish Enterprise area, said:

“The findings of the Progress and Potential report are encouraging and we have already had worldwide interest in the initial conclusions. We felt that it was important to be benchmarked against the earlier OECD reviews and respond to the recommendations.

“As a young organisation, we now have a clear endorsement of the approaches that we have been developing and implementing. The findings build on our recent customer satisfaction levels and external evaluation of our services which have been positive.”

Link to full OECD report on Careers Scotland website