Agenda and minutes

Members were given the opportunity to nominate a Chair.

Resolved:     That Cllr Scott be elected as the Chair of the Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance Scrutiny Review Task Group (CEIAG).

At this point in the meeting, Members are asked to declare:

·        any personal interests not included on the Register of Interests

·        any prejudicial interests or

·        any disclosable pecuniary interests

which they may have in respect of business on this agenda.

At this point in the meeting, Members were asked to declare any personal interests not included on the register of interests, any prejudicial interests or disclosable pecuniary interests which they might have had in respect of the business on the agenda.

No interests were declared.

At this point in the meeting, members of the public who have registered their wish to speak on an item on the agenda or an issue within the committee’s remit can do so.

Anyone who wishes to register or who requires further information is requested to contact the Democracy Officer for this meeting, details of whom are listed at the foot of this agenda.

The deadline for registering to speak is 5.00pm the working day before the meeting, in this case 5.00pm on Friday 15 March 2013.

It was reported that there had been no registrations to speak at the meeting under the Council’s Public Participation Scheme.

The scoping report presents the Task Group with the initial information gathered and asks them to decide whether to proceed with the review based on the suggested methodology and timetable and agree some appropriate visit/meeting dates or to revise the suggested methodology and timetable.

Members considered a report that outlined the proposed scrutiny topic submitted by Cllr D’Agorne on national and local developments in the provision of careers education, information and guidance (CEIAG) to young people in schools.

Members noted that since September 2012 schools were now legally responsible for securing access to independent and impartial careers guidance for all pupils in Years 9 to 11. Careers guidance  consisted of services and programmes intended to assist pupils to make and implement education, training and occupation choices and to learn how to manage their careers. In developing their provision for pupils schools were free to decide what careers provision to make available in accordance with the needs of their pupils. Schools could choose to either buy into the Local Authorities programme of careers activities or develop their own initiatives.

Officers confirmed that the Local Authority were working towards achieving the matrix Standard which was the governments badge of quality for information and advice about learning and work. To achieve this standard officers needed to demonstrate that they provided a high quality and impartial service.

Members noted that each school also had the opportunity to achieve one of the quality awards that were available for providing a high level of CEIAG provision.

In answer to Members questions officers confirmed that:

·        Huntington Secondary School and York High were the only two schools in York to hold the Local Quality Mark which equated to the National Standard.

·        as a provider City of York Council (CYC) ensured all staff providing CEIAG were either qualified to level 6 or were working towards it.

·        the  matrix Standard would be awarded to CYC later this year.

·        Manor and Canon Lee were the only two Secondary Schools in York who currently did not purchase any level of careers guidance from CYC.

·        a free core offer was available to schools to help with children that were or could fall within NEET(Not in Education, Employment or Training).

·        a Service Level Agreement (SLA) was drawn up with all those schools who choose to purchase a service from CYC.

·        the CYC 14-19 Team were working with Years 11 and 12 students to raise awareness of vocational alternatives such as apprenticeships.

·        training providers  were a mix of public and private sector providers who found placements for employees and delivered National Vocational Qualifications (NVQ’s).

·        representatives from all secondary state schools within the City had formed a Careers Network Group.

The task group considered the suggested methodology and timetable and agreed that to enable them to indentify the standard of CEIAG for young people in York they would:

·        receive from officers examples of all the programmed careers activities on offer, a standard model of an SLA and the fees charged.

·        invite all the Careers Network Group, training providers such as the Chamber of Commerce, Nestle, Aviva, North Yorkshire Business and Education Partnership Ltd (NYBEP) and the 14-19 team to an information gathering event.

·        talk to a selection of young people and parents to gather their views  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.