Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to give additional funding to the Careers and Enterprise Company to support their broader role set out in paragraph 60 of the Government's Careers Strategy, published in December 2017.

The Careers & Enterprise Company (CEC) will take on a broader role to help schools and colleges to develop all aspects of their careers programme. They will co-ordinate support across all eight Gatsby Benchmarks, which define excellence in careers provision.

The careers strategy explains that we will fund careers hubs in 20 areas to link together schools, colleges, universities and other local organisations to test approaches to improving careers provision in their area. The government’s investment of £5 million will include funding for an additional coordinator for each hub, based at the CEC, who will be trained across all the benchmarks. Each hub will work with the CEC’s network structure within the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP).

This is part of a major trial of the CEC’s expanded role. It replicates the approach in the North East pilot which explored the practicalities and impact of putting the Gatsby Benchmarks into practice. Participants in the pilot found that the LEP-led careers system was valuable in creating a shared vision. The coordinator played an essential role in helping schools and colleges become part of a network which can share ideas and tackle challenges.