The Lifelong Learning Entitlement Needs a New Kind of Careers Service

As the launch of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement approaches, considerable uncertainty remains over the demand for this new service. Policymakers and providers will not only need to get their course offers and associated administrative systems in place before the enrolment window opens in September 2026, but work out the best way to communicate to the huge and disparate adult market.

The results of the Short Course Trial run by the OfS in 2022/23 were far from encouraging, so we can only hope we get a better picture from a second trial run the DfE is currently organising during this coming academic year.

Potential LLE applicants will be looking for answers to five key questions.

1. Do I have the entry qualifications for higher level learning?

2. Will this improve my career prospects and earnings?

3. Will the likely pay-off justify the financial and time investment?

4. Will I be able to cope with the demands of the course?

5. Will I enjoy the experience?

The decision making process will therefore be a mixture of objective calculation – an individual cost/benefit analysis – and psychological factors, such as ambition, self-confidence and prior attainment. For this to work, adults will need a combination of different kinds of careers information, advice and guidance (CIAG) from trusted sources, but currently adult careers services are neither widely available enough, or sufficiently well-resourced to reach the 15 million individuals who could benefit from the LLE.

Three years ago the Gatsby Foundation – which has transformed careers education in compulsory education through the development of the Gatsby benchmarks – commissioned two reports exploring the adult careers challenge. The first found “there is currently no single source of ACG in England, and this makes the careers landscape confusing, fragmented and unclear to users,” (“Careers Guidance for Adults: Evidence gathering”, Pye Tait Consulting, Nov 2022). The second observed “The diversity of adult career guidance provision is mirrored by the diversity of the groups of adults who might benefit” (“The demand for Adult career guidance in England: Market sizing against a typology of needs”, CSP Resources Ltd, Oct 2022). In contrast to the captive audience of pupils and students in the school and FE sector, adults are in a huge range of different circumstances and have very different needs – CSP came up with eight segments reflecting employment status, age, health and morale. Gatsby has continued its research in this area, but the fact is that not a great deal has changed on the ground since 2022.

The Pye Tait report identified a number of good practice case studies, in the UK and abroad, and we’ll be exploring some of these in forthcoming articles. The evidence suggests that to help adults answer their five key questions, any CIAG service will need to have a number of fundamental design features. Firstly, it will have to involve colleges and adult education services who deliver courses to adults at Level 2 and 3, and are therefore potential “feeders” into the LLE.

Secondly, any advice service will need to have detailed, up-to-date information on local career opportunities and pay levels, and be able to help individuals make personal financial calculations. This is of course a sensitive area, partly because disclosure of personal finances requires a great deal of trust and confidentiality, but also because of the many legal guard-rails around the provision of advice about personal finance.

Thirdly, there will need to be a careful balance between encouragement of ambitious learning goals and realistic assessment of what learners will need to be successful. Many adults won’t have been engaged in any higher education for years – if at all – and some may not have had positive previous experiences of formal education. They may be contemplating a career switch which will involve acquiring completely new knowledge and skills. Levels of readiness and confidence will vary considerably for many, and issues of neurodiversity – perhaps previously undiagnosed or poorly supported – will be a complicating factor.

All this will come at a cost, and in the current financial climate it will be a stiff challenge for providers to find any additional resources to deploy. But the arrival of Pat McFadden in the DWP with a clear focus on skills provides some new opportunities. Eight Trailblazers are already underway, exploring new solutions to the growing problem of economic activity and the steep rise in the numbers of 16-24 year old NEETs. The hubs for this activity are local JobCentres, which up until now have been  focused on helping unemployed clients find immediate short-term jobs. Giving them a wider remit to look at longer-term career opportunities would enable the development of a stronger network of CIAG services properly resourced to Gatsby standards, and fill some of the gaps, especially for “left behind” adults. In this respect the merger of the National Careers Service into JobCentre Plus announced last year is very promising development. It will bring a new influx of skilled and experienced professionals with exactly the right attributes to help deliver a service that has a real impact.

But the majority of adults eligible for the LLE are not likely to be unemployed, and highly unlikely to head to a JobCentre to seek advice. Some will get helpful CIAG from adult education services, colleges and universities, but many will only make contact if they are looking for specific courses, rather than exploring broader careers prospects. New thinking is needed to move towards a comprehensive adult careers offer.