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Inspectors have reported worrying inconsistencies in Connexions services across the UK, as some partnerships struggle to become more than just careers advice bureaux. Sarah Wellard reports.

Three years after the launch of Connexions and as a second highly critical report into a Connexions partnership is published, it’s time to ask how well new Labour’s flagship programme for teenagers is working.

The big idea was for a "youth brokering" service to replace the old careers service, which would focus broadly on young people’s personal development, helping them overcome barriers to educational achievement and employment. Although seeking to provide a service for every 13 to 19 year old in England, the 47 Connexions partnerships are supposed to be targeted primarily at the 170,000 young people not in education, employment and training and other youngsters facing multiple disadvantage.

Last month’s Ofsted report on North London Connexions describes the partnership as having "significant weaknesses". The report describes practice as "too variable" and finds that achievement levels are unsatisfactory and that the partnership does not provide value for money. Lack of baseline data means the partnership does not know whether it is meeting its targets. Serious and widespread difficulties are also identified by the Ofsted inspection into the Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire partnership.

But the news is not all bad. Ofsted reports for Cheshire and Warrington, Lincolnshire and Rutland, Coventry and Warwickshire and the West of England describe the partnerships as "good" and highlight many aspects of Connexions which are working well. And all the reports say that much of the front-line work of Connexions staff is of a high standard.

Tom Wylie, chief executive of the National Youth Agency, believes some of the weaknesses being identified by Ofsted are inherent in the way Connexions was set up. He describes the report into Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Connexions as "one of the worst reports I’ve ever read" and points to the inspectors’ damning conclusion that resources are deployed to meet the needs of the contractors - rather than the service being designed to meet the needs of potential users. "The careers companies were able to define what the new service would be," he says. "In a mad dash to be seen to be doing something, [the government] focused on the careers services, who are still in charge in most parts of the country."

It’s hard to say how successfully partnerships are focusing their efforts on supporting young people at risk, because the Ofsted reports on Connexions do not set out how the money is being spent - unlike the reports into the youth service for example. And with some partnerships only starting work this spring, it’s premature to assess what impact they are having on the numbers of young people who disengage from education, employment and training.

A fundamental question, however, is how far what is essentially a reconstituted careers service, with its focus on one-to-one advice and guidance sessions, is able to provide the kinds of interventions needed to re-engage disaffected young people.

A "customer satisfaction survey" carried out for Connexions in 2001 found that most young people were aware of Connexions before the interview and 90 per cent rated it highly.¹ More than two-thirds said it had helped them make decisions about their future, but a much smaller percentage had discussed issues like money, stress or drugs and alcohol with Connexions workers.

As Wylie points out, young people won’t raise the issues which really matter to them in the context of a discussion about jobs and careers. He says: "You need settings which are more than just the carefully framed one-to-ones. You need to be able to work with groups - the power of peer group may be what is preventing young people moving on, especially boys who don’t want to appear too bright in front of their mates."

And if Connexions is to help young people overcome barriers to achievement, partnerships will need to have clout with agencies like housing. A young man who has been thrown out and is sleeping on friends’ floors is going to find it hard to focus on his studies.

Personal advisers (PAs), drawn from a variety of professional backgrounds including careers advice and youth and community work, are the key personnel in the service. Generally speaking former careers advisers work within schools offering the universal service, while specialist PAs do outreach work or are based in community organisations and work with young people who have disengaged.

Partnerships are supposed to ensure that all their PAs - whether directly employed or subcontracted - complete a centrally designed training programme, with the aim of achieving a seamless profession. The Ofsted reports reveal variation in how far partnerships have managed to get their staff trained, with around half of all PAs awaiting training.

Bob Coles, professor of social policy at York university, who is leading an evaluation of partnership-working in Connexions funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, does not believe that training alone will deliver the necessary transformation. "It’s highly likely that the response to training will be mixed. Even if it proves to be a road to Damascus experience, lots of other things have to be changed with it - management, caseloads, record-keeping." He adds: "There are still managers who haven’t done the Connexions training, even in the pilot areas. Unless people are managed to do things differently they will continue to do things as they have always done them."

Coles also questions whether the budget - around double that previously allocated to careers - is enough to achieve the kind of service originally conceived. He says: "Two or three years ago I would have been a fan of Connexions but people are beginning to wonder whether it will deliver what it was supposed to do."

Public sector union Unison, which represents most personal advisers including former careers service staff, and youth and community workers, has argued against the all-on-one personal adviser role, and believes Connexions can best meet its objectives by multi-agency teams in which youth workers, careers advisers and social workers have distinct and strengthened roles. Unison reports difficult industrial relations in several parts of the country, including one area (Cheshire) which recently received a positive Ofsted report. Keith Bradley, regional officer for Unison describes industrial relations as "at an all time low." He says, "There’s a lot of hostility from our members about Saturday working which the company are trying to impose. But that’s the tip of the iceberg. There are too many demands and not enough resources going in. My members have shown a lot of commitment to the new company but are being burnt out by everything that is expected of them."

And on Merseyside Unison members have staged four one-day strikes in a dispute about pay and conditions. Members are unhappy about employers imposing a contract which they claim involves extra hours for no extra pay for some staff and preserves pay disparity between PAs according to their previous contracts, as well as about proposals for performance-related pay.

It’s easy to see the problems for the point of view of the Connexions partnerships. In response to central directives they are trying to transform the kind of service they provide, with more advisers available outside 9 to 5. But does Saturday opening really imply the kind of transformation to the deliver the new youth support workers envisaged by the Social Exclusion Unit and backed by the prime minister back in 2000?

Wylie believes there has been a shift in emphasis since Anne Weinstock’s arrival as chief executive of the Connexions Service Central Unit. "They’ve begun to emphasise access to personal development opportunities," he says. And given the huge organisational and cultural change involved in establishing a new national service, it is hardly surprising that some areas are finding things difficult. But there’s still a long way to go to deliver the kind of joined-up youth broker service envisaged at the outset. In many parts of the country Connexions is still the careers service doing what they’ve always done, with a few extras bolted on.

¹ BMRB Social Research, Customer Satisfaction Survey: Improving Your Connexions, DfES, 2003.