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ABOUT GUIDANCE IN EUROPE
The overall aim of the project was to
provide a comprehensive comparative and evaluative analysis of the function and
outcomes of labour market and career advice and guidance programmes and services
for out-of-work individuals and workers at risk, in five European
countries (France, Germany, Spain, Slovenia, and the UK).
Advice and guidance programmes and services for adults are defined in this
study as mediating services aimed at increasing the employability and
the mobility of individuals, not only geographical or occupational mobility, but
also mobility between different statuses (unemployed/inactive, trainee, learner,
volunteer, precarious job-holder, stable job-holder, qualified job-holder).
That is to say, these services were analysed in this project as key agencies for
the organisation of transitions, especially for the more vulnerable out-of-work
individuals and for workers at risk. This definition is in line with that
provided for example in the European Commission Communication Making a European
Area of Lifelong Learning a Reality.
The three key results of the project were the development of criteria for
assessing the outcomes of advice and guidance programmes and services (as
transitions for individuals), a typology of these services across different
institutional, legal and funding contexts, and an analysis of the functions of
these services as agencies for transitions.
The results of the project could thus lead to an increased attention in the
policy but also in the practitioner and in the research communities to different
and relatively contrasted frameworks of implementation of advice and guidance
services and programmes and to their implications for individuals. They also
provide the basis for reviewing the way in which advice and guidance services
are assessed and evaluated.
Rationale and general aims
The project intended to provide a comprehensive comparative and evaluative analysis of
guidance and advice services for adults, which are located both in the public, and the
private non-for-profit and profit sector. Guidance and advice services for adults
were
defined in this research as mediating services aimed at increasing the employability and
the mobility of, mostly, out of work, and secondarily, in-work individuals, not only
geographical or occupational mobility, but also mobility between different statuses
(unemployed/inactive, trainee, learner, volunteer, precarious job-holder, stable job-holder,
qualified job-holder). That is to say, these services were analysed in this project as key
agencies for the organisation of “transitions”, especially for the more vulnerable out-of-work individuals and for workers at risk. The evaluative character of the study is directly relevant to policy makers at the regional, national and European levels, to the professionals of the guidance and
advice services, and to the social partners, both as strategic and operational stakeholders of guidance systems and services.
Active employment policies have taken a new turn in recent years, whereby the out-of-work individuals and workers are not only required to take some responsibility for their labour market integration, or permanency, by taking part in various types of “active measures”, but are demanded complete mobilisation, e.g. the mobilisation of all their “resources”, whether developed in a formal or informal context, at the service of the improvement of their employability. The literature on transitions and transitional labour markets thus sees a role for mediating agencies to function as a resource for these out-of-work individuals and workers at risk and help them in this process of “mobilisation of the self”, i.e. of becoming the agents of their own mobility. The type, variety and quality of transitions offered by guidance services should thus be investigated closely, as there may be a wide gap between the efforts required from the individuals in their self-mobilisation and the security and quality of the vocational training and employment measures offered. The risk exists that individuals may be persuaded into entering the lower end of the labour market or into training programmes without curbing the probability that they will be trapped into circular trajectories between unemployment and employment on the margins.
Existing research on guidance and advice services includes prescriptive and theoretical research, as well as empirical research focused on specific issues (e.g. the policy review led by the OECD) and countries.
This study aimed at filling what appears to be a gap in the comparative literature, i.e. a comprehensive empirical study of the guidance and
advice services, their funding and institutional framework, their organisational requirements, the new professional profiles associated with them, the type of measures offered and the relationship developed with users. The purpose
was to improve the understanding of the function of these services. Furthermore the quality of these services has started to raise interest (and studies commissioned jointly by the OECD and the EC) from the point of view of access, processes, and outcomes. However a more neglected aspect appears to be the quality of the transitions they offer, which is an explicit objective of our study.
The specific aims of the project included:
(1) To synthetically review and compare governance arrangements for information, guidance and
advice for adults in the five countries. This includes reviewing arrangements for the integration of the protection and activation principles of welfare and employment policies; decentralisation and the formation of public/private consortia; the reform of the PES and subcontracting arrangements; and the formation of a new layer of professionals in between social workers and labour market advisers. This objective
has been achieved through a documentary review and interviews with co-ordinators and members of the co-ordinating groups of the various active programmes in each country. This first specific aim
was to be achieved in a synthetic fashion, as the research could rely here on current and recent work by the OECD, CEDEFOP and the European Training Foundation.
(2) To provide an in-depth analysis of processes and outcomes of selected guidance and
advice services, to identify the obstacles and facilitating factors for them to carry out their role as mediation agencies for the support to individual transitions, and to elaborate a first typology of providers. This objective
was to be achieved through 28 in-depth case studies of guidance and advice services (3 per region, 4 in Slovenia), identifying the function of the services, the way they are organised and their approaches, as well as the relationship developed between the professionals and the individual users.
(3) To provide a typology of advice and guidance services across contrasted funding, institutional and organisational frameworks an to provide a pluralistic account of the conceptions of different stakeholders of what is a “quality outcome” for individuals. This objective
was to be achieved through a telephone semi-directive survey of 63 guidance services (7 per region), departments or organisations, with an interview to their manager and 2 interviews to professionals (i.e. a total of 63 interviews with managers and 126 with professionals).
(4) To develop criteria for assessing quality outcomes for individual users and identify the institutional, organisational, and methodological factors leading to these quality outcomes. This is a result of the whole of the research. Participation in qualifying vocational training or in a “standard” job are likely to be amongst quality outcomes.
(5) To widely disseminate the research findings to the policy, research and professional communities.
Our empirical work included:
 A documentary
analysis (of legal frameworks, technical programme specifications,
accreditation procedures, evaluation, audit and inspection reports, etc.);
84 interviews with
policy makers at national and regional levels, field experts and network
coordinators, concerning the organization of advice and vocational guidance
systems, programmes and services;
41 in-depth case
studies on the implementation of services and programmes (28 of these were
carried out in the last quarter of 2005 and 13 in the last quarter of
2006). These studies were based on more than 400 face-to-face interviews
with managers, advisers, current users of the programmes and, where
possible, with former users;
A second wave of
interviews with around one hundred of these respondents in the last quarter
of 2006, to investigate the quality processes as well as monitoring and
evaluation systems in a more specific way.
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