Careers advice hotline services for young people and adults are to be brought under one roof after Serco was awarded a £6m Skills Funding Agency (SFA) contract to deliver both.

Serco, which previously ran the National Careers Service (NCS) advice line for adults, will also take up the service for young people, previously delivered by BSS.

Serco’s existing contact centre in Newcastle will expand to take on the new work, with a total of 118 staff, with workers from the BSS sites in Leicester and Manchester having been offered posts.

Both BSS and Serco, which has an initial contract for three years with the option of a two-year extension, achieved grade two Ofsted ratings for their services.

A Serco spokesperson told FE Week: “All BSS employees were offered a TUPE transfer to Serco. A number of employees found new jobs elsewhere.

“The employees who transferred have decided not to take up the roles on offer due to location. We have offered them support in terms of finding alternative roles and they will also receive a financial package.”

Sean Hanson, managing director of Serco’s public sector outsourcing business, said: “I am delighted and excited to be extending our partnership with the SFA to provide careers advice and information for the NCS.”

The new centre is expected to be accessible seven days a week and 14 hours a-day on telephone and online.

Joe Billington, NCS director, said: “We’re delighted to be working with such an experienced service provider as Serco to ensure users receive the best possible service.”

An SFA spokesperson said the contract had been awarded following a “competitive procurement process”. She said: “This is part of an integrated approach to the delivery of careers information and advice to young people and adults in England.”

Jan Ellis, chief executive of the Careers Development Institute (CDI), the professional body for careers advisers, said: “Congratulations to Serco. We’re really delighted that it’s going to be delivering personalised support and inspirational career guidance.

“And the CDI would hope that people providing the service are qualified to do so and are members of the CDI.”

The CDI sits on the advisory board of the new careers and enterprise company, proposed by Nicky Morgan in December to provide links between schools and employers — but Ms Ellis said the two services would be “completely separate”.

 

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2 Comments

  1. Ros Lucas

    It certainly makes sense to be under one roof and let’s hope Serco and new Cap Gemini Service work to provide a seamless and i tegrated service all round.

    If this service can produce, what was once proposed – a learner/client unique number that could be used as a record that can be accessed, with permission, this would provide an all round picture of qualifications, extra-curricular achievements, as well as paid experiences of work undertaken by the learner/client.

    This would allow advisers, tutors and other support workers to understand more about the positive aspects in any location, thereby being able to avoid duplication and provide development and orogression advice more easily.

    • Serco Employee

      To say it is under one roof is misleading.

      For adult customers looking for careers advice they are actually only transferred through to a regional careers office – all outsourced and none currently ran by Serco. This makes for a very uneven customer experience.

      With the organisation being so fractured, it is difficult to fully know what each of the services offers, what their timescales are etc.
      As an adviser on the service we’re told to push for a transfer and we can’t actually offer ‘advice’ over the telephone, we can only offer information, make of that what you will.