Labour’s Level 7 plans are a social justice travesty

After years of painstaking work, missed opportunities and false dawns, the country’s skills landscape is finally starting to look like one of more equal opportunity. It utterly baffles me that Labour will be the government to set all that back for another generation.

A while ago, I wrote a piece for this paper on the importance of resourcing great careers conversations with people of all ages.  I am a careers coach, and I specialise in life transitions when folk are wondering how to get the best out of themselves and their careers.

Thirty-five years after entering the skills world, I am proud that I can introduce career paths to people who would have never thought such a route was for them. And a key element of my being able to do that is the professional Level 7 offer that has grown in recent times.

You may or may not be surprised to learn that I only have a minority of clients who went to Eton, then did PPE at Oxford and from there into the city or other higher-level professions.But I can now say to people who did not tread that traditional path that higher level professions are within their reach.

My work concentrates on encouraging the individual to have confidence, ambition and agency in choosing their career path. I’m not daft enough to imagine that everyone can achieve anything they want to achieve, but I am daft enough to believe that society has a duty to take away pitfalls and barriers from people who want to achieve something great for themselves.

That’s particularly true for those who have come to career choices via a less-than-smooth or obvious route.

Those who were excluded from school. Those who didn’t discover a passion until college. Those whose education was disrupted by family circumstance, or illness, or mental health issues. Those who for purely economic reasons find themselves needing to upskill or reskill.

Never did I imagine that this government would be the one to take away opportunities for those very people. And I say this with my colours nailed firmly to the mast: I have been aching for a Labour skills strategy for what feels like a very long time indeed.

It makes me want to weep that this will be taken away

The arguments about growth are important but they are not what light my fire. What makes me passionate about my work is the importance of the whole person. Wellbeing springs from believing that we matter, that our contribution to society matters and that we are all enabled to play a part in all aspects of society, community and the economy. 

And yes, the employer must play their part, of course. But this is a partnership, right? It’s not just about the money. It’s about us – all of us – saying ‘yes, go on, take that less-travelled road into those professions you thought were only for the privileged’.

We all know of instances where public funds are not optimally invested. I’ve been to many a strategy away day funded by the public purse that the world would not have missed, had it been cancelled. And I was around when Individual Learning Accounts led to a flurry of dubious courses.

But surely good policy is about optimising results for the many and only bad policy is about cracking nuts with sledgehammers. 

I’ve been to many a meeting and spent many hours in my career talking about parity of esteem between vocational and academic learning.

Finally, I feel like all the talk is yielding results. We are creating vocational routes that are respected. We are investing (not enough, perhaps, but we are) in skills that we are proud of. We are providing routes to careers that folk I see would never have dreamed was within their grasp.

Finally, I can advise young people that they can think wide and high when they are looking at their future. And the reality matches more of their ambitions than it ever has.

It makes me want to weep that this opportunity will be taken away. Shame on us if we allow this to happen, and shame on Labour if they are the government that oversees this travesty.