The discussion highlights issues such as the lack of independent provision for this age group and low level of funding in adult services overall.  It considers the low level of take-up of services from this group and looks at the barriers to employment for this group including compulsory retirement and the loss of state benefit on top of the usual disincentives.  It further asks whether legislation would improve the situation. The starting point for the discussion was about how guidance can serve older clients more effectively?

Comment 1:

Guidance provision for older clients is patchy, though an independent evaluation indicates that where it exists in North London, services are not apparently attracting very many over 50s. What are the reasons for the lack of take up of free services by this age group? Appendix 1

Comment 2:

Some clues about why 50+ clients don't use guidance (and want to) are contained in the Challenging Age national report: 'Third Age IAG provision needs to be coherent, welcoming and properly targeted if it is to be genuinely effective. Many 45+ are reassured by a mix of ages on reception and ohter frontline positions and by the availability of older staff.....there are important resource issues here. Currently such provision, outside economic and social priority areas such as Sunderland, tends to be the exception rather than the rule and is funded from a number of resources that are often short term.' (Challenging Age: Executive Summary).

Comment 3:

Economics and funding regimes largely influence guidance provision and even the quality of service (not sure how helpful an 'advice episode' of 20 minutes is for the average adult seeking work).

Comment 4:

This goes much deeper that the age of guidance staff and agree that policy has yet to address the real issues. Issues that are relevant:

• In some instances when people are made redundant (particularly in the private sector) outplacement services are purchased by the down sizing company to assist people to find alternative work. These commercial services often involve a series of one to one consultations and are costed accordingly.
• Despite the acceptance of the value of in-depth support services for the unemployed by the private sector, DfES asserts that there is as yet no evidence of the economic benefits of guidance.
• Local research shows that "Clients accessing guidance services were much more likely than those accessing advice service to receive help and advice about career options and changing career." And the figures suggest that soft and hard outcomes are better for clients seen as part of a particular project that offers sustained guidance to clients facing multiple barriers, who have more support than regular IAG clients.
• Employment Services Policy and practice has resulted in claimants being taken off JSA and placed on Incapacity Benefits. This is a significant contributory factor in the estimates of the economically inactive in the Upper Lea Valley Region (Waltham Forest, Enfield and Haringey). The indications are that in total as many as one in four people are economically inactive. A proportion of this group will be 50+.
• Local research findings (2003) show that clients participating in the survey showed good progression into learning or work. 56% of IAG clients had taken up new learning since their advice or guidance session and over 80% of these said the session had influenced their decision to take up this learning. Overall, the ratings given to the service by clients were very high and compare favourably with similar evaluation exercises carried out by Shared Intelligence for other IAG partnerships. Ratings of advisors were particularly positive, with 90% of IAG and 100% of CFA clients rating their advisors good or very good. The vast majority of clients would recommend services to others.
• Marketing issues: plans include national branding this will assist the over 50s to understand the "offer"; also publication of DfES & DWP labour market information to help all job seekers.
• Fragmentations of local serivces: there is no national web site to enable people to find local services unless they ring happen to ring the learndirect number.
• Locally marketing materials are age neutral. In future messages to encourage the over 50s will be included.

Issues faced by Third Age job seekers:

• Discrimination by employers. Many employers practice age discrimination. This is of course not illegal. The public sector is a major employer nationally and in some instances practices compulsory retirement at 60 eg The Learning and Skills Council. Consequently this sector is unlikely to view those in their mid 50s favourably.
• The Benefits Trap – the unemployed in London face the country’s highest accommodation costs so it may not pay them to find work.
• Personal issues for those 50+. Individuals may suffer from any combination of poor skills; poor previous experiences of education and training; lack of awareness of Labour Market Opportunities; few job seeking skills; no experience of seeking help to overcome problems; lack of funding for retraining etc
• The complexity of the individual situation requires an individually tailored service.

Comment 5:

A research report published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation draws together the findings from 12 individual research projects and is published in association with The Policy Press, in the 'Transitions after 50' series. 'Crossroads after 50' reviews evidence on a range of aspects of older workers' transitions, including their experiences at work, their reasons for leaving and what they do outside paid work. With critical implications for shaping policy, it presents revealing findings from a previously under-researched field. The report (p. 48) also includes some reference to the impact of anti-age discrimination in employment in 13 countries, and looked in detail at three (Australia, Canada and the United States) where it has been established for some time. It found:

• Evidence of the overall effect of such legislation is in most cases weak. However, legislation has had a positive effect on employment rates of older workers in the United States. This is mostly due to them leaving jobs at a later age, rather than to more of them being hired.
• Employer behaviour has changed in countries with legislation, to the extent that explicit discrimination, especially in recruitment, has reduced. However, society's and employers' attitudes to older workers do not yet appear to have shifted as much as towards groups such as women and people from minority ethnic communities, where legislative protection has, generally, operated for longer.
• Forbidding employers to set mandatory retirement ages may have made them a bit less likely to hire older workers, but there is no evidence that this has been a major disincentive.

It seems to suggest the impact of legislation is quite modest perhaps raising questions about what else should be done by those who have an interest in this area. Although legislation is limited in what it can achieve - (it can't counter attitudes, and some may even experience a backlash from employers or colleagues who resent the interference in their business practices and or employers may try to evade this as other laws in more subtle ways). Nevertheless, it seems to me to be a helpful symbol of what is and is not acceptable practice. However, as guidance practitioners we can't ignore the impact of covert discrimination and it would be naive to think such legislation throws open the doors of opportunity to those seeking them post 50.

So how should we respond? Do we embrace such changes uncritically, or keep the pressure up (how) so that legislation doesn’t just come a fig leaf to cloak the embarrassment of bad practice that continues albeit in more subtle manifestations?

Comment 6:

A 2003 research study into IAG Client Needs for Coherent Information, Advice and Guidance Services on Learning and Work concludes that: 'there is a groundswell of opinion, both from clients and font-line advisers, that what needed is an impartial, accessible and free IAG service for adults' (p.9).

Comment 7:

The effect of National funding on guidance delivery is a key issue for delivery of services. A rough calculation for North London indicates that the funding available to Connexions clients is greater than that available for adults by a factor greater than 100. IAG core funding provides approx £1 per adult ( the same formula funding is applied across England) and Connexions provides about £125 per y/p between 13-19. The lower level of resources available to IAGs is clearly the rationale for the LSC requirement for IAGs to deliver Information and Advice. Advice sessions may be around 20 minutes duration. So some questions arise:

• Is 20 minutes really enough time to help adults?
• Research available on time needed to support clients?
• Why are services to 19 year olds 100 times better funded than those over just over20 and beyond?

Comment 8:

A study undertaken by the National Audit Office (2004) into employment for the over 50s, Welfare to work: Tackling barriers to the employment of older people, reported:  'There is growing concern about trends in the employment of older people. Despite a post-1990s economic environment of skills shortages and low unemployment, participation levels among older men in particular have not increased substantially and remain significantly below the levels of other working age people. Low levels of employment among older people have important implications for the economy overall and the personal and financial well-being of those affected. These issues have been brought into sharp focus by the current crisis in the pensions industry against the background of an ageing population.'

The study focused on the following questions:

• What are the barriers to employment faced by older people, at national, regional and local level, and how well are they understood?
• What action is the Government taking to help people overcome these barriers, and how successful is it proving?
• How well are services coordinated and to what extent are customers aware of, and satisfied with them?