Welcome to the Quality in Careers Consortium’s website presenting key information about us and the Quality in Careers Standard – the national quality award for Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance (CEIAG) in schools, colleges and other learning providers. Everything on this website is public.
The primary context in which we operate is set out in the latest Statutory Guidance (October 2018) from the Department for Education to schools on fulfilling their statutory duty which builds heavily upon the Gatsby Benchmarks for “Good Careers Guidance”. The Statutory Guidance “strongly recommends” all secondary schools to work towards and achieve the national Quality in Careers Standard: here is the link to the Statutory Guidance.
Background: how did the Consortium & the Quality in Careers Standard come into existence?
The starting point was the Careers Profession Task Force of 2009/10 which recommended national validation of England’s (then) 20+ individually-named quality awards for CEIAG.
Here is the formal report (October 2011) recommending the establishment of the Quality in Careers Standard, prepared by a project group – convened by Careers England – involving leading experts in the field and all of the previously individually-named CEIAG Quality Award providers.
The Quality in Careers Consortium, with its Consortium Board, was established in 2012 as an Unincorporated Association.
The Standard & the Consortium today
This link takes you to more details of the Consortium – including its Constitution and its Board.
The work of the Consortium initially (2012-16) concentrated upon national validation of England’s then individually-named CEIAG quality awards. Once this was completed, in 2017 the Quality in Careers Standard replaced those individual awards becoming the single national Standard.
With effect from the end of March 2017, the previous providers of those individually-named awards became Licensed Awarding Bodies for the Quality in Careers Standard. {“Investor in Careers” is now a brand of the legal entity which is the Licensed Awarding Body CSW Group; “Career Mark” is now a brand of the legal entity which is the Licensed Awarding Body Complete Careers; and “Inspiring IAG” is now a brand of the legal entity which is the Licensed Awarding Body Positive Steps – all three of these Awarding Bodies use their brands to describe their approach to the delivery of the Quality in Careers Standard}.
More details of the history of the CEIAG quality awards and the Quality in Careers Standard are available here.
The Consortium owns the Quality in Careers Standard. Its Consortium Board oversees and governs its implementation.
The Board approves and regularly updates the Guide to the Standard, and the supporting materials setting out the national accreditation procedures – all of which are hosted here.
The Board has appointed a Quality in Careers Director who also acts as the Organising Secretary for the Consortium. It has also established a small team of assessment report writers/National Licensing Panel expert advisers.
In 2019 the Consortium amended its Constitution to enable it to contract legally with the Department for Education to receive funding (it did so by entering into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Career Development Institute for it to become the ‘enabling host legal entity’ for the Consortium. Details of this MoU are here).
The revised Constitution of the Consortium is here.
For 2019-20 the DfE has provided some grant funding to the Consortium – news about this is here.
Further news on Quality in Careers developments is regularly posted on this website. Please direct any questions or comments on Quality in Careers via our “Get in Touch” link.
