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Good Practice
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Auditing Local IAG Provision – One Partnership's ExperiencesHelen Norris, Executive Director (Development), London South Bank Careers When the IAG initiative was announced, the London South Central Lifelong Learning Partnership asked London South Bank Careers (LSBC) to set up the IAG Partnership and lead a bid for development funding. London South Bank Careers covers the London boroughs of Greenwich, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark and is co-terminous with the London South Central Lifelong Learning Partnership. The London South Central area is a highly diverse, inner-city area characterised by severe urban deprivation and social exclusion. Consequently there is substantial use of European, SRB, Lottery and other funding and a proliferation of "initiative" activity by voluntary, statutory and community agencies. From local knowledge we are aware of hundreds of local agencies offering information, advice and guidance. Many are tiny and poorly resourced. The offer is sometimes of doubtful quality but the community networks are invaluable. We believed that partnership development funding should be spent, not on IAG delivery, but on developing these agencies, upskilling their staff and expanding their information resources. We needed information to support this assertion in the bid. An IAG Steering Group was formed, based on the Lifelong Learning Partnership membership. It agreed our first step should be an audit of local provision. I drafted a simple questionnaire in Word and put it to the Steering Group. They felt we should ask for more information and suggested a wide range of further questions. The 4-side questionnaire was mailed with a covering letter to all agencies known to LSBC, and others suggested by Steering Group partners, a total of 225. We requested early return via faxback or Freepost. Agencies were asked to suggest any other agencies known to them who should be contacted. Once replies began to come in, LSBC staff followed them up by telephone to acknowledge receipt and clarify information. Many calls were made and received, some agencies were incredulous that help might be offered free and asked how much it cost to join the Partnership! We designed a spreadsheet in Excel to collate all the information from the questionnaires. Each entry stretches across two sides of A4 landscape but about 25 entries fit on to the page (in Arial font 8). Data input took time, as the response rate was 37% by the deadline for the bid. A wealth of fascinating information was revealed by the responses, which clearly supported our contentions on the needs of the area. The pattern of provision was shown to be complex, patchy and mixed. Many agencies were characterised by short-term, insecure funding, narrow client groups, unqualified staff and extremely limited information resources. Hardly any respondents mentioned the Guidance Council standards. The spreadsheet was incorporated into the bid to support our plans. Having had the bid approved without amendment we are now building on the audit, by using the mailing list to distribute our IAG Newsletter, invitations to participate in the Partnership, offers of staff training/upskilling and funded improvements in information resources. We are also pursuing agencies which did not originally respond, to encourage them to join in activities. Unfortunately our well-established IAG Partnership seems likely to be split because of boundary decisions taken for local Learning and Skills Councils in London, but we will ensure that all the information gained so far is used in the development of IAG work. We are happy to make our questionnaire and spreadsheet available to colleagues in other IAG Partnerships, providing they acknowledge London South Bank Careers when using it. Contacts:
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