The Careers and Enterprise Company-A Bit more Transparency Required from this Taxpayer Funded Body

The Careers and Enterprise Company must have felt  somewhat relieved  when their recent evidence  session with the Select Committee  ended. The Committee  was  less than  impressed by the CEC’s  transparency,  accountability  and the way it measures (or doesn’t ,as the case may be)  its outcomes. No board minutes are published ,for example.  Not much either on how the funding it  gets from the DfE is given out and what specific  projects it spends it on . It also spends ,and intends to  continue to spend, yearly, at least £ 1million on research. There is much waffle about stakeholders being kept informed , but if you drill down a bit they are keeping people  a bit informed about inputs, rather than substantive outputs and their impact on young people. So bruised were the CEC after the session  that they asked their Twitter  friends to send out positive messages about what a great job they are doing. Oh, dear!

Unfortunately this is how quangos too often behave, because they can.  They have no direct accountability in the way a government department,  or indeed ,a Minister has. You see quangos, such as CEC   are’ arms -length organisations’.   Always claiming   to be ‘independent organisations’ ,  in practice they are no such thing. They   are appointed by the government and taxpayer funded,  through DfE. What the government gives, it can take away ,of course , and  relying entirely on taxpayer funding ,  obviously have to be very closely aligned with, and supportive of , current  government policy. That is not independence in any meaningful sense of the word.   When the CEC was established by Nicky Morgan she said that  over time, the company would become self-funded, with employers covering the company’s costs. Yet, here we are three years down the road ,  with  the CEC  still  firmly on the governments books .  Indeed, the government has gone  terribly  quiet about the self-funding commitment .Organisations that are funded by the taxpayer should be transparent and fully accountable for how they spend taxpayer’s money.  They should also have to demonstrate clearly the   impact and value for money they offer . Telling MPs how many interactions you  have is about quantity ,not quality, or impact. .  And, of course,  they should publish the minutes of board meetings and abide by the principles of sound  governance.  It is worrying that the CEC  needs to be told the facts of  life on this score,  by the Select Committee.  Careers guidance providers and schools ,  seeking to follow recent strengthened guidance, look with growing envy on the scale of funding being allocated to this quango,. Not surprisingly they feel short changed, by comparison , and it is they not the CEC that are  delivering front line services to young people.  Shouldnt we be more careful about how we use relatively scarce tax payers money and allocate it where it will have most immediate  impact on the lives and opportunities of young people.? Bit radical I know, and left field, but it has to be said,