MPs have claimed that schools who provide poor careers advice to students should be downgraded, stating in a report that inadequate advice is negatively impacting the economy and depriving young individuals to consider all available career opportunities.

The document, supplied by the House of Commons Sub-Committee on Education, Skills and the Economy, also urges the government to straighten-out the ‘complex’ and ‘unruly’ web of service providers, websites and organisations offering careers advice, and to place a single minister in charge. In addition, it claims that new bodies introduced in recent times have failed to generate any substantial improvements in careers advice and some have proved to be ‘counterproductive’.

The report says: “We recommend that Ofsted introduce a specific judgement on careers information advice and guidance for secondary schools, and set clear criteria for making these judgements. The Common Inspection Framework should be amended to make clear that a secondary school whose careers provision is judged as ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ cannot be judged as ‘outstanding’ overall. Likewise a secondary school should be unable to receive an overall judgement of ‘good’ if its carers provision is judged to be ‘inadequate’.”

Read more on the report here