Ken Livingstone addressed delegates at the annual State of London Debate and suggested that the careers service suffered from 'backwards thinking.'
The State of London Debate, held on 12th May 2007, brings Londoners together to discuss key issues affecting them. The Mayor of London Ken Livingstone spoke about the careers service during the opening Plenary Session;
"One of the good news issues of the last year has been the Government has devolved to office of Mayor, the creation of a skills and training strategy for London. I chair the Board, it's got large range of people who do business on, something like 3 quarters of the investment in training in this city is done by private firms the rest of it done by the state sector. We're trying to create a training and skills strategy for London. It's no good us being locked into the national Learning Skills Council, who have got a programme that is relevant for the rest of Britain. Because the London economy has more in common with New York than it does with the rest of Britain. It's quite specific. We're working away and later this year we will publish the consultants draft, by the end of the year I hope to have a skills strategy for London that will then be something that we expect the learning and skill councils that fund them to conform to, we will work with the private sector to make sure that what they are doing. Then one will have to say as well, although I have no power over schools, having identified the skills you need to work in this city, in the next 30 years, it will be madness for schools not to recognise that what they have to be giving to pupils coming through. If they have not been given those skills, they have not equipped them adequately for a job.
One of the areas we're going to have to start is careers service, all our studies show that the backward thinking that people in careers advice, they see a young girl come through the door they immediately think caring, teaching, nursing, I mean this is ridiculous. What we're beginning to see now its not easy and a lot of women are having a hard struggle as they go through it, women coming into key financial positions in the city accessing that world. Therefore this presumption about where you steer women to work has got to go. And in our schools, from the very early beginnings we have got to make certain that all our youngsters are aware of the jobs that are going to be available, and are getting the skills for them."
For a copy of the full transcript please go to the State of London Debate website http://www.london.gov.uk/stateoflondon/
Given the comments from the Mayor of London about career guidance and career guidance practitioners the ICG is hoping to meet with the Mayor and his officials as soon as possible. If any members (particularly those working in London) have up to date examples of good practice that can be used to demonstrate the value of career guidance to communities and individuals please email | 
