Delivering Scotland’s Career Service 2023/24 published today
SDS has now published its annual report on its 2023/24 delivery of its Career Information, Advice and Guidance services
Delivering Scotland’s Career Service 2023/24 details the positive contribution made by SDS advisers and its partners through their work in schools and communities across Scotland. The report includes narrative and statistics to outline SDS’s service delivery performance in areas including:
- its work with P7 to S3 Broad General Education pupils and S4 to S6 senior phase pupils
- key outcomes by equality characteristics
- SDS research activity with young people and their parents and carers
- post-school Universal and Next Steps offers
- the work of the SDS Education team
- its PACE redundancy support offer
- SDS Results Helpline.
The report is introduced with a piece from SDS Head of CIAG Operations, Dave McCallum, where he describes the complex environment SDS colleagues are working in that is affecting many aspects of people’s lives and work including the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, climate change, adoption of new technologies, and global political instability.
Key highlights of SDS’s performance across 2023/24 include:
- delivering CIAG services to 153,739 P7 to S3 pupils, and 94,595 S4 to S6 pupils
- supporting 6,840 Next Steps customers through 20,608 one-to-one or group sessions, with a mean score for overall customer satisfaction with the Next Steps service of 9.5/10
- the SDS Education Team delivering 193 workshops virtually and in-person to 5,621 customers
- supporting 8,958 individuals dealing with redundancy situations.
SDS continues to innovate and adapt in the face of new challenges, ensuring that our career services reach and support people across Scotland. This report highlights the resilience and dedication of our CIAG workforce, demonstrating our commitment to providing high-quality career services that help individuals achieve rewarding careers throughout their lives.
Dave McCallum
Head of CIAG Operations, SDS
This week SDS are celebrating the delivery of its fourth annual Scottish Careers Week with over 250 events taking place the length and breadth of the country in schools, SDS centres, community and partner venues, and even the Scottish Parliament. The activity showcasing the career services’ support and opportunities across Scotland would not be possible without the hard work and dedication of SDS colleagues and partners, educators, and employers from Shetland to the Borders.
Read the Delivering Scotland’s Career Service 2023/24 report here.