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Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) Policy

This policy states the Service’s commitment to the provision of coherent, impartial, and effective Information, Advice and Guidance to learners and prospective learners in order to support well informed choices about learning opportunities.

The Aim of this Policy

The Learner Handbook, which is made available to all our learners, states that our information and advice is: confidential, free and impartial, friendly, up-to-date and accurate, and provided by qualified staff.

Information and advice is given by staff in the following roles:

  • Frontline (including Business Support Teams, Regional skills development officers)
  • Learning and Work Advisers
  • Learning Development and Delivery Co-ordinators
  • Managers
  • Tutors

Appropriate information and advice is embedded into the enrolment process and also in our community engagement particularly through the role of our Regional Skills development officers. This is a key element in ensuring learners join the right course to suit their needs. Further guidance for staff enrolling learners can be found within the enrolment guidance within the staff handbook.

Further Careers advice is embedded at the end of a course, it may be appropriate for learners to join another course elsewhere or continue onto another level within the existing programmes. The tutor plays a key role in advising learners about progression routes.

Information, advice, and guidance is given by staff within the Service’s Locality Teams by dedicated Learning and Work Advisers. Guidance is a process which allows individuals to clarify goals, assess skills, make decisions, and manage their career planning. All guidance will be centred on enquirers’ needs and interests and be unbiased.

Leicestershire Adult Learning Service aims to provide a quality service which includes:

  • Promotion of the service available by all staff
  • Clarity about what is on offer to the learner.
  • Accessible information – contact us to discuss alternative formats.
  • Support and training for staff to ensure a consistently high level of service.
  • Responding to feedback from learners
  • Monitoring and action to ensure quality improvement.
  • Appropriate and impartial referrals to the Service’s specialist curriculum teams, or to an external organisation, e.g., National Careers Service
  • Confidential advice and support

The Statement of Service

The policy statement below summarises the nature of the Service.

Introduction
  • Information and advice regarding learning is available both within the Service and externally – e.g., National Careers Service
  • Information and advice regarding support services is available to assist learners on a course of study or training.
  • These services are free and available to both learners and non-learners.
Learners can expect that we will:
  • Comply with the legal framework on confidentiality, disclosure, equality, and diversity and provided by the GDPR/Data Protection Act 2018, The Human Rights Act 1998, and the Equality Act 2010
  • Provide an opportunity for users to provide feedback on the services and have an easily understood procedure for those who wish to complain and compliment.
What the Service expects from the learners:
  • Learners attend promptly and let us know if they need to miss an appointment.
  • Learners treat members of staff and other service users with respect.
  • Learners use all computing and internet access appropriately.

(See Learning Charter in Learner Handbook for more details.)

How learners can help us to improve the Service:
  • By complaining promptly and in full if the Service fails to give satisfaction (see Complaints procedure in the Learner Handbook)
  • By telling us what we are doing well. Learners may tell us in person, by telephone or in writing.
  • By completing learner evaluation cards or forms
The Statement of Service will be reviewed:

Annually, and more frequently if there is any change to the services provided. Learners can also expect that we will comply with Service policies and procedures on:

The Service can act on a learner’s behalf under certain circumstances:
  • We can speak on a learner’s behalf, with the learner’s permission to other learning and training providers.
  • We can, with the learner’s permission, refer them to another agency that might be better able to respond to their individual needs and circumstances.

 

Evaluation

The Service will:

  • Endeavour to collect written feedback about the Service.
  • Use the information received in feedback to improve the services available.
  • Use the Service quality assistance system to inform strategic and operational planning.

Complaints and Compliments

The Service will:

  • Treat complaints and compliments about our Service in a serious and respectful way
  • Comply with the Service complaints procedure
  • Discuss the nature of complaints and compliments at the Equality Working Group/Quality Board and Adult Learning Senior Management Team
  • Use complaints and other feedback to inform the annual Self-Assessment Report and subsequent target setting
  • Refer any unresolved complaints to the Corporate Complaints Procedure
  • All complaints and compliments that are identified will be treated confidentially and will be anonymised.

Referral Policy

Staff offering Information, Advice and Guidance will ensure that the procedures they adopt when referring an individual to another organisation or agency are learner centred, appropriate, and adhere to the principles and polices of equality of opportunity and data protection.

Referral will occur when another provider offers information or services that better meet the learner’s needs. Where it is believed that a learner would benefit from referral to another organisation the learner should be clearly informed of:

  • The reason for the referral and the specific area of expertise of the agency to which they are being referred.
  • The contact details of the agency to which they are referred.
  • The Service will ensure that staff who make referrals have access to a wide range of information on:
    • Their own organisation (LALS) and what is on offer.
    • The services of any network partners Other relevant and specialist agencies operating at a local, regional, and national level

Confidentiality Policy

Staff delivering Information, Advice and Guidance aim to ensure that the procedures they adopt in the utilisation of confidential information comply with the legal framework provided by the GDPR/Data Protection Act 2018 as outlined in the Fair Processing Notice, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Equality Act 2010 guidance provided in the Tutor Handbook.

All information gathered during discussion with an individual should be regarded as confidential. Any limitations with regard to confidentiality should be made absolutely clear to the learner at the earliest possible stage. The limitation operating in the Service is where a learner discloses information that leads staff to believe that they or others may be at risk of significant physical, sexual, emotional harm or neglect. In other cases where staff consider it useful to the learner to disclose information revealed in confidence by them, to a third party, staff will gain written permission from them to so do.

Learners will be given the opportunity to provide feedback on the service they have received without identifying themselves.

Workers will remain impartial, open, and transparent, remaining focused on the needs of the individual.

Learner Handbook is available from any of our centres, and online.