This evaluative assessment has been undertaken by City-REDI and the School of Education based at the University of Birmingham. It aims to capture learning and early impacts of the activities supported by Partnerships for People and Place (PfPP) funding in East Birmingham to improve young people’s access to relevant and meaningful careers information, advice, and guidance. This report supplements the national evaluation of the PfPP programme completed by IPOS-Mori commissioned by Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), now known as the Ministry of of Housing, Communities and Local Government. PfPP supports place-based partnerships to:•trial new ways of working across local and central government and deliver innovative, locally led solutions to key challenges that communities face•look at whether improved government structures, more flexible funding models and greater collaboration across the public sector could be effective in addressing specific issues in local areas.The funding of the Birmingham PfPP project enabled testing of new approaches to careers advice, information and guidance and more general awareness of employment opportunities for young people in East Birmingham. It aimed to raise awareness of a range of career pathways – including vocational career pathways – and reduce the risk of young people becoming NEET. Also funded was a complementary workstream investigating data sources available locally in Birmingham City Council and nationally (including from central government departments – such as the Department for Education [DfE], the Department for Work and Pensions and DLUHC) that have the potential to provide further information on, and relevant to, the experiences of young people transitioning from school into employment and, or further and higher education. PfPP funded a secondee from City-REDI to work with Birmingham City Council (BCC) and the newly formed Birmingham City Observatory.This report provides an initial assessment of:1.schools’, stakeholder organisations’, professionals’, and young people’s experiences of PfPP approaches in East Birmingham; and 2.the impact of these approaches on: (a)organisations and professional practices and (b) young people’s perceptions of themselves, the options available to them, and initial indications of outcomes.It provides information on:•involvement of local voices in the design of the project and the need to be agile in delivering different aspects of the project•why a new approach based around young people’s concerns to careers information advice and guidance was needed and how it was delivered including innovative Be Bold, Be the Future Reverse Mentoring Event where employers could find out what young people look for in a job•challenges experienced by schools and their students included parental expectations•evidence of collaborative advantage created including demonstrating proof of concept for the partnership approach developed to support careers education for young people in East Birmingham•how the project has supported schools to make good progress towards meeting the Gatsby Benchmark for CIAG.The report also includes seven lessons for future programmes and nine recommendations.<br/
