Exclusive: Government’s widely-mocked careers quiz cost UK taxpayer £1.7m
The government’s much-mocked jobs quiz that suggested people retrain as boxers, cinema projectionists and lock keepers cost the UK taxpayer almost £1.7m, City A.M. can reveal.
The Discover Your Skills and Careers tool launched last year, but saw renewed interest last month after chancellor Rishi Sunak warned that Britain’s jobs market needed to “adapt and adjust to the new reality” posed by the Covid economy.
The website’s results, based on users’ answers to 50 questions, caused widespread mockery as it urged people to take up jobs in industries ravaged by the pandemic.
Suggestions included people retrain as football referees, hotel porters, cabaret performers and DJs, despite the sports, hospitality and arts sectors seeing widespread redundancies during the coronavirus crisis.
Others were told to retrain as cinema projectionists and film directors just days after Cineworld announced it would close all of its 128 UK branches indefinitely.
A Freedom of Information request has revealed the beta site cost the UK taxpayer more than £1.66m. Leeds-based design consultancy Hippo Digital was paid £1.2m to build the website through a government contract with the Department for Education.
The quiz dished out career suggestions based on a series of questions such as: “Are you able to control your emotions even in difficult situations?” Participants were also asked if they agreed or disagreed with statements such as: “I set myself goals in life”.
Criticism of the website came hot on the heels of a widely-circulated UK government advert, which suggested that a ballerina retrain for a job in cybersecurity.
The advert, which read: “Fatima’s next job could be in cyber (she just doesn’t know it yet)”, was produced for a CyberFirst campaign that predated the pandemic. It was swiftly pulled from circulation after culture secretary Oliver Dowden described it as “crass”.
Shadow mental health minister Rosena Allin-Khan joined fervent criticism of the advert, tweeting: “Fatima, you be you. Don’t let anyone else tell you that you aren’t good enough because you don’t conform to their preconceived social norms.”
The government’s Skills Health Check assessment tool, which saw a similar spike in traffic in the wake of the Fatima advert, cost the UK taxpayer a further £1.54m through a contract with management consultancy SHL, City A.M. can reveal.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “The Discover Your Skills and Careers tool was developed as part of the suite of free to access advice and guidance on offer from National Careers Service.
“The tool was designed to help people to take the first steps in reviewing their strengths and interests, and suggests possible future career options. Our National Careers Service advisers are also on hand to provide personalised advice informed by local labour market intelligence.”