LMI Matters! is a resource to help develop awareness of LMI and how it can be used to best effect. It supports the Requirements and Guidance for Providers, Department for Education and Employment, 1998. It may be used by career advisers and teachers as a source of ideas, or by those responsible for staff development as a basis for LMI awareness-raising sessions.

Section 1, Getting started, describes what LMI is and how it can be used.

It is organised around four steps:

• identifying needs
• obtaining LMI
• interpreting LMI
• presenting LMI.

The steps should not be thought of as discrete: what you do at one step may influence another. For instance, when you are obtaining LMI, you may identify further client needs because you discover something useful which you had not thought about before.

Section 2, Practical tools, has ideas on using LMI which will be useful not only to those fairly new to the area, but also to experienced and confident users. You may wish to start with 'The tools and how to use them', which gives details of the all tools contained in the section, and how you might use them.

LMI Matters! is not a source of LMI, even though some examples are genuine and include the actual date and source. Other examples are fictional and are intended to make a particular point. All material may be printed for your own or for non-commercial use, for example in staff development. The content of section 2 is designed specifically for printing.

Who it's for
It is for anyone helping clients to explore opportunities for work or further learning:

• careers advisers, managers, information and other specialists
• careers teachers and coordinators
• classroom teachers with careers as part of brief
• adult guidance workers
• student advisers in colleges
• trainers
• job club leaders

Others who may find it useful include TEC and LEC labour market personnel, those involved in education business partnerships, and INSET providers. Others who may find it useful include TEC and LEC labour market personnel, those involved in education business partnerships, and INSET providers.

Health warning:
Everything in the toolkit assumes good guidance practice. The focus is on using LMI, but this does not mean that LMI is the only or even the primary tool to use in guidance. Information and statistics must not dominate the guidance process. While statistical information may always be objective, its meaning and interpretation are not necessarily so. So let LMI inform, but not take over, your guidance process.