Foreword Our vision is a 'learning society' in which everyone is able to learn and upgrade their skills throughout life. Since we first set our plans out in the Green Paper, The Learning Age (Cm 3790) (The Stationery Office, February 1998), we have made excellent progress. For example: our new Learning and Skills Council has been set up and will integrate the planning and funding of all post-16 learning below higher education level; there are already over 900 local learndirect learning centres, offering over 400 courses; and we have launched a national strategy to tackle poor literacy and numeracy among adults, with funding rising from £241 million this year to £400 million in 2004. We welcome Empowering the Learning Community as an important contribution towards the realisation of our vision. The Learning Age sets out a number of principles including: investing in learning to benefit everyone; lifting barriers to learning; putting people first; and working together. Empowering the Learning Community strongly supports these principles. Greater and more effective collaboration between libraries and education and training providers can help open up access to learning and to remove the barriers which often prevent people from participating. Libraries have a vital role to play in underpinning education in the broadest sense, and that is why we must ensure that both the institutions and the individuals who work in or with them (whether they are librarians, resource managers, teachers, archivists or museum educators): have a good understanding of their local communities and of the available resources; are aware of, and can adapt, good practice to suit the needs of their communities; and are properly trained in the art of information handling and can actively assist people to learn. In this response, we have set out an agenda for early action by Government and its partners within the library and education sectors. We urge all interested parties to work with us in delivering this agenda – and, ultimately, the learning society itself.

Hon Alan Howarth CBE MP Minister for the Arts

Malcolm Wicks MP Minister for Lifelong Learning

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