Chapter 3: The Impact of Poor Basic Skills For the individual 3.1 Some people feel that the need for good basic skills has lessened as technology has improved, that television, with all its power and indeed its role in providing information, has reduced the need for reading. Certainly, there are many people who don't buy books for pleasure and enjoyment, and some who rarely read a newspaper or visit a library. 3.2 In some ways this may not really matter. Being able to read fluently is very different from wanting to read at all. In so many aspects of our life we still need to read, a need technology cannot replace. Indeed in some ways it makes it more essential. As more everyday activities - like drawing money from the bank, and filling one's car with petrol - become automated, so reading becomes more important. 3.3 Being able to use numbers effectively is sometimes considered to be less essential. Calculators are widely available and are compact, portable and well used. There is also, unfortunately, a certain acceptability in being 'bad at maths' and for many people only a very limited number of numeracy skills are actually necessary. It is easier to get by with a lower level of competence in maths than in literacy. However, the ability to use numbers accurately does remain important in everyday life; for example, to check one's change in a shop. It is also a crucial need for many occupations. 3.4 A few quotes show how people can feel. "I used to sit and watch my wife writing a letter to a friend in America and I used to think God I wish I could do that, so as soon as I started and I could get it down in writing, that's the first thing I did, I wrote a letter to our friends in America. And I've wrote quite a few since." "It's awful when your grandson says to you read me a story granddad and you can't do it. You always want to get out of it, I'm busy, I'm doing something. You always want to make an excuse." "It's helped me with my shopping, like all this metric and I was weighing it up to see which was cheaper, which was the best value. That was quite a challenge at first because it was remembering the metric weights etc. and I thought will it be cheaper if I buy this big one or would I be better off buying these two smaller ones. I was like testing myself all the time and am I getting conned and things like that." "I remember being on jury duty and they give us this form to fill in, well, I nearly slid under the table, I thought what am I going to do here? I got round it like, but, it was difficult." 3.5 Both literacy and numeracy have a profound effect on earnings. However, numeracy seems to have a more powerful effect than literacy. Low earnings are much more likely if one has poor basic skills than if one has good basic skills. But, as Table 3.1 shows, the difference in earnings is greater for numeracy than for literacy. Similar results are found in the USA. Similarly, at the national level, numeracy has a profound effect on the average productivity of the workforce and explains a significant proportion of the difference in economic performance between nations. Table 3.1 Distribution of Annual Earnings for People with Different Levels of Literacy and Numeracy Annual earnings Literacy Numeracy Low level High level Low level High level Up to £4,600 20 11 26 6 £4,600 - £9,000 29 12 29 10 £9,000 - £13,000 27 16 22 17 £13,000 - £19,200 17 20 15 21 Over £19,200 7 40 7 46 Total 100 100 100 100 Source: IALS 3.6 A report produced for the Basic Skills Agency in 1997, Does Numeracy Matter? , is also relevant. Based on a sample of 37 year old adults who all left school at 16, it finds, for example, that whereas 30% of women with competent numeracy and low literacy earned below £150 per week, the percentage for women with very low numeracy and competent literacy was almost twice as high, at 58%. For families 3.7 We are particularly concerned about the "intergenerational" effect of poor basic skills. Put simply, when parents have trouble with reading, writing or numeracy, it is more likely that their children will start with a similar disadvantage at school. Research by City University found that 60% of children in the lowest reading attainment group at age 10 had parents with low literacy scores; only 2% had parents with high literacy scores . 3.8 In short, it is likely that parents with limited basic skills will be less able to give their children a good start, or to help them if they have problems. Failure to address the skills needs of adults, particularly of parents and grandparents, would therefore undermine the Government's National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies. This is one of several reasons for seeking a plan of action for adults which complements these new strategies for children. For communities and society 3.9 A great deal of information is available about the social characteristics of people with poor basic skills levels. These have significant consequences for the capacity of local communities to regenerate, for democratic participation, for the criminal justice system, the public health agenda and for issues of social cost and social welfare. Some key points are set out below. Compared to those with adequate skills, adults with poor basic skills are: up to 5 times more likely to be unemployed or out of the labour market; more likely to live in a household where both partners are not in paid employment; more likely to have children at an earlier age, and to have more children; more likely to have children who also struggle with basic skills; less likely to own their own home; less likely to be in good health; less likely to be involved in public life, a community organisation or to vote; more likely to be homeless; over-represented in prisons and young offenders institutions. Source: It Doesn't Get any Better, Bynner and Parsons, 1997 The Basic Skills of Young Adults, Ekynsmith and Bynner, 1994 HM Prison Service, 1998 3.10 Of course, poor basic skills are not the sole cause of such problems. But there can be no doubt that improving an individual's basic skills can help with his or her personal and social problems, and improve the overall quality of life. This may be through making someone more employable, or more able to cope with health information and advice, or with the sort of documentation needed in arranging housing. Forms and documents are the meat and drink of welfare services - as of the rest of our bureaucratic lives - and the problems faced by people with poor reading, writing and number skills are all too obvious. Improved basic skills can help towards social inclusion and cohesion. 3.11 They can also lead to benefits for society as a whole. According to the IALS study, improved literacy can have a positive impact on the level of crime, social welfare requirements and poverty, and on improved health and community participation. Although there are as yet no figures to prove it, it is a fair assumption that investments in basic skills produce savings in programmes to do with social problems, such as crime prevention. 3.12 The scale of need varies from place to place, from community to community, and, as we have said, is linked to other disadvantages and aspects of deprivation. Districts with the highest concentration of deprivation have 'roughly a quarter more adults with poor literacy or numeracy' than other areas. Recent survey work for the Basic Skills Agency, using geo-demographic categories and extrapolating from 17 representative surveys, has produced a basic skills need map of England. This shows the link between deprivation and poor basic skills. However, even the area with the least need in England has a slightly higher level of need than Sweden. This shows how far we have to go. For the economy 3.13 The employment structure of the UK has changed dramatically in recent years. The number of unskilled and semi-skilled jobs has diminished, with such jobs becoming less important to the economy. Technology, changes in working practices and sectoral changes continue to reduce the number of low skilled jobs. 3.14 Research by City University underlines the significance and impact of these changes. Adults with poor basic skills are: most likely to end up in unskilled or semi-skilled low grade work; twice as likely to have been made redundant or sacked from their first job; four times more likely to experience long-term unemployment. 3.15 The problem might surface in a patchy career with much time spent unemployed or out of the labour market, less chance of training or promotion and in low incomes characteristic of unskilled manual jobs. With every advance up the ladder of basic skills, such problems decline. Increasingly, one will be protected against adverse labour market conditions, and helped in recovering from redundancy through re-training for new employment opportunities. Men who are out of the labour market, and have poor basic skills, not only have more difficulty getting back into jobs: they are likely to experience an actual decline in these skills. 3.16 A survey of the basic skills requirements of 1.3 million middle and lower level jobs carried out in 1993 by the Institute of Employment Studies (IES) , found that almost every job now requires some competence in basic skills. Furthermore, there is a considerable demand for such competence in jobs that are far from the top of the labour market. The same survey found that, if someone has not got Entry Level basic skills, 49 out of 50 jobs are closed to them, whilst 50% of jobs are closed to someone who only has Entry Level basic skills. It is also worth emphasising that, for work purposes, functional numeracy is every bit as important as functional literacy. 3.17 People at work need good basic skills not just because of the needs of a particular job. Such abilities are essential to perform a wide range of activities safely and effectively within the workplace. They have also become increasingly important because of technological changes in communication, information and production systems, the introduction of new health and safety regulations and changes in work organisation . 3.18 Of course, many people in jobs, but with limited basic skills, cope because of their experience and knowledge of the job. However, as jobs continue to change, and new technological, quality and work organisation systems are introduced, adults with such disadvantages may increasingly find that their lack of skills restricts their ability to adapt, and perhaps to achieve promotion. 3.19 Even if individuals often manage to cope, poor basic skills of employees can be costly to employers. This is hard to quantify. However, a survey undertaken by Gallup in 1993 estimated that basic skills problems cost the British economy more than £4.8 billion a year. This results from poor quality control, lost orders, bad communication and the need to recruit employees externally when poor skills amongst existing staff limit internal promotions. The survey suggested that on average employees with poor basic skills cost a company employing over about 50 employees £165,000 every year. This means that an average company employing 1,000 people or more could save £500 per employee if the basic skills of the workforce were improved. Even this figure may be an underestimate. As Mr David Blunkett MP stated at the Literacy Task Force conference in 1997: "Illiteracy carries economic costs as well as personal problems. The report 'Literacy, Education and Training and their Impact on the UK Economy', by Ernst and Young, suggests that illiteracy costs business and government £10 billion a year". 3.20 It is generally agreed that, if we are to achieve a world-class economy, we need a world-class workforce. To achieve this, employees and job applicants need good basic skills, not just for the current job, but for changing demands of employment. Many adults will need help to improve their skills in order to reach a level where they can not only attain employment, but are also well placed to adapt and improve their skills as the demands of the economy change. The responsibility this implies for employers is evident and critical for progress.

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