Chapter 11: Delivery of the Strategy - Local Partnerships 11.1 We now turn to the means by which the proposed strategy should become reality. To this end, we welcome the establishment by the Department for Education and Employment of Lifelong Learning Partnerships, which will set the context for many of our proposals. The new partnerships will provide the mechanism for the action that is required to widen participation and to identify and address gaps in provision. They will work to increase attainment and improve standards at all levels by driving action to achieve local targets, linked to the new National Learning Targets. 11.2 However, given the scale of the basic skills issue, its crucial position as a foundation for lifelong learning, and the need for a national crusade to improve basic skills, it is vital that the Partnerships should have a basic skills remit. Each Partnership should be required to produce a three-year Basic Skills Action Plan, tightly focused on meeting specific aims and achieving agreed targets. This plan would ensure that attention to this issue would be prominent in all Lifelong Learning Partnerships. Indeed, as all the other lifelong plans ultimately assume that basic skills are being improved, this is a sensible starting point for the Partnerships. We recommend that the Action Plans should be submitted directly to the Secretary of State. We also see the partnerships as the conduit through which FEFC funding would reach basic skills providers. 11.3 The Action Plans would need to include: an estimate of the number of people over the age of 16 years with poor basic skills in the area; a target to reduce the estimated scale of need in its area , this being a direct contribution towards achieving national targets; a target for participation in basic skills programmes, including information on how the target would be reached; a description of the range of programmes that would be provided through the Partnership, based on an analysis of the diversity required to meet local needs; any 'experimental programmes' the Partnership wish to promote; performance against the quality standards set out in the National Strategy; monitoring in each element of the programme; information about the coordination of the work of the Partnership. 11.4 The Action Plans should be supplemented by annual operational programmes setting out what the Partnership aims to achieve in that year. These annual programmes will allow new partners to join the local partnership. 11.5 Each Partnership will need to work to a carefully prepared and rigorous Action Plan to raise standards of adult basic skills. The Partnership will be accountable for promotion and delivery of the programmes in accordance with the National Strategy and the local targets. Future public funding for basic skills provision for adults should be geared to the Action Plans. 11.6 Partnerships will require national support in developing their Action Plans, including advice and guidance and better dissemination of effective practice. The Basic Skills Agency will have an important role to play in this, as detailed in Chapter 12. 11.7 The leadership of Lifelong Learning Partnerships is an important issue. We would not wish to be prescriptive in recommending a preferred guide. In some areas, existing partnerships with shared leadership will work well; in others they may not. In some circumstances the LEA or the TEC is the natural leader. Elsewhere, chairmanship of the partnership by a minority stakeholder ensures creative tension. What is clear is that each Partnership needs to accept responsibility for raising standards in the area they cover. 11.8 Each Partnership should set up a basic skills unit to be responsible for planning and coordination. This unit would identify bottle-necks and problems, deal with them rapidly and ensure that all the partners remained actively committed. The unit should evaluate the effectivess of the Action Plan, and report annually to the Basic Skills Agency on progress made, and on problems that need to be addressed. The Agency will then advise the Secretary of State. This last is a crucial task, ensuring that progress - or lack of it - in every sector of the local plan is regularly evaluated, not least for cost effectiveness. The Partnership must be accountable both for the performance of providers against their adult basic skills targets and in respect of its own Action Plans. The progress made by Partnerships would be monitored. 11.9 In most cases, the partners responsible for developing the Basic Skills Action Plan will be coterminous with those involved in Lifelong Learning Partnerships. However, it is important to ensure that the key organisations, groups and individuals able to contribute to the development of basic skills provision in local communities should be involved in developing the Action Plan. 11.10 In short, the implementation of the National Strategy at local level should be the responsibility of local Lifelong Learning Partnerships. These Partnerships would include representatives of those concerned with adult basic skills. Guidance on the composition of Partnerships for the purpose of the Basic Skills Action Plan would be provided by the Secretary of State. 11.11 We endorse the advice set out in the Lifelong Learning Partnerships Remit that Partnerships should be encouraged to think creatively about whom to involve and how to structure themselves. If participation in basic skills is to be maximised with diversity of provision to meet all needs, it is essential that a wide range of organisations are involved. This will obviously include all those involved at present, but groups that might come into action in future should also be included, for example: public and private sector companies; trade unions; the library service; training organisations; agencies working in health, housing, crime prevention, social, economic and community regeneration; grassroots community groups; organisations working with specific groups, such as young people, those with learning difficulties and disabilities and dyslexic adults; prison education contractors; the careers service; and the employment service. Partnerships in areas where the needs of linguistic minority communities are significant would include community-based organisations including welfare associations, mosques and temples. 11.12 Although the focus for action should be at local level, Action Plans must feed into policy and action in the region as a whole. From April 1999 the new Regional Development Agencies will, among other things, have responsibility for developing skills plans for their regions. The need and provision for basic skills will no doubt form part of these plans. We would expect local Partnerships to take account of these in formulating their own basic skills action plans. 11.13 For obvious reasons, the work of the Government's Social Exclusion Unit is important in relation to the proposed National Strategy. The pilot schemes being undertaken by the Skills Policy Action Team - in four areas - will make a significant input to the implementation of the Strategy. RECOMMENDATION 17 - Local Partnerships and Action Plans (i) Implementing the National Strategy locally should be the responsibility of the local Lifelong Learning Partnerships. These would include representatives of those concerned with adult basic skills. Their composition would be submitted to the Secretary of State for guidance. (ii) Each Partnership should be required to submit an Action Plan for the approval of the Secretary of State.

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