Chapter 1. Introduction The remit 1. The Policy Action Team on Skills is one of eighteen Policy Action Teams established to examine a range of issues identified in the Social Exclusion Unit's report on neighbourhood renewal, published in September 1998(1). The PAT's formal remit, set out in that report, was to consider: the key skills gaps that need to be addressed in poor neighbourhoods to help those who are unemployed, in intermittent or unskilled employment, or lack basic skills and self-confidence; how well institutions such as Training and Enterprise Councils, Further Education colleges, adult education services, schools and libraries meet these needs and whether there are any changes that would be cost-effective; how well alternative methods (e.g. informal learning, outreach units, IT and distance learning) work to motivate adults to re-engage in education and training, and how good practice could be spread better; and, in the light of our consideration of these, to: assess the number of adults in poor neighbourhoods who do not have essential employment-related and other life skills; draw up an action plan with targets to help them acquire these skills. 2. In addressing our remit, we tried to spend as much time as we could in disadvantaged areas and to talk to local people directly. Details of how we went about this are given below. 3. We were both inspired and shocked by much of what we saw and heard. There is much excellent work that helps people in disadvantaged communities to improve their skills. It is nevertheless hard to overstate the challenges of the environment in which this work is carried on and in which people live. 4. The communities we visited were beset by a brooding fear of crime; in some areas, people are fearful of leaving their homes during daylight because of the likelihood of being burgled. In many places, there is a striking lack of connection with the rest of the world outside, which to many people seems far away, hostile and forbidding. Travelling outside their immediate surroundings to find work or crossing the city to attend college requires resources of enterprise and self-confidence that many, unaided, simply do not possess. Inadequate public transport and poverty mean that apparently short distances can become insurmountable barriers for some. 5. People's sense of what is possible is further restricted by the inter-generational unemployment that afflicts some areas; the circle of acquaintance of many people includes very few who are in regular, paid work. On the other hand, people in these communities are also, in different ways, very resourceful, as they have to be to cope with what life throws at them. Much of the most impressive work we have seen has been organised or delivered by local people themselves. 6. We are very grateful to all of those who live and work in our four study areas who took the trouble to talk to us and to explain how they saw things. They have opened our eyes to the scale of the problems and to some potential solutions. 7. The PAT's original remit appeared in the Social Exclusion Unit's report under the general heading of "Getting the People Back to Work" and we have interpreted that as a clear steer towards labour market issues, on which we have accordingly laid a strong emphasis. We have certainly found that, for most people, the prospect of employment(2) - or of better-paid or more stable employment - is much the most powerful incentive to improve their skills. 8. The Team has also been very conscious, however, that the skills people have influence their lives - and those of others in their communities - in many ways that are related only very indirectly to paid work. People's horizons - their view of the society in which they live and of what it is possible for them to do or to attempt within it - are in many ways defined by their experience of education. 9. Poor basic skills can have a devastating effect on the quality of people's lives, above and beyond any impact they may have on their prospects in the labour market. To complete the circle, there is evidence(3). that adults' parenting skills have a critical impact on their children's performance in compulsory education and hence on the incidence of disadvantage in the next generation. 10. Finally, we have found that learning delivered at the very local level in a way that is directly relevant to people's needs can have benefits above and beyond any improvement in skills for individuals. Where learning really engages people's interests, it can have a pivotal role in helping communities to cohere, to identify what they have in common in terms of both needs and opportunities and to work together. We have therefore placed a strong emphasis in our work on the importance of developing local capacity, which is simultaneously a pre-condition for and an important outcome from effective learning in local communities. 11. For all of these reasons, the Team has thought it necessary to take a broad view of its remit. Although the PAT has been principally concerned with skills for adults of working age, we have not excluded evidence relating to different age groups or deriving from other sectors, like health and housing. Method 12. In common with other PATs, the Team has sought to adopt an open and consultative approach to its work and to involve people who live in the areas on which we are reporting, as well as professionals and practitioners. A list of all the organisations we spoke to appears at Annex E. 13. The core of the Team's work has taken place in six meetings of the PAT as a whole, held principally in London. In addition to that, our approach has had four main features: targeted fieldwork. The PAT decided early on that it wanted to focus its fieldwork on four contrasting areas. The main reason for this approach was a belief that many of the problems we were asked to examine are affected by specifically local factors which can only be properly identified and assessed with the benefit of detailed local knowledge. The Team felt that casting the geographical net too wide might cause us to miss some of these and that it was preferable to examine a small number of areas in as much depth as our reporting timescale allowed. These four case studies give us a range of practical examples and good practice which reinforce and exemplify our more general conclusions. They also provide invaluable insights into how the different strands of skills planning and provision work together in practice in particular neighbourhoods. More details about the team's approach to its fieldwork are given at paragraphs 14 to 17 below. a facility on the UK Lifelong Learning website (www.lifelonglearning.co.uk), giving the public the opportunity to contribute on-line to the Team's work. Some of the comments we were sent appear at Annex B; a formal consultative group, including representatives of the principal national organisations concerned with skills issues. A list of the organisations concerned is given at Annex D; desk research to ensure that the Team kept itself properly informed about relevant studies conducted by others. Fieldwork 14. The team's fieldwork focused on Hackney in East London; Hulme and Moss Side in Greater Manchester; Peterlee in County Durham; an area of the former West Yorkshire coalfield including Hemsworth and the villages of South Elmsall, South Kirby and Upton. 15. We do not suggest that these four areas are in every sense representative of all disadvantaged communities. No four areas could be. But, culturally and economically, the four areas selected by the PAT are very diverse and may be said to be typical of a range of different types of neighbourhood. They include a mix of: inner-city, small town and rural areas; areas with significant ethnic minority populations; communities located in very different regions of the country with different patterns of employment and economic problems; communities with very distinct employment and cultural traditions; areas where the population is very stable as well as areas where it is extremely mobile. 16. For the purposes of fieldwork, the PAT divided into four sub-teams, each of them charged with looking at one of the four areas. Each of the areas was visited at least three times. 17. In each area, the relevant sub-team aimed to consult local agencies concerned with skills issues, including community and voluntary organisations, to consult employers, to talk to local residents about the problems they experienced and to gather any useful local research. Moving targets 18. Since the Team began its work at the end of 1998, much of the background against which we were asked to report has shifted: new education and training programmes have been announced or new evidence about existing ones come to light; the Government announced a major review of the structures in post-16 education and training and published a White Paper setting out its conclusions; seventeen Policy Action Teams with agendas that are different from, but often closely related to our own have been working in parallel with us; and the Social Exclusion Unit itself published a report - Bridging the Gap -about 16-18 year olds not in education, training and employment. To date, about half of the PATs have published their reports.n. 19. That life has not stood still over the past six months has created opportunities as well as problems. On the one hand, it has meant that we have been able to take account of and learn from a good deal of new work that is in train elsewhere, including in particular in the other Policy Action Teams. Other work of particular importance for our remit has been taken forward by the Moser Group on basic skills and the National Skills Task Force. The fact that the structural arrangements for post-16 education and training have themselves been the subject of a fundamental review during the same period, culminating in the publication of Learning to Succeed, has meant that there is scope to take rapid action on some of our more fundamental recommendations. 20. On the other hand, the development of policy on other fronts has meant that we have had to contend with a number of "moving targets". Work on this report was undertaken in parallel with the preparation of Learning to Succeed(4). and, to ensure that the one was able to influence the other, it was necessary to feed in our emerging conclusions as the White Paper was being drafted. Many of the policies in place before the publication of the White Paper - for example Learning Partnerships, the "Widening Participation" initiative in further education, UfI, the Adult and Community Learning Fund and some aspects of the New Deal for Communities pilots- address squarely some of the themes we identify in this report. We obviously welcome this. Nevertheless, it is in many cases too early to draw firm conclusions about the effectiveness of these programmes in addressing the problems we identify. 21. It is the central argument of this report that, if there is to be change and renewal in the country's most disadvantaged areas, Government, local agencies and employers all need to give more priority to working with local people to improve their skills and must take a broader view of the skills which are relevant. We nevertheless wish to acknowledge how much change for the better has already begun and to emphasise that, wherever possible, further change should work with, rather than against the grain of current policies. Notes 1. Bringing Britain Together, HMSO, 1998 2. National Adult Learning Survey, DfEE, 1997 3. For example, see Rural Poverty; a study of economic and social exclusion in the villages of County Durham, The Local Identity Agency, 1998 4. Learning to succeed - a new framework for post-16 learning, DfEE, 1999

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