November 2001
The following is adapted from Geoff Bateson’s input to the Birmingham Disability Employment Partnership Conference on 29/11/01.

I want, today, to quickly cover five topics – but in doing so I hope to bring out two recurring themes:

(a) Change; transformation; improving for the better, and

(b) ‘getting there’; a sense of success; reaching planned goals.

1. The Partnership that I manage, the Birmingham Core Skills Development Partnership, is a regeneration programme. It is committed to city-wide change. Its aim is to transform levels of literacy and numeracy across all Birmingham – all ages, all groups, all areas – over a 10 to 15 year period. The people who set up the partnership arrangements dedicated to this aim – the leaders of the Local Authority and the (then) Training and Enterprise Council – were visionary. They could see the pieces of the jigsaw that needed to fit together at the whole-city strategic level and recognised that basic skills was one key element that needed to be boosted if people were to succeed in getting broader qualifications; if people were to more effectively gain employment; if people were to sustain themselves in jobs and progress in responsibility and wage-level; if people were to play a fuller part in social processes.

 We are doing this by changing the ways teachers teach and trainers train; by changing the quality of provision; by sweeping more people into these higher quality programmes; by using more relevant and effective materials; by creating better linkages and referrals between different parts of the education and training system etc.

We also have an end-point in mind; a view of what Birmingham could be like in 10-15 years time, described in terms of improved literacy and numeracy levels – and in sufficient detail to be able to answer the question ‘How will we know when we’ve got there?’ This was not an aim for a small project or the outcome of an activity for a few people – it meant thinking about where the whole city needed to shift towards, and to think about benefits for huge numbers of people.

In 5 years we have improved the levels of half a million pupils; one programme for parents, alone, is working with more than 40,000 parents this year; we are talking about bringing improvements and developments to people through every day nursery; every nursery school; every primary, secondary and special school; every library; every college and training provider; the whole of the adult basic skills service in Birmingham – and on through more than 70 voluntary organisations; more than 50 community groups; via health and housing networks … and so on, and so on … A huge programme of change across Birmingham.
2. In the 1970s there was a TV campaign about adult basic skills called ‘On the Move’. Behind the promotion lay a set of messages along the lines ‘There are a lot of individuals who have problems reading and writing. If we can help them with their problems …’ i.e. it was focused on the individual.

Things are different now – there is an adult basic skills national strategy, launched in March 2001, which keeps the focus on each individual having their own, unique needs – but also describes the situation where there are 7 million people with basic skills needs, nationally, as ‘a social disgrace’.

It’s still about individuals getting on in their lives, but it’s also about social attitudes and processes. Birmingham is a ‘pathfinder’ for this national strategy – we are at the cutting edge of putting it all in place. There is a new adult basic skills curriculum; more than 400 staff have been trained; there are new guidelines and materials re basic skills for adults with learning difficulties and disabilities. There are new things being put in place each week, like waves washing across Birmingham.

Behind all of this is the government intention that things will get there – that things will change for the better – that more people will succeed – and that this success will reach to everyone.

 3. There are changes working their way through at the level of on-the-ground provision. The old model (as a caricature) was that people were recruited into basic skills classes in September and any that were still there the following July could be entered for a qualification.

There is an increasing recognition that each learner has their own ‘spiky profile’ – a set of things they are good at, and things they still need to work on. There are now national qualifications, available several times a year. The aim, ultimately, is to move (as far as possible) to on-line, on demand testing. There is already some trialling of weekly tests. Imagine that someone can then take a formative test, can identify which bits they need to practise, can go to a provider (or use a library; or study at home etc) to practise these things; then enter the next test after a few weeks – and get the national qualification and move on.

The aim for the past 5 years has focused on widening participation – getting more (and different) people in. The focus now needs to be on widening success – to get more (and different) people qualified and moved on!

This is encouraging providers to think more in terms of ‘what will it take to ensure success for this person?’
4. Birmingham has a 10 year aspiration. There are currently around 140,000 adults in Birmingham who have low levels of literacy and numeracy. The aim, over 10 years is to reduce this number by a half i.e. by 70,000 – an average of 7000 people ‘succeeding’ each year. This success rate can be achieved if twice as many people are actively working on their basic skills needs; if the success rate is doubled e.g. if all people going through main programmes such as New Deal for Disabled People emerge from such programmes having made substantial progress against any identified literacy and numeracy needs.

This implies strong emphasis, in every major programme, on the basic skills levels needs to boost people’s chance of getting into work; strengthening the basic skills levels needed to stay in work; and boosting the basic skills needed to move on within work, as particular sectors expand.

 5. There can be no group left out in this drive to lift the level of basic skills nationally. We are currently working with schools, colleges, training providers, housing organisations, probation, employers, voluntary organisations. We have been pleased to put our development money behind bigger processes by unlocking money from Europe (as in the recently successful European Social Fund bids and EQUAL programme bids).

The aim, at the end of the day, is to drive forward a whole-city, strategic approach to developing Birmingham as a community that is literate and numerate at a level consistent with its aspirations as a modern, flourishing, inclusive city.