The Review established levels of adult basic skills for different areas, for different groups of people across literacy, language and numeracy skills. It also looked at participation levels; quality of provision; roles of different agencies; work with young people, employees, families etc. This is the first time that such a comprehensive review has been done at this level, and it has been picked up as a model for other areas.

We now know how many people need to improve which skills at which level. We know the areas they live in and the categories of people most needing to brush up their skills. What is needed now is stronger local delivery planning to seriously engage with the tasks to be done, not via one-off projects, but as a mainstream drive forward. We need to be able to think in terms of being able to guarantee access to high quality basic skills support in all localities, and to think in terms of no area being below a certain skills level by 2005.

The quality of provision across Birmingham is, overall, relatively high (with quite a number of outstanding examples of excellence) but even within the same organisation practices can be very variable, and there is still some way to go before we can feel sure that all provision is well above average in quality.

High aspirations came out as a key feature in the review. There needs to be higher aspirations by, and for, individual learners; higher expectations of providers; and high hopes for planning and funding mechanisms.

There has been unprecedented growth (currently four times the number participating in 1995) and good progress towards targets. Basic skills is now clearly on the agenda for a much wider set of organisations.

The review has given the area a set of strategic drives to shape the patterns of basic skills developments over the next 2-5 years.