Memorandum submitted by the Basic Skills
Agency
The Basic Skills Agency is the national development
agency for basic skills in England and Wales. We are an independent
organisation working at "arms length" from our funders:
the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and the Welsh Assembly
Government. Our Patron is Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal,
our Chairman is Garry Hawkes CBE and our Director is Alan Wells
OBE.
The Basic Skills Agency supports the Government's
Strategies to make sure that:
1. every young child will be prepared for
learning on starting school;
2. every child will leave primary school
with literacy and numeracy skills that equip them to deal with
the secondary curriculum;
3. every young person will leave school with
literacy and numeracy skills that equip them for adult life; and
4. every adult will have the ability to read,
write, and speak in English [and in Wales, in English or Welsh]
and use mathematics at a level necessary to function and progress
at work and in society in general.
We play a particularly important role in Wales
where we're responsible for overseeing the implementation of the
Welsh Assembly Government's National Basic Skills Strategy for
Wales.
BASIC SKILLS
AGENCY'S
WORK WITH
THE PROBATION
AND PRISON
SERVICES
The Basic Skills Agency has undertaken a range
of work with the Prison and Probation Services for many years,
looking at how to improve the quality of basic skills provision
within prisons and address effectively the basic skills needs
of both offenders and prison staff. Some of this work is outlined
below.
NATIONAL SUPPORT
PROJECT FOR
PRISONS [1995-97]
This project aimed to develop basic skills support
for offenders working within prison workplaces and undertaking
vocational training. A Development Officer employed by the Agency
provided advice on and support for basic skills developments across
the prison. This included supporting Learndirect projects by providing
basic skills training for prison staff; initiating workplace basic
skills training in catering areas and supporting the roll out
of peer tutoring and family learning programmes in prisons.
POST-16 QUALITY
MARK
The Basic Skills Agency Post-Sixteen Quality
Mark was awarded to institutions that could demonstrate that they
were reaching effective standards of basic skills provision through
meeting 10 specific requirements, including having a strategy
to raise standards, learning plans, training for staff, etc. The
Prison Service made attainment of the Basic Skills Quality Mark
a requirement for all prisons and support was provided to help
individual prisons to achieve it. By the time the Quality Mark
was withdrawn by the DfES in 2002, 77 prisons had received the
award.
NATIONAL SUPPORT
PROJECT FOR
PRISON EMPLOYEES
This project aimed to:
— identify and monitor the basic skills
levels of staff in order to target learning and training resources
effectively;
— provide basic skills assessment and
learning support for individual staff;
— raise awareness of basic skills across
the Prison Service; and
— embed basic skills in course design.
Several models of basic skills support were
identified at establishment level. The involvement of the new
Heads of Learning and Skills in each prison were seen to be key
in developing a synergy between education for prisoners and staff
development, and generally supporting the development of a learning
culture in prisons.
NATIONAL SUPPORT
PROJECT FOR
THE NATIONAL
PROBATION SERVICE
(NPS)
There were two key areas of work in the first
stage of this programme:
— assessing the literacy demands of
the general offending behaviour programmes and the extent to which
(if at all) there was a mismatch between the literacy skills of
offenders and the literacy demands of the programmes;
— providing support for the implementation
of basic skills in the NPS.
The second phase of the project, which will
run for two years from July 2004, will include:
— developing and disseminating a directory
of good practice initiatives running in NPS areas;
— liaising with NPS area basic skills
providers to ensure that courses for probation clients are appropriate
and there are opportunities for clients to progress further in
basic skills as well into work-skills supported courses and other
useful courses; and
— identifying training needs within
the National Probation Service and organising the delivery of
suitable support programmes.
LINK UP
Link Up has recruited over 6,400 volunteers
to support adult learners in 18 locations throughout England,
and in the Army and Prison Service. Since January 2003 over 744
inmates, prison officers, staff and volunteers from the local
community have been trained in the Level 2 certificate in Adult
Learner Support to become Link Up Supporters in the six prisons
involved in the pilot:
North West—HMYOI Hindley, HMP Liverpool
and HMP Manchester
North East—HMYOI Deerbolt, HMP Holme House
and HMP YOI Low Newton
Involvement of prison staff
Link Up has trained a variety of prison staff
members: governors, prison officers, library staff, probation
officers and workshop and maintenance staff. One of the aims of
the training has been to ensure that understanding about the skills
needs of inmates is taken into consideration from arrival at the
institution and throughout their sentence. Through joint training
sessions for inmates and staff, relations have been greatly improved
and the sense of a prison community has been enhanced. Many prison
staff are also beginning to address their own skills needs and
have sought advice on gaining their Level 2 National Qualifications
in Literacy and Numeracy.
Involvement of Probation Service staff
Regional Link Up projects have trained staff
from the Probation Service, contextualising the Unit 1 training
materials to make them more relevant to their profession. Link
Up Stockton-on-Tees and Middlesbrough worked in partnership with
HMP Holme House to deliver training to over 80 probation staff
in the local area.
June 2004
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