Regional ESOL coordination

The Home Office funds Strategic Migration Partnerships (SMPs) across the UK to support refugee integration, including access to ESOL. Each SMP has a regional ESOL coordinator.

In London, the regional ESOL coordinator is jointly funded by the Home Office, as part of funding for the London Strategic Migration Partnership (LSMP), and the Mayor of London.

ESOL coordinators work to:

• support refugee resettlement coordinators in local authorities
• collect and share insights on ESOL access and learner progression with policymakers
• facilitate joined-up working between ESOL programmes and projects across the region

Contact your regional ESOL coordinator or explore what they do using the buttons below. 

The ESOL Planning Map, first published in September 2021, is based on the English language proficiency dataset from the Census of 2021, specifically the 'little' or 'no English' categories (combined). It aims to support ESOL providers, funders, commissioners and policymakers with ESOL planning and policy-making.

The map includes filters for finding local ASF providers, to encourage partnership working and to decrease the likelihood of duplication, alongside, filters highlighting potential delivery venues and/or referral partners (schools, libraries and community centres).

Finally, a layer based on data from the Index of Multiple Deprivation (2019) allows organisations to further target their provision or funding where funding is limited. The map also contains information on ESOL engagement through Adult Skills Fund (ASF) funded provision.

You can compare data between 2011 and 2023 using the GLA's Census Explorer. We add new and updated datasets as they become available. Subscribe to the GLA's monthly ESOL Newsletter to stay informed of updates. 

In 2023, the GLA commissioned research to explore the impact of policy changes, introduced by the Mayor of London since delegation in 2019, to increase the accessibility of London's Adult Education Budget (AEB), now called the Adult Skills Fund (ASF), to Londoners from migrant communities. These changes include expanding the three-year residency waiver to include long term migrants; full funding for those earning less than the London Living Wage (LLW); and full funding for ASF-eligible people seeking asylum. The report, published in December 2023, highlights the positive impact the policy changes have had on migrants and people seeking asylum, and makes a number of recommendations. In the coming months, we will explore how the GLA and partners can build on the report’s findings.

In 2017, prior to the delegation of the Adult Skills Fund (ASF), previously known as the Adult Education Budget (AEB), to the Mayor of London, the GLA commissioned research on the availability of formal and informal provision of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) in London, and undertook work to identify the language learning needs of resettled Syrian refugees in London.

This research aimed to support London boroughs participating in the resettlement of Syrian refugees to provide appropriate ESOL provision to resettled adult Syrian refugees, and contributed to the wider development of ESOL policy in London. It took place at a time of considerable developments in skills policy in London, such as the anticipated devolution of the Adult Education Budget to the Mayor of London by 2019 and a review of Adult Community Learning.