Adult Education Roadmap for London

City Hall is consulting on its draft Adult Education Roadmap. This document is a draft version for consultation purposes; a final Adult Education Roadmap will be published at the end of 2021 following the results of this consultation.

The ambition and actions set out in the Roadmap cannot be achieved by City Hall alone. This consultation is important to ensure the Roadmap is representative of all the different organisations and actors who make up the skills and employment sector in London, including skills and learning providers, boroughs, businesses and employers, and community organisations. In developing the draft Roadmap, City Hall engaged over 100 different organisations. The Mayor has now launched this open public consultation to help us get more detailed feedback on proposals.

Who is the consultation for?

This consultation is for anyone with an interest in adult and further education and training, skills, workforce development, careers, employment, and employment services. The consultation is also for anyone working directly with Londoners belonging to demographic groups that are underrepresented in learning.

This includes:

• Further education colleges
• Local authorities
• Independent training providers
• Sixth form colleges
• Universities and higher education institutions
• Institutes of adult learning
• Government bodies and departments
• Community organisations / voluntary and community sector organisations
• Charities and non-governmental organisations
• Trade unions
• Businesses and employers
• Organisations representing adults with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and other groups that are underrepresented in learning, including low-paid and unemployed Londoners, Londoners with no or few formal qualifications, and some groups of older Londoners, young Londoners, and black and minority ethnic Londoners.

This consultation is tailored towards organisations, rather than individual Londoners. The GLA is running a separate exercise to hear from Londoners directly through Community Conversations. To find out more about how to host a Community Conversation for Londoners please visit this link.

How to respond

Respondents are encouraged to answer some or all of the consultation questions, depending on their context and what is most relevant to them. Suggested questions of interest for different stakeholder groups are as follows:

To help us analyse the responses please use this web survey to submit your response.

In exceptional circumstances, if you are unable to access the survey online a word document version can be downloaded and should be emailed to: [email protected].

Deadline for responses

The consultation will close at 23:59 on Sunday 8 August 2021.

Enquiries

If you have any questions about the policy content of the consultation you can contact the City Hall’s Skills and Employment team on [email protected].

Locally relevant adult education

1 – Stimulate collaboration and partnerships

Q1a. What are the key considerations for creating effective guidance on good subcontracting and collaborative working? You may wish to provide comments on the needs of your organisation or community, technical considerations, equality, diversity and inclusion considerations and/or any other feedback.

Q1b. How can partners in London work together differently to develop sustainable infrastructure that supports a more joined-up, integrated skills, careers and employment offer? You may want to consider current barriers to integration and how these can be effectively addressed, and what role the Adult Education Budget can play in this.

2 – Facilitate learning that meets London’s needs

Q2a. What are the key considerations for a process that will enable providers and employers to develop learning packages relevant for London’s industries? You may wish to provide comments on any gaps at different levels of skills provision, technical considerations for your organisation/business, barriers to effective engagement between providers and employers, equality, diversity and inclusion considerations and/or any other feedback.

Q2b. What are the key processes for how your organisations and its partners develop learning programmes? You may wish to provide comments on how you use analysis of local and national economic, labour market, social and cultural contexts to best formulate and deliver a relevant local curriculum offer.

Q2c. What are the skills challenges for your local area/business/sector both now and in the next 5 years?

3 – Prioritise skills that support progression

Q3a. What are the key considerations for supporting and enhancing a London offer at levels 3 and 4, particularly where it can support the most disadvantaged Londoners to progress into employment in sectors key to London’s economy? You may wish to provide comments on technical considerations, equality, diversity and inclusion considerations and/or any other feedback.

Q3b. What are the key considerations for ensuring the GLA can stimulate provision at entry level up to level 2 that shows positive outcomes for learners, employers and communities? You may wish to provide comments on technical considerations, equality, diversity and inclusion considerations and/or any other feedback.

Q3c. What are the key considerations for employers and skills providers to work together to embed essential employability skills into learning packages? You may wish to provide comments on technical considerations, what best practice looks like, equality, diversity and inclusion considerations and/or any other feedback.

Ensuring impactful adult education is recognised

4 – Develop an improved understanding of the social and economic impact of adult education

Q4. What are the key considerations for developing an improved understanding of the impact of adult education and making use of a new baseline of social and economic impact? You may wish to provide comments on technical considerations, equality, diversity and inclusion considerations and/or any other feedback.

5 – Embed strong measurement of social and economic impact

Q5a. What are the key considerations for integrating new information and data on impact areas and learner feedback into future skills delivery? You may wish to provide comments on technical considerations, equality, diversity and inclusion considerations and/or any other feedback.

Q5b. What are the key considerations for measuring and incentivising outcomes through future initiatives? You may wish to provide comments on technical considerations, equality, diversity and inclusion considerations and/or any other feedback.

6 – Create and expand programmes derived from best practice

Q6a. What are the key considerations that you would like to see in our future commissioning of new adult education provision? You may wish to provide comments on technical considerations, equality, diversity and inclusion considerations and/or any other feedback.

Q6b. What are the examples of skills and employment programmes that are especially impactful that future commissioning of adult education in London should take into account? You are welcome to submit further details of any case studies you reference at [email protected]

Supporting accessible adult education for those most in need

7 – Raise awareness of London’s adult education offer

Q7a. What are the key considerations for outreach and promotional campaigns about adult education and how can we ensure these effectively engage London’s communities and places facing educational disadvantage? You may wish to include examples of effective campaigns and targeted outreach, how these are designed and delivered? You may also wish to provide comments on technical considerations, equality, diversity and inclusion considerations and/or any other feedback.

Q7b. How can the GLA work with local partners to create higher quality referrals into and out of adult learning, so that Londoners can access the right opportunities on their journey to work?

8 – Create a representative and inclusive adult education system

Q8a. What are the best ways for the GLA to promote and showcase examples of best practice in delivering adult education to providers and employers? You may wish to include thoughts on how your organisation would use this information and how you would like to hear and understand more about examples of best practice that could support your organisation? You may also wish to provide comments on technical considerations, equality, diversity and inclusion considerations and/or any other feedback.

Q8b. What are the key considerations for the GLA in supporting a skilled, inclusive and representative adult education workforce? You may wish to set out organisations, programmes and groups the GLA should engage with and/or provide comments on technical considerations, equality, diversity and inclusion considerations and/or any other feedback.

9 – Invest in physical and digital learning spaces

Q9a. What are the key considerations for the GLA in improving digital connectivity and access to devices for learners? You may wish to provide comments on technical considerations, equality, diversity and inclusion considerations and/or any other feedback. You may wish to provide examples of how your organisation has previously been able to improve digital access for Londoners.

Q9b. What are the key considerations for stimulating more opportunities for accessing physical learning settings for learners who are unable to engage in digital learning or in more formal classroom settings? You may wish to provide comments on technical considerations, equality, diversity and inclusion considerations and/or any other feedback.

10 – Any other comments

Q10. Please provide any further comments or feedback you may have on the plans set out in the Adult Education Roadmap and/or our proposed approach for setting a direction of travel for adult education in London.

The coronavirus pandemic has taken a huge toll on London’s economy and communities. More than 300,000 jobs have been lost across our city, leaving London’s unemployment rate 40 per cent above the national average and the highest of any UK region. The human cost of this is truly incalculable, with many struggling to make ends meet, families feeling enormous strain on their finances, and countless Londoners worried about their futures.

That’s why, as Mayor, I’ve made jobs, jobs, jobs a top priority for my second term. My administration is firmly focused not just on kick-starting London’s economy and protecting employment, but on creating the new, secure and well-paid jobs that our communities need and deserve.

As part of our strategy for achieving this, we’re working hard to make sure that all Londoners are able to acquire the skills they need, either to get back into work or to land better-paying jobs. This means supporting Londoners to retrain, upskill and enhance their employability.

Since 2019, the Greater London Authority has been responsible for London’s annual £330 million Adult Education Budget (AEB), which funds the majority of learning for adults aged 19 and over. Working closely with skills and learning providers, London’s boroughs, businesses and civil society organisations, we’ve taken important steps to make London’s adult education offer more inclusive – ensuring that more Londoners are able to get the skills they need to progress both in life and work. This has included enabling more Londoners in low-paid work to access AEB courses and supporting Deaf Londoners to train for qualifications in British Sign Language.

We’ve also managed to increase funding by 10% per learner for those enrolled in essential and vocational skills courses – including English, maths and digital skills – while reinvesting savings back into new training programmes that are designed to close London’s skills gap in key areas.

I’m proud of the huge strides we’ve made but, faced with the economic storm unleashed by COVID-19, I know we must redouble our efforts to support adult learners. One way we can do this is by equipping Londoners with the skills they need to get jobs in the sectors that will be crucial to our city’s recovery. From our digital and green industries to hospitality, health and social care, and our creative and cultural sector.

In response to the pandemic, we’ll be allocating substantial funding to this end, following the investments we’ve made to improve the digital infrastructure of our providers. This helped to ensure that learning could continue during lockdowns, and that training was also available for those at risk of digital exclusion. London’s adult and further education sector has already done so much to aid learners during this crisis – whether that was by moving courses online or creating COVID-secure learning environments – and we want to continue backing our skills providers so they can deliver for Londoners.

Over the last couple of years, City Hall has built strong relationships with adult skills providers, the Further Education sector, London’s employers and unions. Their voices have been invaluable in planning and designing skills provision in our city. By continuing our work together, I’m confident we can make sure that Londoners get the helping hand they need to realise a better and brighter future for themselves and their families.

I’ll never forget that London gave me the opportunities to go from a council estate to being Mayor of the greatest city on earth. And I want all Londoners to have that same shot at reaching their full potential.

This Adult Education Roadmap sets out my vision for how we can improve the prospects of thousands of Londoners – ensuring they can flourish and thrive – at the same time as boosting our businesses, addressing inequality and making our city a fairer, greener and healthier place to live.

I welcome your response to this consultation.

Sadiq Khan

Mayor of London

In 2019, London took on the funding and responsibility for skills through the delegation of the Adult Education Budget (AEB) to the Mayor of London. This was a huge step forward, enabling London’s government to begin shaping a skills and education system that could be the most successful and inclusive in the world, based on excellent teaching and learning.

The London Adult Education Roadmap is the next step towards this ambition. The Roadmap will set out how the Mayor plans to build on the success of AEB delegation and the work of London’s skills providers to create an even more accessible, impactful and locally relevant system that can better serve London’s communities and economies.

The Roadmap sets out actions the Mayor will take over this mayoral-term to deliver these overarching ambitions. These are:

• Stimulate collaboration and partnerships
• Facilitate learning that meets London's needs
• Prioritise skills that support progression

• Develop an improved understanding of the social and economic impact of adult education.
• Embed strong measurement of social and economic impact
• Create and expand programmes derived from best practice

• Raise awareness of London's adult education offer
• Create a representative and inclusive adult education system
• Invest in physical and digital learning spaces

Through these actions we can bring together our skills, employment and support systems to better serve London’s communities and economies, maximise the impact of a delegated AEB and create a dynamic lifelong learning offer that reaches all Londoners.

London is a city of learning and for over 100 years there has been an adult education offer in the capital that has helped millions of people to participate in learning, gain new skills and to fulfil their potential. Skills are a fundamental driver of economic growth, equipping people and businesses with the tools to grow and succeed. Gaining new skills also significantly contributes to wellbeing and social development, providing people with the opportunities and confidence to participate in society and to lead happy, healthy lives.

Whilst London has a more highly qualified population than England overall, it faces persistent inequalities in skills and labour market outcomes across different population groups. COVID-19 has further exposed and exacerbated these structural inequities. It has exploited and disproportionately affected the most vulnerable in society, such as people with underlying health conditions and disabilities, young people, those living in crowded and poor housing, in the lowest paid jobs, and Black, Asian and Minority ethnic Londoners.

London is facing a historically high unemployment rate at a time of great uncertainty with environmental, social and economic changes vying for our attention. As the UK’s exit from the European Union, the climate crisis, increasing automation and digitisation of roles and the COVID-19 pandemic start to shape our future, access to lifelong learning and skills will be more important than ever for people looking for work, needing to change career, or who need support with their health and wellbeing.

Despite the devastating effects that the pandemic has had on our great city, London's adult and further education sector has already taken huge strides to keep London learning and has much to be proud of in the way it has responded to the crisis in the short term. Whether that was by moving courses online, or by creating safe and secure environments for face-to-face learning to continue, the sector has pulled together and responded admirably.

Since the Mayor took responsibility for London’s share of the Adult Education Budget (AEB) in 2019, we have already helped many Londoners by fully funding courses for those earning below the London Living Wage, introducing a ‘London factor’ (a 10% funding uplift for all AEB qualifications up to and including level 2), and launching a £32m Good Work Fund to provide training, education, and employability support to help Londoners move into good jobs across London’s key sectors for recovery. This includes, digital, health, social care, green, and creative and cultural industries.

Building on the success of London’s adult education offer so far, the Mayor will work with skills providers to ensure that Londoners who need it most have better access to skills and support to progress into good jobs and within society. We will work with London’s entrepreneurs and business leaders, the driving force for London’s economic prosperity and central to the city’s recovery, to provide them with the talent that they need to succeed. The Mayor of London will continue to be a champion for London’s businesses and will work with them through the Skills for Londoners (SfL) Business Partnership and SfL Board to help steer adult education in London.

The Mayor will work closely with London’s communities, its anchors, and learning providers, who drive the city’s social and cultural prosperity. This is to ensure adult education continues to provide the much-needed lifeline and support to the many Londoners who face multiple barriers to entering work and who have experienced isolation and significant challenges to their wellbeing throughout the pandemic. We will ensure that no Londoner is left behind and all can access the power of learning throughout their lives.

This ambition has the power to dramatically improve the prospects of thousands of Londoners, our communities and businesses. It will help deliver the London Recovery Board’s (established in May 2020) grand challenge ‘to restore confidence in the city, minimise the impact on London’s communities and build back better the city’s economy and society’.Reference:1

To do this, we need to create the conditions for a stable and financially resilient London skills and employment system that can adapt and deliver on employer training needs now and in the future. This must be balanced with ensuring that the most disadvantaged Londoners are not left behind and are able to participate and benefit from learning to support broader health, wellbeing and inclusion. We will work with London’s skills providers, boroughs, communities, and businesses to deliver this ambitious agenda by integrating London’s AEB with the city’s wider skills and employment system so that it is accessible, joined-up and has ‘no wrong door’ for Londoners who engage with it.

To meet this ambition, we will work with our partners to deliver the actions that will:

1. Create an empowered and locally relevant adult education system

2. Recognise the social and economic impacts of adult education

3. Support Londoners most in need to better access adult education

Together, these actions will provide Londoners with better access to an adult education system that represents the needs of our economy and society.

London has a population of over nine million people, more than a million businesses, 129,000 voluntary and community sector organisations, 49 colleges, over 40 higher education institutions and hundreds of learning providers. If local areas are defined by the characteristics of the people living and working there, the opportunities in the economy, and the way businesses, public services and communities work together, then in London thinking ‘local’ could mean anything from a street or estate to a collection of boroughs. The diverse actors in London’s skills system need to be empowered to shape solutions that work for their local area.

When compared with other parts of the UK, London itself is a local area with a unique set of challenges. London suffers from high levels of structural inequality, which have been laid bare and further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. While on average London’s population is highly skilled, those without qualifications at level 3 or above can be trapped in low pay without access to the higher-paid jobs that the capital has to offer. At the same time, international drivers such as Brexit mean that the global talent coming into our city is changing, creating an opportunity to fill skills gaps by supporting Londoners’ progression. Businesses and employers continue to report a skills gap, with a recent survey by the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry and London Councils revealing that half are facing skills challenges.Reference:2 Adult education in London must address these challenges head on, demonstrating to Londoners, partners, and national government the transformative power of the sector in finding and developing local talent.

The skills system is complex and fragmented. Since delegation, City Hall has already taken steps to create more flexibility within the pan-London approach to adult education. Now we want to go further to create a coordinated approach to adult education that aligns with other support, such as employment, careers and health, maximising London’s potential. A coordinated approach will ensure learning activity is supporting broader strategic goals which may include addressing learning deserts (often at the edge of boroughs) or improving the socio-economic baseline indicators for a particular place or for priority groups. To support this, London’s skills sector needs to be empowered to build on their existing networks and partnerships to make adult education more locally relevant.

To help make adult education more locally relevant, the GLA will:

Adult education provision should be diverse and accessible to reach different groups of people, with delivery in community spaces as well as in traditional learning environments such as colleges. It is only through collaboration and partnership that we can effectively meet the range of needs of the capital’s communities and employers. London is home to a huge variety of providers, agencies, and organisations that, working together, have already shown they can adapt and target adult education and other services to work on a more local level and meet these needs.

We want to empower the widest number of providers across London’s skills and employment system to ensure that Londoners can access the best and most relevant support available to meet their needs at that particular time in their learning journey. The GLA cannot practically work with all these providers, neither can many smaller organisations reasonably manage the requirements of a direct funding relationship with the Mayor. Good subcontracting can help to bridge this gap and ensure that those organisations closest to communities, who know how to reach those less likely to access formal learning, have a clear and fairly resourced role to play.

This is a divergence from national policy (which is planning to cap subcontracting) and will ensure London’s AEB providers are better connected and more able to meet the diverse needs of the capital. This will be achieved by building strong relationships with delivery partners that are experts at meeting the needs of particular groups of learners, working in particular neighbourhoods and delivering specialist learning.

A key plank of the London Recovery Programme’s Good Work mission is to ensure that Londoners can access the support that they need, so there is ‘no wrong door’. For Londoners, a No Wrong Door approach would mean that no matter what their starting point or which service they access first, they will be connected to the right type of support at the right time to help them on their journey to work. This could mean a person will be able to receive employment support and advice and be connected to learning that will help them into the work they are looking for. For service organisations and providers, a No Wrong Door approach would mean a clear and shared understanding by all partners of the pathways to good work in their area, including coordinating the services available to support this, which will allow Londoners, employers and other stakeholders to be referred to and access services that are right for them.

These hubs aim to strengthen existing local skills, careers and employment support services, share information and help create feedback loops to inform local and regional skills planning, policymaking and development of funding opportunities. The hubs will also seek to improve local knowledge of how different aspects of London’s skills and employment system can better join-up. Strengthening and investing in community infrastructure to support learners is at the heart of our approach. We know strong networks and connections are needed for communities to thrive and support a happier, healthier and more equitable London. This way we can make sure Londoners are better able to find locally relevant learning and support that is right for them.

London’s business environment is exceptionally dynamic; this reflects London’s place as a global business capital and makes it different from other regions of the UK. It is home to specialist, high skilled sectors and activities, and a diverse employment base with employers of differing sizes and skills needs. London’s economy creates many opportunities, but it also creates strong currents that pull people into poverty, leave too many Londoners socially and economically excluded, and lead to high levels of inequality.

A huge part of addressing inequality in today’s economy is ensuring that skills development can help lead to improved employment prospects. London’s economy is always changing and there needs to be increased partnership between employers and providers to ensure that new or changing demands for skills can be forecast, planned and better responded to. This is more important than ever before, so that Londoners can upskill or retrain to make the most of employment opportunities in their city.

The GLA will also look to boost the availability of timely, granular, local labour market information, exploring ways to incentivise use of this information in curriculum planning. This will help make provision more responsive to the local economy and allow providers to better demonstrate how their provision will contribute to local, sub-regional and London-wide priorities. A coherent approach to setting and delivering against local priorities will need to align with new and existing infrastructure for analysing local labour markets, such as the Skills for Londoners Board in its role as the London Skills Advisory Panel, and any future ‘Local Skills Improvement Plans’ funded by the Government.

Following COVID-19, it is even more pivotal for us to focus on learning that supports progression for all those who take part. Progression means helping Londoners take the next step at key transition points in their lives, both in economic terms, such as a new or better job, and for personal health and wellbeing.

The Mayor wants to support progression and maximise the benefits of learning across our agreed priority impact areasReference:3 for learners across all levels of provision and types of learning.

Priority impact areas for London

We recognise the reality that many Londoners lack and need support to gain essential skills. London’s AEB is rightly focussed on provision that supports essential skills and vocational training up to level 2. The journey to a level 3 qualification takes time and the resources and commitment it takes for learners and providers to attain and deliver these should not be underestimated. A key part of this journey must include support to gain essential employability skills.

A key part of this journey must include support to gain essential employability skills. Employers have constantly maintained they prize these skills highly. They are harder to teach than practical skills, which many can learn on the job. This set of softer skills such as communication, problem solving, and team working enable learners to be effective as new employees in the workplace. We want to see a curriculum that embeds these essential skills into learning from an early stage.

The foundational and pre/vocational skills at so-called lower-levels of learning also have a profound and transformative impact, often leading to a quicker return on investment through positive social and economic outcomes for individuals, their families and the wider community. A good example of this is how English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) can aid integration; where taught creatively the curriculum can help the learners orient themselves in society, with benefits cascading into a wide range of social and economic outcomes. Another example is sector based work academies, which can help learners who want to develop workplace skills and get a job by providing pre-vocational training and employability skills and linking learners to employers who have multiple vacancies.

Londoners take part in adult learning for many different reasons throughout their lives: to improve their skills for a better job, to improve their knowledge, or to improve their technical or professional competence. They also take part in learning to meet new people, socialise and grow their confidence. London’s breadth of adult education opportunities is an incredible offer for Londoners to expand their lives. Participation in learning has enormous inherent value. Not only is it fundamental to ensuring all members of society are able to secure a job and progress in work, but it also has an impact on social and wellbeing outcomes that can be felt across the city. We want all Londoners who participate to enjoy the benefits of high-quality adult education.

We also want London’s employers to be confident that trained people will have precisely the right skills to be job ready. London’s employers are diverse, and many are small businesses that often don’t have the capacity to engage with a complex system. Learning from existing partnerships between employers and providers will help us to build on what works so that more employers of all sizes can make the most of London’s skills and employment system.

In London we have chosen to diverge from the national approach, which suggests the only route to recovery from learning is through employment and neglects those without higher-level skills. We want to create a skills system that works for all its learners, communities and employers. Taking this broader approach through learning is the only way that we can effectively support London’s recovery; we need to make sure we can recognise the wider impact and benefits that learning has.

We have already begun to create the structure and tools that will allow us to capture the breadth of impact learning has. This year, we introduced our London Learner Survey to hear directly from learners on the impact of learning. We also introduced annual provider delivery plans, to track how providers are meeting the needs of learners. These measures have been developed through extensive consultation with skills providers and employers and will allow us over the years to maximise the potential of learning to achieve positive social and economic outcomes.

Building on these initial steps the GLA will recognise the full impact of adult education and use this to shape local skills plans, design future provision and improve learner outcomes by:

We have held extensive consultation with our partners to inform the development of a survey of London’s learners – our London learner Survey - pioneering a new approach in England that will help to create the baselines for seven priority social and economic impact areas for learning in London. These include improvements to health and wellbeing, social integration, learner self-efficacy and participation in volunteering as well as progression into employment, in-work progression and progression into further education and training. As this work develops, it will enable the development of measurable impact goals for adult education. Following a pilot in April 2021 the full London Learner Survey will launch in the 2021-22 academic year. The survey will enable us to follow-up with learners after a course giving us valuable insight on the distance they have travelled.

Showcasing this impact will become a key part of how London can better illustrate and quantify those impacts that are harder to measure, such as the benefits of Adult Community Learning in improving self-confidence, as well as which courses have led to positive outcomes for learners and helped people into jobs. For the first time, this will create a full picture of the transformative power of learning and capture how adult education is supporting each aspect of London’s recovery from COVID-19. We hope that an improved understanding of the impact of adult education will allow more effective interventions and partnerships to be built based on new evidence. In the future it will also lead to more strategic service planning between the GLA, London’s boroughs, skills providers, employers and national Government, with the potential to really integrate lifelong learning into how London delivers for its residents.

A natural progression from establishing a baseline for the impact of learning in London will be to use this new data to inform how provision is planned and delivered in the future.

We know there is excellent work being done in London, the rest of the UK and internationally to deliver positive outcomes through adult education, and we want to build on such examples to maximise the impact for Londoners participating in adult education.

The GLA will need to run a new procurement exercise in the Summer of 2022 for an indicative £32mReference:5 of AEB when current contracts come to an end. With this funding opportunity in mind it is therefore important that we understand what the most impactful approaches to delivering adult education in London are.

Where we are able to identify issues of structural disadvantage for organisations in the skills system, areas for investment, or the need to support capacity building, an evidence-based business case will be developed to address these. We will also use benchmarking of provision against best practice and our evaluation work to consider how skills and employment programmes can learn from each other and be adapted to work in London. This will improve the likelihood that AEB funding rules and opportunities are crafted thoughtfully and resources are targeted appropriately to improve not only the quality of provision but also fortify the strength and resilience of London’s skills providers.

The Adult Education Budget (AEB) is the primary funder of post-19 skills training and education in London. Since 2010 it has faced continued cuts whilst providers also face rising costs, which in London are significantly higher than other parts of the UK. The number of learners has decreased as budgets are squeezed. Inequality is also on the rise; London is increasingly seeing more people facing disadvantages, with particular groups of people facing the sharp end of these inequities. This situation has been exacerbated by over a decade of underfunding, neglect and more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. That is why we introduced a London factor to uplift AEB funding rates by 10% for learning from entry level to level 2.

Adult education in London must adapt to these circumstances which means prioritising who gets provision and how it is delivered to enable positive outcomes. Adult education is a powerful tool for addressing inequality as it provides a route into good work, especially for those with no/low levels of qualifications, who tend to be at the sharp end of disadvantage. We recognise that the uplifts we have introduced will mean working with less people overall, but we believe this approach will lead to better outcomes for the learners we do reach.

Priority groups for support in adult education are those hit hardest by the pandemic including young people (aged 19-24), older Londoners (aged 50+), people with caring responsibilities, learners from Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, learners without basic skills, learners in low-paid work, Disabled Londoners and the long term unemployed. Adult education in London has a strong track-record in reaching these Londoners. Our intention is to ensure this success continues as provision moves online, or as we develop a better understanding of Londoners learning needs as the city experiences economic changes. However, many Londoners in our priority groups do not know about their learning entitlements or how learning could benefit them, and for those who are most excluded traditional approaches of reaching potential learners don’t work. Improving understanding amongst Londoners about what’s available to them could encourage more people into learning.

We will support more accessible adult education by:

The COVID-19 pandemic has meant more people are now looking to reskill and retrain. Raising awareness of what learning opportunities are available in London will help people find a way into learning. We will learn from previous widening participation and lifelong learning campaigns. We will evolve our thinking on branding and the use of social media with Londoners to ensure that we define London’s learning infrastructure as theirs: something they can be proud to belong to and engage with.

To encourage participation and ensure London’s diverse learners have fulfilling learning experiences we know adult education must be inclusive. Structural inequality means that people come to learning with differing experiences of education; and for many people their past experiences have been negative, and they’ve lived through trauma and discrimination. If we want to help those who most need support to fully participate in learning we need to ensure that provision is flexible enough to meet their needs and that the right kind of support is on offer to help them achieve their goals.

For skills providers funded by the GLA, sometimes this means utilising the expertise of other organisations through partnership working, for example career coaching, co-location of learning with a community organisation or children’s centre, or organising work placements with employers.

Creating an accessible educational offer also means getting learning to the learner. There have been positive outcomes from increased investment in remote learning through the pandemic. During the pandemic, London’s adult education providers have made extraordinary progress in adapting their learning offer to be delivered online. We want to support providers who are finding ways to reach communities remotely and helping to address digital exclusion.

However, we know not everyone is comfortable, able, or even inclined to learn online. That is why it is also important that we are supporting learners to access physical learning environments as well. Adult education providers are a vital part of London’s infrastructure and often sit in the heart of their communities acting as anchor institutions. Londoners travelling to centres of learning bring our streets to life and provide opportunities to meet and connect with new people. The impact of embedding learning opportunities in community hubs is well documented and we want to encourage learning to take place in these spaces, in children’s centres and vacant high-street spaces where possible.

We recognise that the ambition and actions set out in the Roadmap cannot be achieved by City Hall alone. We want this to be a collaborative approach with shared goals for how adult education can reach the people who need it most, whilst also supporting the needs of the city’s economy. We want to hear from you on these plans so we can understand how they can be implemented inclusively and effectively.

Following this public consultation, the GLA will publish a final Adult Education Roadmap for London in December 2021.

Q10. Please provide any further comments or feedback you may have on the plans set out in the Adult Education Roadmap and/or our proposed approach for setting a direction of travel for adult education in London.