ITEM CC9
Glossary of Acronyms

ACL 		Adult and Community Learning
BSAW		Basic Skills at Work
CEC		Community Education Committee
CMF		Capital Modernisation Fund
EAL 		English as an Additional Language
EAZ		Education Action Zone 
ESF 		European Social Fund
ESOL		English for Speakers of Other Languages
IAG	Information, Advice and Guidance (the umbrella organisation for providers of education and training guidance)
LLSC 		Local Learning and Skills Council
LSC 		Learning and Skills Council
NIACE	National Institute of Adult and Continuing Education
NOF 		New Opportunities Fund (National Lottery)
OLP		Oxfordshire Learning Partnership 
PLD 		People with Learning Difficulties
SEEDA	South East England Development Agency
SRB		Single Regeneration Budget
UfI		University for Industry (providing LearnDirect)

 

 

Contents
1.	Introduction; Local Authority approval form and contact details
2.	Application for Funding 2002-3 and allocations so far known
3.	Map of distribution of OCC Adult and Community Learning – all provision 
4.	Proformas summarising provision bid for – in the curriculum area groupings applying at the time of each bid
4.1	Adult Learning Plan (ex OCC provision)
4.2	FE (Ex FEFC, formerly Schedule 2)
5.	Oxfordshire County Council Adult Learning Plan (with LSC Guidance main paragraph headings)
Organisational details (5.1 – 4)
Mission statement (5.5)
Needs analysis (5.6 – 9 )
Strategic objectives (5.10 – 12)
Coherence with other provision (5.13)
Basic skills (5.16)
Widening participation & Learner Recruitment: 
Make up of Adult Population (5.19)
Specific Widening Participation activities (5.20)
Family Learning (5.21)
Family Literacy and Numeracy (5.23 – 26)
Working in partnership (5.28)
Access to ICT for learners (5.30 – 31)
Fees and fee policies (5.32)
Learner support (5.33 – 7)
Learning support (5.38)
Risk analysis (5.40)
Data Collection and MIS Infrastructure (5.41 – 43)
Subcontracting (5.44 - 47)
Accommodation strategy (5.48 – 50)
Staffing (5.51 – 55)
Accountability and Governance (5.56 – 57)
Audit (5.58 – 62)
Quality assurance (5.63 – 68)
Quality awards (5.69)
LSC Performance Review (5.70 – 73)
Equality and Diversity (5.74 – 81)
Disability statement (5.82)
Health and safety (5.83 – 88)
 
Annexes: 
A	Structure of the Service; 	 A.i. Governance of the Service
B	Staffing of the service – coded by category of work
C	Disability Statement
D	Accommodation used by OCC Adult and Community Learning Service
E	Fees and fee policies
1.	Introduction
Oxfordshire County Council manages and governs two strands of adult learning under contract to the Learning and Skills Council: 
•	Around 17,000 learners (some 25,000 enrolments) in non-accredited classes, which OCC funded itself until March 2001, and which it continues to provide, with LSC funding at a level guaranteed until the end of summer 2003.This strand will then be funded via a learner-based formula. Nationally this strand – what used to be funded by local authorities – has now become known as Adult and Community Learning, or ACL, to distinguish it from the other strands the LSC inherited. This is the plan for that work
•	Around 5,000 learners in accredited and basic skills classes – what used to be called ‘Schedule 2’ - and which OCC delivered, until March 2001, under contract to the Further Education Funding Council via a funding formula. This was generally known as the Further Education sector and OCC, because it was not a College of Further Education, was termed an External Institution. A separate planning process applies to this strand. Formula-funded units, reflecting length and costs of programmes, have been negotiated annually since the sector left LEA control in 1993.
In time all the different strands of post-16 learning, including work-based learning and school sixth forms, will have the same general planning and funding structure. 
This plan – the Adult Learning Plan - is required by the Department for Education and Skills from all local authorities that deliver, or secure by subcontracting, a programme of non-accredited learning, and the structure of the plan is determined by guidance published by the LSC in December 2001. The plan must be delivered to the local and national offices of the Learning and Skills Council by 28 March 2002. 
In Oxfordshire’s adult education service, however, the two strands have always been planned and managed together at the local level, to promote coherent local programmes, and because for most purposes learners had no need to distinguish between the two strands. So at many points in the plan that follows what will be described will be the ‘whole picture’, but where necessary the plan will distinguish between the strands, and it will give details of planned learners only for the non-accredited work, as required, but the ex FEFC forecasts are also given, for reference.
The whole OCC adult learning service, including ex-FEFC provision, is now known in Oxfordshire as the Adult and Community Learning Service, and in many cases the strands cannot sensibly be separated in the plan, and are both referred to. But to avoid confusion, since ACL is the term that the LSC currently uses only for ex LEA provision, the term OCC Adult and Community Learning Service, or OCC Service, will be normally be used for the whole service, and the term Adult Learning Plan, abbreviated as ALP, will be used for specific reference to the more limited remit of this plan. The ‘further education’ provision will be referred to in this plan as Ex-FEFC.
This plan is the second submission for LSC funding for the academic year 2002-3. The first submission was made in December 2001, and gave the first breakdown of the predicted learners, as well as specifying the allocations OCC was seeking under the various headings. Both these key documents are repeated in the plan. The LSC’s provisional allocation to Oxfordshire County Council to fund the ALP programme of learning in 2002-3 is £1,940,222, including allocations that in previous years were separate Standards Fund sums.
Local Authority Approval Form
NAME OF LEA [IN FULL]:
Oxfordshire County Council
NAME AND TITLE OF LEA OFFICER MAKING THIS 
APPLICATION:
Mari Prichard, Head of Adult and Community Learning
CONTACT DETAILS [INCLUDING EMAIL]:
Lifelong Learning, 
OCC Education Department,
Macclesfield House
New Road
Oxford
OX1 1NA
Email: mari.prichard@oxfordshire.gov.uk
Phone: 01865 556673
NAME AND TITLE OF PERSON AUTHORISED TO APPROVE THE APPLICATION AND PLAN:
Rick Harmes, Principal Education Officer, Lifelong Learning
CONTACT DETAILS:
Address as above
Email: rick.harmes@oxfordshire.gov.uk
Phone: 01865 810626
I confirm that the attached application for funding to the Learning and Skills Council and the attached proposals for provision have been approved by the LEA through:-
Endorsement by the County Council Executive meeting on 21 March 2002, with Learning and Culture Scrutiny Committee comments and summary of LSC comments reported to the Executive meeting on 14 May, to go to Full Council on 18 June 2002. 
 
Signature	Date 27 March 28, 2002
								 Revised 23 May 2002	
NAME (IN CAPITALS) RICK HARMES
2.	Map of distribution of OCC Adult and Community Learning – all provision 

 
2. Indicative Funding Bid
APPLICATION FOR FUNDING 2002/03	
LEA:	Oxfordshire	DATE: 14 December 2001
Line Number	Funding Category	Funding Allocated April 2001 – July 2001	Funding Allocated August 2001 – July 2002	Funding Sought August 2002 – July 2003	
1	LSC secured Adult and Community Learning provision (covered by the Secretary of State’s Guarantee)	£565,240	£1,716,561	1,958,300
(1,940,222 is provisional allocation – see note) 	
2	LSC Activities supported by the DfEEs Standards Fund Grant	£35,032	£105,098	NOT APPLICABLE IN 2002/03 INCLUDE IN LINE 1 	
3	Bid for MIS Infrastructure Funds	N/A	N/A	£98,000	
4	Bid for funding for family learning	N/A	N/A	£100,000 	
5	TOTAL APPLIED FOR IN THIS APPLICATION	£600,272	1,821,659	£2,156,300	

 	FOR INFORMATION ONLY	 	 	 	
6	LSC secured provision as an institution formerly known as an External Institution	4/12 of £1,212,903 <
4/12 of £1,303,309
To be finalised shortly	£1,429,260 <
£1,656,507
To be finalised shortly	£1,550,000	
7 	Work based learning 	 	 	 	
8	Anticipated fee income from learners in Adult and Community Learning Provision only.	£346,356	£1,060,000	£1,075,000	
9	Anticipated fee income from Former External Institution learners	£81,773	£250,000	£254,000	

10	OVERALL TOTALS	Up to £1,462,837	Up to £4,788,166	£5,035,300	

	Learner Numbers: Council-funded 16-18 2001/02																					Provider Name: Oxfordshire County Council										
	Include numbers from your ACL budget only. Do not include learners funded from former External Institutions' budgets																															
			Areas of Learning																													
			1 Sciences and Mathematics		2 Land-based provision		3 Construction		4 Engineering, technology and manufacturing		5 Business Admin, Management and Professional		6 ICT		7 Retailing, customer service and transportation		8 Hospitality, Sports Leisure and Travel		9 Hairdressing and Beauty Therapy			10 Health, Social Care and Public Services		11 Visual and Performing Arts and Media		12 Humanities		13 English Languages and Communications			14 Foundation Programmes	
																																
	Entry Level	2000/01											19											41				2				
		2001/02											43											43				4				
		2002/03											43											43				4				
		2003/04											43											43				4				
																																
	Level Unspecified	2000/01			1								2		1		67		4			23		66				7				
		2001/02	3										2		1		40		7			21		66		2		6			4	
		2002/03	9		2								7		1		60		7			42		66		2		14			28	
		2003/04	13		4								7		1		60		10			35		66		2		15			40	
																																
	Learners	2000/01							2								2					8		4				2				
	LEVEL 1	2001/02							2								2					8		4				2				
		2002/03							2								2					8		4				2				
		2003/04							2								2					8		4				2				
																																
	Learners	2000/01																														
	LEVEL 2	2001/02																														
		2002/03																														
		2003/04																														
																																
	Learners	2000/01																														
	LEVEL 3	2001/02																														
		2002/03																														
		2003/04																														
																																
	Learners	2000/01																														
	LEVEL 4	2001/02																														
		2002/03																														
		2003/04																														
																																
	Learners	2000/01																														
	LEVEL 5	2001/02																														
		2002/03																														
		2003/04																														
																																
	Total Learners*		25		7		0		8		0		166		4		235		28			153		450		6		64			72	
																																
Of Which	Basic Skills	2000/01																														
		2001/02																														
																																
	Collaborative	2000/01																														
	Provision	2001/02																														
																																
	Franchised	2000/01																														
	Provision	2001/02																														
																																
	UfI	2001/02																														
		2002/03																														
																																
	*Note: The figures for Basic Skills, Collaborative Provision, Franchise Provision, and UfI form part of the total number of learners. They do not form the total.																															

	Learner Numbers: Council-funded 19+ 2001/02																														
	Include numbers from your ACL budget only. Do not include learners funded from former External Institutions' budgets																														
			Areas of Learning																												
			1 Sciences and Mathematics		2 Land-based provision		3 Construction		4 Engineering, technology and manufacturing		5 Business Admin, Management and Professional		6 ICT		7 Retailing, customer service and transportation		8 Hospitality, Sports Leisure and Travel		9 Hairdressing and Beauty Therapy		10 Health, Social Care and Public Services		11 Visual and Performing Arts and Media			12 Humanities		13 English Languages and Communications		14 Foundation Programmes	
																															
	Entry Level	2000/01											145										5			38				70	
		2001/02											381										5			38				80	
		2002/03											1175										5			38				126	
		2003/04											1427										5			38				147	
																															
	Level Unspecified	2000/01	32		320		197		81		145		832		83		6472		440		1230		4281			290		1124		53	
		2001/02	48		301		226		33		134		892		97		6772		507		1229		4337			320		1035		80	
		2002/03	53		327		229		63		168		893		98		6370		501		1270		4340			320		1052		100	
		2003/04	57		367		240		67		173		940		98		6370		520		1330		4692			320		1074		120	
																															
	Learners	2000/01	11				9		10				120				160				58		425			37		128			
	LEVEL 1	2001/02	0										157				160				58		425			37		135			
		2002/03	7										157				160				58		425			37		135			
		2003/04	7										157				160				58		425			37		135			
																															
	Learners	2000/01											24										33								
	LEVEL 2	2001/02																					33								
		2002/03																					33								
		2003/04																					33								
																															
	Learners	2000/01																													
	LEVEL 3	2001/02																													
		2002/03																													
		2003/04																													
																															
	Learners	2000/01																													
	LEVEL 4	2001/02																													
		2002/03																													
		2003/04																													
																															
	Learners	2000/01																													
	LEVEL 5	2001/02																													
		2002/03																													
		2003/04																													
																															
	Total Learners*		215		1315		901		254		620		7300		376		26624		1968		5291		19502			1550		4818		776	
																															
Of Which 	Basic Skills	2000/01																												53	
		2001/02																												80	
																															
	Collaborative	2000/01																													
	Provision	2001/02																													
																															
	Franchised	2000/01																													
	Provision	2001/02																													
																															
	UfI	2001/02																													
		2002/03																													
																															
	*Note: The figures for Basic Skills, Collaborative Provision, Franchise Provision, and UfI form part of the total number of learners. They do not form the total.																														
 
SP01 NUM FE (SEPT)										 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
Student Numbers: Further Education												 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
Circular 01/01		 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
Please photocopy (or download from the Council's website), 														 	 	 	 	 	 	
complete and return it to the executive director at the Council's														 	 	 	 	 	 	
local office by 30 September 2001														 	 	 	 	 	 	

Name of provider (please print)				 	Oxfordshire Adult and Community Learning									 	 	 	 	 	 	

Code		OXCED 00						 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	

Contact name for queries (please print)						 	Mike Bardsley					 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	

Telephone no.		 	01865 815810					 	Fax no.	 	01865 816226			 	 	 	 	 	 	
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
Note: This form covers further education students. Include students on franchised FE provision.																				
Students on HNC and HND provision should be recorded on SP01 NUM HE (SEPT).																				
 	 	 	Student numbers where provision is funded																	
 	 	 																		
 	 	 	 	 	wholly or partly by the Council							 	by sources other than the Council							
 	 	 	 	 								 	(to be completed by colleges only)							
Programme area		 	Mode	 	2000/ 2001	 	2001/ 2002	 	2002/ 2003	 	2003/ 2004	 	2000/ 2001	 	2001/ 2002	 	2002/ 2003	 	2003/ 2004	
1	Sciences	 	FT	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
 	 	 	PT	 	92	 	100	 	100	 	100	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
2	Agriculture	 	FT	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
 	 	 	PT	 	33	 	30	 	30	 	30	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
3	Construction	 	FT	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
 	 	 	PT	 	0	 	0	 	0	 	0	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
4	Engineering	 	FT	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
 	 	 	PT	 	5	 	5	 	10	 	10	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
5	Business	 	FT	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
 	 	 	PT	 	2112	 	2000	 	2200	 	2200	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
6	Hotel & Catering	 	FT	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
 	 	 	PT	 	5	 	5	 	20	 	20	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
7	Health & 	 	FT	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
 	Community Care	 	PT	 	1156	 	1300	 	1300	 	1300	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
8	Art & Design	 	FT	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
 	 	 	PT	 	205	 	200	 	200	 	250	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
9	Humanities	 	FT	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
 	 	 	PT	 	935	 	900	 	900	 	950	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
10	Basic Education	 	FT	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
 	 	 	PT	 	1830	 	2060	 	2150	 	2210	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
TOTAL		 	FT	 	0	 	0	 	0	 	0	 	0	 	0	 	0	 	0	
 	 	 	PT	 	6373	 	6600	 	6910	 	7070	 	0	 	0	 	0	 	0	
Please contact your local office if you need assistance in completing this form.																				

5. The Adult Learning Plan
Organisational details (5.1 – 4)
The main contact for the plan is the Head of Adult and Community Learning, Mari Prichard
The Oxfordshire County Council is a provider of adult learning by direct delivery, and does not currently subcontract any of the provision funded until April 2001 by the Local Authority. It has, however, a history of ‘grant-aiding’ voluntary organisations to provide adult learning, and including them in professional qualification and other staff development and quality systems. It currently subcontracts to one voluntary organisation within its ex-FEFC (formerly Schedule 2) programme. With the exception of a small amount of full-time provision in adult basic skills, OCC is a provider of part-time learning opportunities, and is the single largest provider of those in the county.
The Oxfordshire Adult Education Service is part of the Lifelong Learning Branch of the Education Department. There are close working relations with the three other services within the branch: the Youth Service, Early Years and Student Support, alongside collaborative relationships with Schools Branch and other County Council services, notably the Library Service.
The branch is headed by the Principal Education Officer to whom the Head of Adult and Community Learning reports. Three Adult and Community Learning Officers (ACLOs) share with the Head of ACL the supervision of the Oxfordshire Adult and Community Learning Service. Each ACLO has one of the three geographical areas to supervise, as well as countywide responsibilities. The three areas (mainly based on district council boundaries) are:
•	Cherwell and West Oxfordshire 
•	Oxford City (with Cumnor, which is in the Vale District Council area) 
•	South Oxfordshire and the Vale of the White Horse 
Working with this central management team there is a group of countywide specialist officers and service co-ordinators: a Head of Basic Skills, a Development Officer for Local Learning Centres (via Standards Fund), and a Professional Development Co-ordinator. The Basic Skills and Professional Development units author paper-based and e-learning materials which are published nationally. There are county Guidance and Outreach co-ordinators (supporting outreach staff partly funded via Standards Fund), and there is a close management link with the officer responsible for Parent and Family Learning and Childcare, whose line management is in the Early Years Service. A chart outlining the structure of the service is given as Annex A, and details of staff at Annex B
Under the overall governance of the County Council, the 'mainstream' adult learning is delivered through Community Education Centres spread across the county, each overseen by one of the 27 local governing bodies known as a Community Education Committees (CECs). (See map – item 2 above.) There are 13 full-time Area Head posts and a further 6 f.t.e. Centre Heads managing local programmes; these staff all also have curriculum or equality monitoring and development roles. Each area has part-time outreach staff. 
Basic Skills and other special needs provision, and some special projects, are centrally managed and therefore directly governed by the County Council.
Relationship with Oxfordshire County Council schools
ACL in Oxfordshire has strong links with both primary and secondary schools. 22 of the 27 Community Education Committees (using 30 designated centres) have administrative bases on school campuses. The links with schools are active and many working partnerships exist to develop a learning culture within the communities served. 
The County Council is keen to promote closer links between adult learning provision and schools. It is doing this in response to a number of different strategic initiatives and plans:
•	The National Grid for Learning initiative. 
•	The Specialist Schools initiative. 
•	The County Council’s recently approved ‘Oxfordshire Plan’, one of whose key strategies is ‘opening up schools and libraries for use by the community’. 
•	The County’s recently submitted Education Development Plan (EDP2) for 2002 – 2007. As one of its major priorities, the EDP sets out proposals aimed at ‘building learning communities’.
The Adult and Community Learning Service’s Development Officer for Local Learning Centres (a post developed via Standards Fund) is working with a number of schools in the County to develop extended provision for the local community in conjunction with the ACL Service and with other community partners. 
The majority of OCC ACL centres offer learning programmes on school premises both during the day and in the evening, and frequently at weekends. Some centres have dedicated classrooms for adult learning within the school. If this is not the case, centres are sometimes still able to make use of school premises within the school day, and often have twilight classes. Local CEC programmes often use many other schools in the area, as well as the one where they are based. 
The CEC is responsible for local needs analysis, development planning and evaluation, and its constitution requires the core membership to be representative of main stakeholders including schools. 26 of the 27 Community Education Committees currently have school representatives on them, and representatives who wish to be can be extensively involved in the strategic planning of the area programme.
Of the remaining 6 centres, 2 are based in libraries, and 4 are free standing, but most also use local schools as centres for local provision. The Abingdon base will move to Thameside School, as a result of New Opportunities (NOF) and LSC major capital funding for new buildings, in Spring 2003.
Schools with a dedicated ACL office or classroom(s) have a formula sum in their base budget to cover the additional costs. For out-of- school-hours use, there are formal agreements made annually with schools. These are based on the principle that OCC-designated adult learning programmes (including WEA and HE partners’ classes) have priority use of OCC schools’ classrooms on up to three evenings a week during term time, but must pay the actual additional energy and caretaking costs or an agreed estimate. Frequently, ACL has access to specialist equipment such as ICT suites, workshops and food technology rooms as part of this agreement. The agreement is negotiated locally, but with OCC guidance if necessary. 
In schools where this out-of-hours agreement works well, the primary or secondary school will plan school evening functions so as to not affect the ACL operation, or ACL will rearrange classes to take account of a school need such as a major drama production. Often ACL workers are co-opted members of governors’ sub-committees dealing with premises.
In a school which feels itself part of the community and operates well as such, there are few barriers to ACL learners making use of school buildings. Safe open access is balanced with school security. Adults are welcomed and community members, even those who may have had poor experiences at school, feel able to access school premises as valued members of a learning community.
The Education Department Advisory and Inspection Service, and individual schools, are central to the planning process that selects sites for Family Literacy and Numeracy, and to the planning of other ACL programmes that support schools.
A cross-branch group for School and Community operates in the Education Department, with senior Headteacher, ACL, and Schools Adviser representation, chaired by the Head of Lifelong Learning, and tasked with developing strategy for the interface between community, school and ACL.
Mission statement (5.5)
This is the updated overall statement of purpose for the LEA’s Adult and Community Learning Service as a whole 
To develop and sustain across Oxfordshire a range of high quality lifelong learning opportunities that will engage new adult learners and enable all learners to gain knowledge and skills, progress in learning, and play an active and creative part in their communities.
The OCC Adult and Community Learning Service focuses on providing local learning opportunities distributed equitably across the county, underpinned by countywide provision of basic skills, guidance and learning disability services. It provides programmes that are broadly-based or at specific levels, from first rung up to Level 2 with some gap-filling at Level 3. 
It aims to maximise the value to learners of being a local authority adult learning service, operating across the whole county as the largest single provider of adult learning opportunities, and playing a major role in local planning for lifelong learning. 
It plans its provision to complement that of voluntary and private providers, Further Education colleges, and Higher Education institutions, by these means:
•	Ensuring that the wide range of providers on each of the District Widening Participation Groups make up a standing forum for planning provision, review new funding opportunities together in the light of agreed district needs, and form cross-provider task groups where appropriate. 
•	Deploying a county wide outreach team managed by local OCC ACL Area Heads. The Area Heads use outreach workers for needs analysis, and ensure that their Community Education Committee Development Plans address the needs of, and actually reach, non-traditional learners. All of these plans include targets for linked work with a range of providers including local community and voluntary groups. 
•	Partnership arrangements developed at community, area, District or County level to plan provision. Each of the established Adult and Community Education areas offers programmes in partnership with a diversity of local providers, some of whom (for example family centres, FE colleges) are represented on local CECs. Planning with the WEA and universities may be local, district or central, depending on the currriculum or phase of development. 
•	Accessing a broad range of external funding opportunities. The LEA sees bidding to regional or national funds as a collaborative process meeting the requirements of funders for joint or partnership-based applications. All the successful CMF/NOF applications have involved careful planning of provision with other providers, ranging from small local community groups to FE colleges. 
•	Leading and/or supporting research or needs analysis with other partners. Joint research and surveys (e.g. LIF-supported projects on trade union membership, basic skills and adult progression) encourage collaborative arrangements for planning provision. 
•	Playing a lead part in developing or supporting Oxfordshire-based initiatives that bring together a wide range of providers e.g. Oxfordshire Virtual Campus, IAG, PaRex, Oxfordshire Learning Partnership 
•	Involvement in District Community Plans and Local Strategic Partnership. 
•	Using specialist staff with the duty to form relationships with partners and potential partners, and to lead new initiatives or provision based on partnerships – for example: basic skills in the workplace (LSC, SEEDA, local businesses); inter-agency work with people with learning difficulties (Social Services and Health); learners with mental health needs (Mind); early years organisations (family centres, Sure Start); older learners (Age Concern). It has developed a wide range of appropriate programmes with partners - including childcare skills, ICT, healthy living, professional training programmes in Basic Skills awareness, and adult teaching skills (offered by the OCC Professional Development unit).
Needs analysis (5.6 – 9)
The service has access to OCC, district council and LSC demographic data, to labour market, housing information and national basic skills data, and to poverty data from academic sources. This is used for local planning and for bids for specific external funding for adult learning (e.g. Single Regeneration Budget, New Opportunities Fund). It also has access to data about schools’ performance which is used in planning family basic skills and other family and schools-based learning, and for targeting comprehensive action at areas where low parental aspiration is a factor in schools’ achievements.
It also uses information and advice brought to the local Adult Learning governing bodies (Community Education Committees) for their annual planning process by a diversity of members, including representatives of learners, business, other public service and voluntary organisations, teaching staff, and outreach workers. The OCC Service’s development planning framework requires all area and county units of the service to specify how they have undertaken and reviewed their needs analysis using a standard framework. 
Internal needs analysis has included monitoring waiting lists and surveys of students. Tutors are expected to record to learners’ accounts of current and future needs. Guidance staff report needs expressed in interviews. Local projects give opportunities for a range of informal needs analysis.
Service staff attended community festivals and carnivals in Blackbird Leys and Bicester to survey resident’s views on local learning needs. The findings helped to support initiatives centred on developing learning communities. 
A key part of the Banbury Learning Town is extended needs analysis in local family centres that helped support a successful bid for computer equipment via the Capital Modernisation Fund
A ‘roadshow’ was held in Blackbird Leys featuring a wide range of ICT hardware and software to enable local community groups to determine exactly what computers and associated equipment they wanted as part of the NOF/CMF projects. The event was instrumental in confirming interest in use of smartboard technology to support community ICT learning
The Learning and Skills Council for Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire’s Strategic Plan for 2002-3, gives details of the range of learning needs of the whole area, derived from the area’s profile, and addressing national and local priorities. It identifies eight key priorities for the organisation, most of which relate to the OCC service’s area of work.
The County Learning Partnership (Widening Participation) as a response to Learning Works (the Kennedy Report) commissioned an extensive collaborative data-collection exercise. The results (published in February 2000) identified the participation levels in each Oxfordshire ward by all main providers of adult learning: they ranged from less than 6% participation in 18 wards to over 12% participation in 26 wards (out of 144 wards altogether), and the report correlates participation with level of education and training attainment, and local indicators of deprivation. 
As an example of how the LEA service uses needs analysis to plan change collaboratively, the Cherwell Widening Participation groups’ sharing of the targets for widening participation for all district partnerships led to joint WEA and OCC, and joint North Oxfordshire College and OCC projects to reach target learners in Banbury. That research is now being updated by the Oxfordshire Learning Partnership, and the OCC ACL Service is committed to using it as a basis for dialogue, for avoiding wasteful competition, and for ensuring that providers work to and share their institutional strengths.
NOF/CMF, SRB, Adult and Community Learning Fund, Childcare, Early Excellence Centre and other funding applications have also required detailed needs analysis by OCC alone, or with other partners. 
Consultation, Demographic and Skills Data, and Conclusions
Consultation
Consultation on the needs analysis and on this plan has been by means of:
•	Local Community Education Committees and local management staff (summer 2001 consultation on needs analysis and local plans; February 2002 consultation on Adult Learning Plan). 
•	Oxfordshire Learning Partnership District Widening Participation Planning Groups (ongoing needs analysis; Plan consultation in February 2002) 
•	Oxfordshire County Council Executive consideration of Plan (March 2002) and Scrutiny Committee (March 2002) 
•	Education partners and public (OCC Intranet, followed by OCC Website March 2002)
Demographic and Skills Data, and Conclusions
Data for this plan have been drawn from: 
Skills Insight data Oxfordshire, 2001; MKOB (Annual Skills Review) 2002
Basic Skills Agency/ORB national data 
Projections from 1991 census, updated by OCC from local sources
OCC’s Participation data for its own provision, and ‘pooled’ participation data for all adult learning provision, collected for the Oxfordshire Widening Participation Project 
Oxfordshire has a growing population which currently stands at 632,100. 75% of these are 19 or over. 3.4% of the population are members of minority ethnic groups (). The majority of these live in Oxford (9.2% of the population) and in Banbury (4.8%). In Oxford, most of the minority ethnic population lives in the south and east of the City. 
•	The distribution of minority ethnic groups in the county overall compares reasonably well with their participation in OCC provision. But this masks the difference between high participation in English classes for speakers of other languages, and low participation in other provision. New 2001 census data is expected to record higher minority ethnic population in most of Oxfordshire. 
Unemployment is low (2.5% of those available for work; claimant count 0.9%); but there are areas in Oxfordshire where it is much higher. Under 24s make up 23% of the total claimant-unemployed. Those over 50 make up 17.2% of the total. Almost one person in five qualifies for at least one means-tested benefit. 
•	Most of the population is at work, many people working long and or non-standard hours. Provision aimed at the working population is based on up-to-date knowledge of the working patterns of the target population, offered at a variety of times, or offered in the workplace. OCC programmes are responsive, with daytime, evening, and weekend provision. Adult basic skills has developed distance learning materials, and workplace basic skills and ICT provision to fit the demands of the workplace, often adapted to shifts and antisocial hours. New ICT learning centres have been developed in workplaces.
•	There are, however, large groups for whom the high level of full-time employment is not the key planning factor: under 24s, older learners, women with young children, part-time workers, individuals with disabilities, or who have experienced mental illness. Family learning targets mothers with very young children who may be experiencing a crucial short break from full-time work in which potentially to change their aspirations and skills. 
 
‘It was a lifeline and I grabbed it.’ Member of a Bicester area young parents group.
 
An estimated 76074 of the 16 to 60 population (total 370,132) has poor literacy – 20.55%; 27018 or 6.3% are in the categories ‘lower or very low’ literacy. Overall figures for numeracy are similar, with more in the ‘lower’ and ‘very low’ categories than in literacy. In six wards the figure for low literacy is at least 30%. In Blackbird Leys, in Oxford, the figure for low literacy is 38% and for lower or very low is 18.6%. (Basic Skills Agency/ORB.)
•	Adult Basic Skills generally, and specific strands of it such as family literacy and numeracy, are planned using the Basic Skills Agency ward-based indicators of need. The basic skills data is one element, along with other indices of deprivation, in the formula used by the Service to allocate ACL resources to outreach and first rung provision.
Blackbird Leys, Littlemore, and South Ward in Oxford, Neithrop and Ruscote in Banbury, and Berinsfield in South Oxfordshire are the most deprived wards in the county – three of them in the SE Region’s 10% most deprived wards, four in the group of ten most deprived wards in the MKOB area.
•	There is a long-term service commitment to targeting the most disadvantaged wards, and identifying and targeting smaller areas of need within wards that are overall not low. OCC ACL will continue to be a key partner in SRB, Sure Start, NOF/CMF and other partnership projects targeting the most deprived wards. Indices of deprivation and low participation in learning are the basis of OCC and partnership effort to plan learning programmes that target the hardest-to-reach and contribute to social inclusion. 
The three largest employment groups in Oxfordshire are:
Distribution, hotels and restaurants
Banking, finance and insurance
Public administration, education and health 
The working-age population is overall relatively well-qualified (49% with NVQ level 3+ overall; 45% of the female population – Skills Insight 2001). But this conceals skills shortages, communities with poor levels of skill in terms of current job opportunities, and people in work who would be able to move into areas of skills shortage if they had access to training, and confidence in their ability to learn based on experience of successful learning. 27% of the MKOB working age population (24% of the economically active) are qualified to NVQ Level 1 or below. The cost of housing in Oxfordshire is such that employers have great difficulty in recruiting from outside the county, and the arguments are overwhelming for upskilling the workforce that is already here. 78% of working-age women are economically active (including part-time) compared with 91% of men. 
•	The service is well-placed to offer local information, advice and guidance across Oxfordshire. It has a GAB-accredited outreach guidance service (New Start), which both supports the quality of OCC’s learning provision and offers free, one-to-one guidance to targeted populations, independent of OCC’s status as a learning provider, and with referrals to many other institutions. From August 2003, when the OCC Service is funded on a learner-based formula, the funding of this service will need to be achieved in ways that secure its remit and independence.
•	The service is well-placed to offer local first-rung, level 1 and 2 and multi-level provision spanning much of the possible adult curriculum, that will create and maintain an appetite for learning. It also has the capacity to develop specific skills in a number of vocational areas relevant to Oxfordshire’s economic needs, including general office and customer service skills, ICT, and childcare.
•	The service has a historic bias towards providing for women. It can justify or change this. Women’s lower level of qualification and salary, and the prevalence of women in part-time employment in the largest employment groups, and in low-paid public sector work in education and health, justify OCC continuing to have a bias towards provision for women (e.g. current OCC curriculum priority work in childcare, and career development for learning support assistants). But the service will target some specific provision at men and women equally (e.g. basic skills, first rung ICT) and will develop strategies for improving male participation across other parts of the curriculum (e.g. family learning as a way into participation).
15.9% of the population is over the official age of retirement. 9.8% reported limiting long-term illness. The number of people with learning disabilities is estimated at around 2.5% of the 19+ population.
•	The service will continue to provide programmes in local residential homes for the elderly and will use ACL and FE funding to consolidate and expand its programmes for people with learning difficulties
In the light of its needs analysis OCC has named the following priority groups in its development planning guidance to local committees, so that they can plan to widen participation in learning. Committees have assessed their offer across all the groups, then selected local priorities 
•	Families 
•	People living in poverty/disadvantaged areas 
•	People who left school with few or no qualifications
•	Other groups including:
people with learning disabilities
people with mental health problems
older learners
people from ethnic minorities
offenders, ex-offenders and bail hostel residents
people in low-paid occupations, e.g. carers	
people living and working in isolated areas
women returners
men with poor school-leaving qualifications; aiming for better representation of men in the service in general.
General Issues from the Needs Analysis 
Learners report that they need and want learning activities of many different kinds, at different periods in their lives, and they adopt many different paths into the sort of learning which contributes to the area’s economy. Learners recount in their feedback the motivation and expanding of horizons that comes from the unexpected, the creative, and the challenging. Learners report that learning has given themselves and their families a fresh start, or that they have improved their physical or mental health. New learners, and learners in particular disadvantaged groups, make progress if they become ‘mainstream’ learners without having to negotiate further barriers.
 
Since completing the City and Guilds silk-painting course, a student in the East and South Oxford area has set up her own business
 
To offer that breadth locally is challenging for the service, but it has a historic mission to secure a broad and balanced curriculum for adults at local venues across Oxfordshire – while taking into account generally well-understood differences between OCC and other providers, particularly Colleges of FE in the City and main market towns, the WEA, other voluntary providers, and local private provision.
There is an inherent tension between the ‘universal’ and the ‘targeted’ models of adult learning, which the County Council has managed by targeting ex-FEFC provision (including basic skills, family learning, and specific portions of OCC funding) to access and widening participation. Local staff and committees have also managed the tension by careful use of local fee income ‘surpluses’ to fund development, and concessions policies. This balance will be continually scrutinised. Targeting is expensive and may reduce overall recruitment.
A painting and drawing class in Buckland brought members of this dispersed rural community together and has developed into a plan for a community project for the Jubilee year.
 
Strategic objectives (5.10 – 12)
Flowing from its mission and needs analysis, the Local Authority Adult and Community Learning Service has these main strategic objectives for 2002 – 3 across the whole of its provision – both its ex FEFC and its Adult Learning Plan provision. 
1.	To widen participation in learning by
i.	Working collaboratively with a range of partners to:
•	assess the needs of individuals, communities and employers 
•	maximise the value to communities of the different strengths and resources of partners 
•	secure new resources 
•	attract learners
Members of arts courses across Oxford City worked with the Ashmolean Museum to mount an exhibition of their work there
i.	Outreach – taking information, advice and guidance, and a range of learning opportunities, to new learners in their own settings; providing an independent education and training guidance that is free and biased towards outreach and new learners
ii.	Expanding the number of first rung opportunities for new learners, with special emphasis on basic skills, ICT, family learning, childcare
iii.	Using the unique features of a Local Authority provider to increase the number of local learning centres, and to secure equality of opportunity for specific groups of learners who are underrepresented in learning, or experience particular disadvantage 
2	To improve the quality of learning, and the achievement and satisfaction of learners, by
i.	Listening to learners and helping them voice their wants and needs
ii.	Maintaining a range of initial and in-service tutor training programmes and other quality systems to monitor and develop good practice in teaching and learning support
In 2001 the OCC Professional Development Service published a range of independent learning materials to support the staff development of tutors and the aim of all tutors having Stage 1 accreditation or a locally assessed equivalent
iii.	Continuing to develop curriculum that excites, challenges and retains learners, and actively promotes progress and progression
3	To develop high quality management and leadership at all levels of the service by
i.	Improving internal communication
ii.	Ensuring the professional development of staff
iii.	Securing management information that is timely and accurate, and that is used at all levels of planning in the service
iv.	Managing the change from Local Authority to LSC funding to secure for learners and communities the benefits of both of change and continuity
The context for these strategic objectives is the programme of learning that forms the core business of the service, for which the LSC has made a provisional funding allocation for 2002-3. This plan presents that business in the form of a table of Council Funded Learner Numbers (given in section 4 above). To achieve its strategic objectives, the service must seek continuing funding for guidance, attract learners to a broad and balanced curriculum across Oxfordshire and, alongside all its partners, stimulate the demand for adult learning in general, and attract learners to the two strands of provision:
(a)	the strand funded under the Adult Learning Plan
Provision for approximately 17,000 learners, with entry, level 1 and 2, or multi-level, learning opportunities across, a balance in each locality across most of the adult curriculum range, and reasonable access across Oxfordshire to all 14 areas of learning, with concentration in areas 6 (ICT), 8 (Sports, leisure), 10 (Health, Social Care and Public Services), 11 (Visual and Performing Arts), 13 (Languages),
b.	the strand funded under the plan for further education (ex-FEFC provision)
Provision for around 5000 learners (to be confirmed in April 2002) – currently with a concentration in Learning Areas 5 (Business, management and professional), 10 (Health etc), 14 (Foundation Programmes including basic skills, learning disability)
The Adult Learning Plan and the planned numbers of learners (rounded in the targets below) reflect the potential for ACL growth across Oxfordshire, if the Plan is agreed for funding by the LSC, in:
•	First rung ICT skills and community-based ICT with the clients and contacts of voluntary organisations: 750 additional learners, largely building on outreach and on informal learning in local New Opportunities Fund projects 
•	Family learning in targeted communities: see the Family Learning development plan below 
•	First rung learning for women returning to work, or in low-paid work related to childcare, learning support assistant work in schools, or care of the elderly: 60 learners, additional to the growth in 2001-2 
•	Adult basic skills awareness for the staff of other agencies, businesses and voluntary organisations – as a prerequisite for increasing the numbers of basic skills learners: 40 additional learners
•	Foundation programmes, including specific and integrated programmes for adults with learning disabilities and basic skills for recently arrived non-EU learners who will become members of the settled population, but do not yet qualify for ex-FEFC programmes: 90 additional learners
Because much of the growth is aimed at new learners and targeted communities, it is likely to be more costly to establish and maintain than average; this is reflected in the bid to the LSC and in the service’s efforts to secure supplementary funding.
In terms of service maintenance
•	The service plans to sustain current levels of provision in a broad and balanced programme of learning that provides the context and progression for all targeted provision. The Adult Learning Plan will support a range of health, well-being, creative and personal development programmes across Oxfordshire and will actively aim to widen participation in that provision for people with disabilities, members of minority communities, and older learners. 
 
In one area 95% of people accessing Computer Drop-in sessions are ‘older learners’
 
Possible reductions over the period of the plan
•	Learning Areas 8 and 11. These may be vulnerable to the consequences of changed priorities and staff shortages (e.g. exercise, fitness, art and craft tutors, retiring or preferring to operate independently, without the constraints of LSC/OCC funding, though this is balanced by tutors fully committed to working with OCC to widen participation in learning): a possible overall loss of 400 places for learners (but noting that a higher proportion of these would have been full fee-paying than in the categories of learner expected to grow).
The main actions to be taken to deliver the strategic objectives in tabular form 
Objective	Action	Timescale; Indicators	
Assess needs, and widen participation by assessing and meeting the needs of particular groups with attainment below level 2	Countywide, local and course-based needs analysis; seek evidence for smaller geographical areas. Centres specialising in ICT and business skills to continue to base their programmes on well-developed contact with local firms. Provide programmes to meet the needs e.g. the staff of local private homes for the elderly (‘Choices for Carers’); and basic skills and outreach projects to target local employment sectors (e.g. hospitals, Co-op retail outlets, farming in the Witney area).	Ongoing; see Access to ICT below for detail 
Use new census data	

Secure new resources, equity of distribution of resources across communities, and commitment to deprived wards and social inclusion 	Continue to use needs-based formulae, using population, poverty indicators, basic skills, minority ethnic populations, for distributing relevant resources, until LSC formulae apply. Seek more refined, small area, measures of deprivation (e.g. by enumeration district). Target free and very inexpensive courses to wards, smaller areas of need, and particular target groups.	Ongoing
OLP to deliver new analysis of participation by May 2002, to inform partnership planning in summer 2002, and bidding in 2002-3.
Indicator: Initiatives to widen participation in or across districts, funded from sources external to Oxfordshire, in 2002-3	
Stimulate demand for learning in order to attract learners and widen participation in learning, 	Use outreach, print; web and other media for OCC provision and collaboratively	Ongoing.
With partners seek funding for partnership marketing	
Outreach – information, advice and guidance, and a range of learning opportunities, taken to new learners in their own settings	Build on Standards Fund investment in Learning Centre Development and Outreach. Secure funding for independent elements of New Start Adult Guidance Service by July 2003. Deliver ethnic minority guidance targets in ESF-funded project.	Use ESF and other funding applications in 2002 to further develop outreach in 2002-3, and to secure Guidance.
Indicator: Well-targeted outreach projects in all centres’ development plans by August 2002; Number of guidance interviews in 2002-3; Ethnic minority participation targets met. NOF/CMF outreach targets met. Learner data evidence of new participants in 2002-3 (i.e. learners recording no past formal learning) 	
Use the unique features of a Local Authority provider to increase the number of local learning centres, and to secure equality of opportunity for specific groups of learners 	Development of family learning locations as funded throughout 2002-3; new learning centre in Blackbird Leys community library by February 2003; programme development building on launch of Central Library Learning Centre in April 2002	Indicators include number of learners on library premises, LearnDirect enrolments.
See family learning plan below for school, early years, interagency family learning indicators	

Expand the number of first rung opportunities for new learners, with special emphasis on basic skills, ICT	40 Basic skills awareness places for partner agencies as first step to expansion; (most basic skills provision is ex-FEFC); ICT target for plan as bid for: 750 first rung ICT learners; learning for women returning to work, or in poorly paid work related to childcare, learning support assistant work in schools, or care of the elderly: 60 learners, additional to the growth in 2001-2	Learners on basic skills and first rung ICT - see detailed plans below	
Work with parents and families; to make an impact on intergenerational deprivation and give parents and carers for young children experience of successful learning, and education and training guidance, during the short but crucial time when their future work options can be altered	Use close links with schools, Sure Start and other early years providers, including OCC and voluntary family centres. Support needy groups of schools with parent education advice, family basic skills, family workshops, tasters and out-of-school activities
Family learning target for plan as bid for: 900 adults and 965 children
Family literacy target for plan to be confirmed: 	Ongoing with existing resources;
Develop from April 2002 as resourced by new allocation bid for in this plan (see detailed plans below)	
Target other groups of those underrepresented in adult and community learning, or with special needs	Use tasters and short courses to attract and motivate new disadvantaged learners, planning with voluntary organisations for their clients, work with travellers, drug rehabilitation groups, and programmes based on Health learning. Build on OCC research on the value of learning for the health and well-being of older learners	Ongoing; with very many local projects operating specific timescales
Data evidence of new learners	
Improve the quality of learning, and the achievement and satisfaction of learners, by listening to learners and helping them voice their wants and needs	Timescale: 2002-3 tutor handbook (to include new guidance on listening to learners and using learner evaluations;	Handbook published August 2002) 
10% survey of learners March 2003;
Summary data of learner feedback in 2003 development plans, and in county Self Evaluation Report, analysed by curriculum area; analysis of complaints;	
 
Objective	Action		Timescale; Indicators		
Maintaining a range of quality systems to monitor and develop good practice in teaching and learning support		Three in-house inspections, and observation data collected and collated on one third of tutors by July 2003; continue to develop qualifying courses and alternative equivalents (accreditation of prior learning; independent learning materials for tutors)		Ongoing.
Percentage of tutors qualified to teach adults, or equivalent, (target is near 100% by 2003); percentage of grades 4 and over in in-house observation data.	
Continuing to develop curriculum that excites, challenges and retains learners, and actively promotes progress and progression Secure learners’ progress and progression	Continue to develop accredited vocational courses (via the ex-FEFC programme) in the curriculum areas where we have experience, positional advantage, and appropriate premises – such as ICT and office skills and childcare, and actively use the ALP strand to be the first rung, with appropriate guidance and progression routes, including FE 		Develop new approach to curriculum monitoring and development based on 14 areas of learning from January 2002; feeding effectively into programme planning in March 2003
Well-founded curriculum development and learner achievement and feedback		
Develop management and leadership at all levels of the service by improving internal communication	100% working hours access to ICT for all managers and key development staff. 		Ongoing; ICT access by September 2002; if resourced		
Professional development of staff	Participation by staff in OCC management development, national ACL management development, and LSC strategic planning for ACL throughout period. Participation by all staff in briefing and other IIP developments		Effectiveness and efficiency of the service; Performance Review indicators		
Securing management information that is timely and accurate, and that is used at all levels of planning in the service	See development plan below		Accurate and timely data, delivered to LSC on time and used as the basis of plans and self-evaluation. See below		
Managing the change from Local Authority to LSC funding to secure for learners and communities the benefits of both of change and continuity	Ongoing communication with LSC and with ACL national professional and staff development organisations		Indicators: staff well-being, or overload monitored at appraisal; staff participation rates in management development; 		
 
Strategies to improve retention 
The current baseline – the average of retention on all courses, is 71% (though the data for ALP retention is less robust than that for ex-FEFC courses, being historically based on actual hours as a fraction of potential hours, and will need to be confirmed.) With that baseline the service’s target is to improve to 74% by 2003-4.
Existing strategies are: information, advice and guidance – this is provided informally by face to face contact with learners within adult education centres, telephone conversations, written details of learning programmes distributed to interested learners via post and displays in local libraries (course description, information sheets). Formal guidance is provided by New Start – an ACL in-house accredited advice and guidance service which is free to learners.
Tutors will provide learning programme plans with clear learning outcomes. These outcomes are negotiated with learners as far as possible to meet learners’ needs and expectations. Tutors will check learning on regular basis and feedback is given to students, both verbal and written.
Individual centres will often follow up students who drop out of courses; some by telephone, others by postcard. This is undertaken either by office staff or by tutors.
Planned strategies include a county-wide telephone survey of learners to establish reasons for non-retention. This will concentrate on level 2 learners across a range of curriculum areas – higher level basic skills, childcare training, ICT and languages.
Plans to develop significant new areas of provision 
Local ICT
Plan One: significant extension of outreach activity to include specific activities focusing on community development and capacity building in targeted areas of high social need mostly in Oxford and Banbury. This plan supports the Adult Plan emphasis on community and neighbourhood renewal. The plan emphasises supporting community cohesion and participation in neighbourhood partnerships.
Rationale: the plan attempts to narrow the gap between deprived areas and the rest of the county. It targets groups that are significantly under-represented in formal learning programmes and attempts to tackle the sizeable number of county residents who have no formal qualifications at all – approximately 14%.
Plan Two: devise new collaborative arrangements between the statutory and voluntary/community sectors to include the piloting of new forms of sub-contracting. 
Rationale: the plan assists new forms of partnership arrangements and helps broker relationships with key agencies. The county lacks innovative formal collaborations between statutory and voluntary providers in formal countywide partnerships. The plan also helps explore the scope for major providers to offer essential support and resources to smaller community groups to assist their development, growth and continuation. It also assists larger agencies to import new ideas, skills and practices that have developed in more informal situations. 
Plan Three: establish pilot learning communities as innovative approaches to cross-sectoral working. The learning communities initiative as outlined in the County Education Development Plan offer an opportunity to explore networked learning activities with formal hubs in school, community education centre and local libraries. The plan also offers some opportunity to develop partnerships with other sectoral agencies including social services, health and economic development.
Rationale: this proposal is a major project addressing the LSC’s intentions to develop learning infrastructures – the networked nature of the learning community proposal is a key plank in plans to bring together providers within a common strategic framework. It also supports the key development of LSPs within the various District and County based Community Plans. 
Plan Four: a major extension of ICT focused support and development including the use of new technology to develop materials and services relevant to local communities especially marked by high levels of social need in both urban and rural areas. 
Rationale: this plan relates to the implementation of the county broadband network, the establishment of CMF/NOF funded ICT centres, the extension of e-learning opportunities in the county, new initiatives such as learndirect and OVC and extensive plans by provider agencies to require ICT skills in learners. It also helps tackle the growing gap between the information rich and the information poor – the digital divide. 
In several village based initiatives where laptop computers were made available for local use a wide range of community organisations and statutory agencies including social services, health, libraries and housing associations came together to develop IT skills
See below for family learning plans and basic skills

Coherence with other provision (5.13)
OCC has planned its Adult and Community Learning in a single process, making distinction between ALP and ex FEFC provision only where necessary for funding, monitoring and accreditation systems. For instance, Bite Sized and other computer skills tasters funded from the ACL allocation lead to FE-funded CLAIT and other accredited ICT courses; local centres hold open days (for instance Didcot’s ‘See it, try it’) - to try out a variety of activities, leading to enrolments in both ACL and FE strands; unaccredited family language courses have planned progression into OCN and other higher level courses; guidance staff take referrals from and refer to both strands of provision; planned progression for adult basic skills learners and students with learning difficulties may be to either, depending on assessed needs.
 
An Oxford City student is doing an MBA course at Brookes University this year, having come back into learning via a parents and toddlers course in Blackbird Leys
 
The Oxfordshire Learning Partnership and its Adult Learning subgroup include a representative of local colleges of FE, and there is long-standing local interaction between ACL and colleges, much of it based on local collaborative provision and planning for learners’ progression.. There is also a centrally-managed part-time support officer for the district-based interagency Widening Participation Partnerships, where representatives of the 6 colleges of FE in the county, the WEA, the universities, and other providers and stakeholders meet to ensure the coherent development of targeted adult learning and effective progression.
Those groups, or subgroups of them, have successfully bid for European Social Fund projects, and for CMF/NOF-funded laptops, where different and complementary roles have been assigned to different providers from the start (e.g. the Oxfordshire Rural Laptops Project – Abingdon and Witney College and OCC ACL). Several Community Education Committees have representatives on them of other institutions, such as FE colleges, that could be competitors. Unnecessary and potentially damaging duplication of courses (such as GCSEs that attract only small local numbers) has been avoided for many years by formal and informal networks. The newer danger is duplication of community ICT and Basic Skills learning opportunities in a climate of expansion; it has so far been managed by collaborative NOF/CMF bidding and planning, and local contact between practitioners (e.g. OCC and Oxford College ESOL informal joint planning). The implementation of the Basic Skills Action Plan can put that planning on a more formal and strategic footing.
OCC Adult and Community Learning contributes provision to meet the aims of local Single Regeneration Budget and Education Action Zone initiatives, and at regional level LEA adult education provision contributes to targets agreed by the Government Office for the South East and to South East England Development Agency strategic objectives. The LEA has played a key role in regionally-funded initiatives such as the Skills Development Fund and Oxfordshire Virtual Campus project. Its staff have developed and piloted e-learning materials, managed the placement of public access points in seventeen locations around the county and helped establish the Social Enterprise Forum through co-operative advice/guidance and local community co-operatives. 
 
The LEA plays a leading role in a schematic approach to use of major national external funds for setting up local ICT learning centres. This approach has brought together Government Office of the South East officers and district councils, voluntary organisations and education providers, to address in a systematic fashion the distribution of accessible computer facilities in areas across the county, to meet the needs of those who have little or no access to new technology, and who are disadvantaged by urban deprivation or rural isolation.

Basic skills (5.16)
By far the greatest part of Basic Skills provision is funded under the ex-FEFC (ex Schedule 2) Strategic Plan – see the OCC FE Plan. What follows is the planned activity that is mainly ex - OCC Adult Learning Plan provision
English for Speakers of Other Languages 
Newly arrived spouses/others with settled family in the UK have had to wait at least a year for Indefinite Leave to Remain status, but have been given OCC places if there have been vacancies in ESOL classes, funded by OCC. Tthe ACL plan takes over this OCC policy. It is important to involve them in ESOL as soon as possible to integrate them into the community. The service has a member of staff designated as the key contact and source of guidance for emerging issues of ESOL learner eligibility, and the service is committed to using FE and ACL resources as flexibly as possible to meet the needs of all legitimate ESOL learners in the community.
Most asylum seekers are catered for through LSC/ESF funding but sometimes other learner support expenses arise which LEA ACL has funded. 
A project funded from Gruntvig European funding is linking Banbury learners with Spanish and Romanian learners, including travellers – and will develop into projects to build websites and exchange videos
Young People 14-19 
There is partnership work with the Pupil Referral Unit/Youth Service to cater for young people who do not attend fulltime education. While some costs are met, this does not cover management time and organisational support, and within LSC guidelines a small number of these learners will have access to OCC adult provision. There are a number of 16 to 19 learners, who have left school, in OCC basic skills provision. Family basic skills courses support communication and exchange of good practice with schools, but they usually impact only on primacy schools. To work more closely with the 14-19 age group would need more exploration of the funding and curriculum issues. There are strategic and local links with the Youth Service, and a greater contribution by OCC Adult Basic Skills will be explored. 
Voluntary Organisations, and Training for Other Agencies and Community Partners
Local networking and planning in Widening Participation groups is complemented by much collaborative development and day-to-day work. Links were consolidated during the Basic Skills in Local Community projects last year. Basic Skills Awareness Training courses of different lengths are offered to partner organisations (IAG, library service) and to voluntary agencies. 6 hour courses may be funded through the LSC but shorter courses will not qualify and will be funded via ACL. The courses will lead to basic skills support for learners in a range of contexts by piloting a variety of models to support staff and learners, some of which may be informal and not be directly fundable by LSC formula. An ESF bid has been completed to fund a post to liaise with local voluntary organisations (including IAG partners) about their clients’ basic skills needs, and to deliver basic skills awareness training. 
Learning Support 
Learners sometimes do not need extensive support to justify a separate LSC funded course, or may not qualify for additional funding, eg GCSE English/ Maths learners who need 'gap filling'. They can still access basic skills support either in a workshop or through distance learning. In order to offer basic skills screening across county in a range of contexts, the purchase of CTAD Basic Skills on-line screener is being investigated. This could be used by all new ICT learners to identify basic skills needs. 
It is hoped to pilot basic skills support for carers who accompany PLD students to ACL classes. This would enable them to develop their role alongside the tutor to write reports/ witness statements about student achievement for accreditation. ( Funding will be explored with LSC/ESF but a small scale pilot might be advisable to start with.) 
Basic Skills integrated into other curricula 
Since LSC funding for mixed curricula is still unclear, it is proposed to pilot the development of joint ABS/ACL courses, funded through ACL; integrating Basic Skills into other curricula will need further planning and detailed programme work in the forthcoming year. The FE plan has identified additional support, including basic skills support, as a key growth area, for PLD and mainstream programmes. ACL funding may supply support that falls below the FE threshold.
Basic Skills at Work 
Provision in hospitals, schools, the Co-op, and other local larger industries and SMEs, is funded through SEEDA, and a detailed plan has now been developed for agreement by SEEDA for the forthcoming year. Additional funding through ESF co-financing will be sought for joint ACL/BSAW work in mental health contexts. ACL funding is unlikely to be used directly for this area of work, though OCC’s curriculum and materials development, used for short courses across the service, is a key asset for its workplace provision.
Widening participation (5.19 – 20) 
Recruitment - Adult Learning Plan (ACL) only – not FE
Learner Recruitment	To date 2000/01 (some data missing)	Expected 2001/2	Planned 2002/3		
Total Number of learners – all	22341	22480	23646		
Total Number of learners - 					
Adult Learning Plan (ex OCC) only 	17104	17780	18746		
% males – all	26.1%	27%	28%		
% males ALP only					
% With learning difficulties and/or disabilities – all	4.1%	4.3%	4.8%		
% With learning difficulties and/or disabilities ALP only					
% from minority ethnic groups – all	5.1%	5.6%	5.8%		
% from minority ethnic groups – ALP only					
% Aged 60+ - all	23.7%	25%	25.5%		
% Aged 60+ - ALP only					
For information only					
Make up of Adult Population					
2001 estimates 					
		% with LDD	% ethnic groups	% 60+	
Total Adult population 
(over 19)	474, 800	still not available	3.40%	24.80%	
Specific Widening Participation activities (5.20)
Significant activities in year 2002/03 will include: 
•	Extension of targeted outreach activity, for instance to travellers, ethnic minority groups, women and those with low or no ICT skills
•	Significant growth of a broad range of ‘first rung’ activities associated especially with the establishment of locally accessed ICT centres
•	An increase in programmes associated with community development and capacity building within a programme of neighbourhood or community renewal focused on the most deprived or isolated areas in the county. 
•	Growth in ICT based programmes including formal IT qualifications and programmes at pre level one and level one as introductory or sample programmes e.g. for Internet access. 
•	An action plan for implementing ABS support in CMF, including incorporating Basic Skills Awareness training in the preparatory training; on-line materials 
Increasingly Traveller groups are looking for new learning opportunities and a developing partnership between school based outreach to traveller communities and county outreach services is reaching these groups. The more mobile communities – based on fairground or ‘showman’ groups – are now preparing a van based computer facility to join the travelling families. 

 

Building on Standards Fund – Local Learning Centres Development
The main Standards Fund expenditure has been on the post of Local Learning Centres Development Officer and associated project work.
The Officer has been responsible for all OCC’s Capital Modernisation Fund/NOF applications, and many other partnership projects to develop local learning centres in voluntary and other community organisations’ premises, in village halls, libraries, sports organisations, and businesses. The development of ICT learning in the Adult Learning Plan is largely built on the success of those applications, and on other new partnerships. The learning centres developed or advised by the Officer can now offer ICT tasters and short courses to their specific interest groups or to the local general public, feeding FE-funded courses there or at existing OCC centres. 
The Officer’s current (Spring 2002) workload is divided between management of projects he has brought into existence, and a continuing role in initiatives which specifically deliver learning opportunities for adults, or develop partnership capacity to do so: 
ACTIVITY 	PROGRESS	
Bids for ESF – Mature Modern Apprentices (Bicester firms), Outreach Development and Travellers. Networked Learning Communities with schools in Banbury and Bicester. 	All bids submitted apart from NLC – awaiting outcomes. 	
LIF project for trade union mapping	Project activity now completed in conjunction with Oxford Brookes 	
CMF/NOF – managing all projects in Banbury, Wood Farm, Berinsfield and Blackbird Leys 	All projects in Banbury, Wood Farm, Berinsfield and Blackbird Leys now through procurement process – planning for installation now completed for April and May dates – connectivity for broadband underway. Training programme underway including visits, roadshow and partnership agreements	
African Caribbean Centre	Almost completed analysis of funding sources to present to Centre working groups – continue to attend Steering Group and local resident meetings in Oxford School	
Banbury and Bicester Learning Towns	Reconvened meetings of both groups and proceeding on finding funding sources – attending meetings of Bicester Chamber of Commerce	
Charlbury community centre	Completed support for developing new ethos and planning for centre including arranged trips to Birmingham and Buckinghamshire community centres	
Upper Heyford community development supporting new learning programme	Agreed that a community development post be drawn up (for a three year period) sponsored by NOC and advertised as a county post 	
Barton IT Hub	Posts advertised including local leaflets advertising jobs – other planning underway for May reopening of Centre – held meetings with SRB manager and awaiting costings of refurbishment by Oxford city council building works department	
ORASTEEP	Still attending meetings of local refugee/asylum seeker partnership – assisted in successful ESF bid and supporting a work experience programme	
Leader +	Submitted a bid for village-based IT capacity building for pilot in this calendar year and follow up in about 10 villages for next calendar year – initial focus on Stonesfield with Fiona Williams	
Learndirect	Planning for next year – attending steering group meetings – Central Library Westgate planning now advanced for May opening	
Oxfordshire Virtual Campus	OCC Adult Basic Skills Materials Development Project Leader now working on £20k worth of on-line materials development and approval for additional £10k for reopening of original OVC centres	
Oxford United learning centre	Submitted claim for last financial year – about £32k. Deadline of 8th April for decision on whether to continue to seek stadium centre or try elsewhere 	
Capacity building project at Berinsfield	Working with South Oxfordshire Housing Association and Ruskin College to develop collaborative approach to Berinsfield – linked developments to SODC plans for the village	
Miscellaneous	•	Communities in Touch – work to extend this project – support website training in BBL and Berinsfield 
•	Luther St medical centre – looking at potential for IT developments 
•	Supporting Oxfordshire Rural Laptop Project developments 	

Building on Standards Fund – Outreach
Standards Fund was also used to build up the number of outreach workers, and their (normally part-time) working hours, so that every ACL area had its own worker or workers, according to a needs-based formula. Their contributions have been crucial to local widening participation projects, and ensuring that new learning opportunities were tailored to the needs of local target groups of learners. 
 
An Oxford City outreach worker developed Turn Back Time – a research project to look at the effect of OCC ACL exercise programmes on learners over 70 years of age, with Social Services, Oxfordshire NHS Trust, Housing 21, and Oxford Brookes University as partners.
 
Marketing to Specific Learners
These methods will be used:
•	Making use of outreach staff to reach targeted learners. 
•	Seeking additional external funds focused on particular needs groups e.g. ESF for traveller communities, CMF/NOF disadvantaged urban areas, Vital Village funds for isolated rural areas. 
•	Identifying specific base funds for outreach and marketing materials to meet the needs of the most disadvantaged groups 
•	Working in partnership with existing community and voluntary groups in touch with or serving the needs of particular groups e.g. Asylum Welcome for refugees/asylum seekers, the Gap and other Oxford agencies for work with homeless people, the Leys for meeting the needs of people with mental health difficulties. 
•	Designing and delivering specific materials and publicity addressing the learning needs of particular groups e.g. mailshots to homeless centres in Oxford. 
•	Using the materials and marketing channels of other providers to publicise learning and training opportunities e.g sharing marketing with the WEA, county public libraries and delivering materials in partner premises e.g. Employment Services and the Benefits Agency 
•	Targeting specific learners arises from county analysis of a wide range of skills and qualifications data (ONS, LSC, Household Survey etc), making use of information from local surveys and research, liaison with local voluntary and community organisations, analysing current learner profiles and comparing with the population as a whole, building awareness of national or regional issues in non-participation patterns 
•	Direct evidence arising from outreach contacts, feedback from partners in local or county wide partnerships and concentrating provision in those areas or communities already identified (Areas of Multiple Deprivation) as disadvantaged e.g. Blackbird Leys in Oxford and Neithrop in Banbury. 
Family Learning (5.21)
Our proposals aim to create an infrastructure and capacity to build on and expand the current level of family learning within the county. Provision within the county is made in a largely uncoordinated way through adult education centres, schools, family centres, museums and voluntary agencies. Attempts to expand provision often fail due to lack of funding and consequent high fees. Our experience in coordinating Family Learning Weekend has demonstrated substantial potential for development on a partnership basis if funding could be provided for central and local coordination, development work, training and subsidised activities. Our proposals are reinforced by the recommendations of the OFSTED inspection of the service in 2000 (supporting document) which recommended an integrated approach, drawing together parent education, family basic skills and family learning into a coherent offer. All provision will fall within the definition and categories of family learning defined in the supplementary guidance 2002/3. A particular feature of the proposal is that it will provide the opportunity to integrate the management of family basic skills with family learning as a whole. 
The priorities for this bid are:
•	Develop a county strategy for developing family learning as a key element within strategies for raising achievement, family support, widening participation, capacity building and regeneration 
•	Expand and target provision with reference to the above five drivers, supporting local, flexible and responsive delivery via ACLS, often in partnership. 
•	Set up an integrated LEA structure for the management, coordination and delivery of family learning through the ACLS and its partners. 
•	Strengthen county and local family learning partnerships, e.g. Oxfordshire Family Learning Partnership (aims and purpose attached) and local Community Education Committees. 
•	Progression and seamlessness across all provision 
•	Raise quality via quality standards, staff development and monitoring 
•	Widen the curriculum
Proposal:
•	Appoint .8fte Family Learning Coordinator, using a combination of new LSC funding and pooled posts from family basic skills and parent education development. Post will lead on County family learning strategy and manage ACLS family learning and family basic skills.
•	Appoint up to 2fe fractional family Basic Skills Development Worker posts, targeting areas with high indices of social need and underachievement of adults and children and working with schools and local learning centres/agencies. These staff will work with colleagues and partners to develop new 'first rung' family learning activities that will draw targeted families into learning and support their progression to other learning, including family basic skills. These staff will manage family basic skills provision in the targeted areas and will deliver some family basic skills provision (funded by LSC Family Literacy and Numeracy and Basic Skills Agency). Again, funding will be pooled from a number of sources, including LSC family learning and Family Literacy and Numeracy funds, to support these posts. The greatest proportion of funding for these posts will derive from earmarked family literacy and numeracy budgets. There will be no double-funding. 
•	Contribute to maintaining and developing the 'Parent-Talk' parenting programme for the parents of young people at risk of crime or school exclusion.	 

 

£53,000	
•	Delegated funds for family learning to Community Education Areas by formula based on social needs indices. Courses can be free or subsidised Local determination of means and context of delivery through local staff and Community Education Committees. Partnership encouraged, e.g. schools, family centres, libraries, museums, voluntary organisations etc. Creche costs included. 
•	Central fund for piloting county initiatives	£34,000	
•	Accredited training and staff development programme in family learning leading towards C&G 7307 and emerging national framework. Courses to include basic skills awareness. 
•	Develop a range of 'off the shelf' models for curriculum development and set up family learning resource bases at accessible points	£8000	
•	Additional admin and expanded office accommodation for PEDT.	£5000	
•	TOTAL costs (excluding contributions from other budgets)	£100,000	
Targets:
Targets are calculated on the basis of £45 per teaching hour, including creche costs. There is an assumption that delegated funds will be enhanced by 33% by fees. This should enable 900 teaching hours.
Targets for LSC funded Family Literacy and Numeracy are not included in these figures. In order to ensure identification of basic skills needs and progression to basic skills provision, there may be some basic skills components within family learning courses. Targets for such courses are included below. 
While each area will plan its provision according to local needs, an estimate on numbers has been based on the following balance of provision for every 100 teaching hours:
Course	Hours	Participants	
2 parenting courses of 8 weeks each	32	20 adults	
2 courses of 5 weeks involving parents in their children's education	20	20 adults	
3 family learning workshop events with a choice between 5 activities, 2 hours each activity 	30	75 adults
120 children	
2 family learning courses of 9 hours each	18	10 adults 
14 children	
Total for 100 hours	100	125 adults
134 children	
Total for 900 hours	900	1125 adults
1206 children	
At this early stage in planning a county scheme for the first time, we suggest a 20% margin of error. Minimum target is therefore:	 	900 adults
965 children	
Provision will be available throughout the county through community education areas. While family learning is of universal benefit, each area will be expected to target some of its provision on disadvantaged and non-participating groups. The county Widening Participation target groups (paras 5.6-9) will provide the basis for targeting where appropriate. Some target groups may be less suitable for family learning than others. Particular target groups will be parents with few or no qualifications, young parents, fathers, grandparents and carers and, where appropriate, ethnic family groupings. 
Work with disadvantaged groups will be promoted through the following strategies:
•	Allocations within the county will be weighted to give greater allocations to areas of greatest social need as identified by poverty indices. 
•	The targeted areas of need will have additional staffing through Family Basic Skills Development Workers. These staff, mainly funded from LSC and BSA family literacy and numeracy allocations, will be funded from these LSC funds to extend their role beyond basic skills to assist in the provision of ‘first rung courses’ for those who have not been engaged in learning for several years and have few or no qualifications. 
•	Lack of education, training and qualifications is a major causal factor in the cycle of social and educational disadvantage. Therefore in first rung provision, priority will be given to providing adult guidance and establishing accessible progression routes to further learning. 
•	Specific allocations will be made to enable family centres to provide family learning opportunities. Oxfordshire has 16 family centres, all located in disadvantaged areas or targeting pockets of disadvantage. All family centres target disadvantaged families and involve them in a range of formal and/or informal learning activities. Family centres will be able to access funds that have been devolved to community education areas but they will also have dedicated funds to ensure that provision is made. 
•	Funding will be allocated to the Parent-Talk programme for parenting education with parents of young people who are on parenting orders or have been referred because the young people are at risk of school exclusion or criminality. 
•	In areas of social disadvantage our staff will build on local community development practice to ensure that provision is relevant to local community needs e.g. working with local SRB, Sure Start and EAZ initiatives. 
Work with families will include families with very young children and with teenage parents. We will support initiatives that build on the recent Early Start programme and which work with parents of teenagers. Particular efforts will be made to engage fathers and initiatives for ‘Dads and Lads’ will be encouraged. These can be of special value to divorced and separated fathers. It is hoped that families with people with learning difficulties will be able to get involved, building on current ACLS work. Grandparents and carers will also be encouraged to take part in family learning.
This bid has received the full support of the Oxfordshire Family Learning Partnership which consists of a number of partner providers of family learning e.g. PEEP, Family Nurturing Network, Family Links, the Oxfordshire Family Science, Family Centres, the ACLS. This group will receive reports on progress and be encouraged to become involved in planning further developments. Most funds will be allocated at local level by a bidding system to local Area Heads who will hold budgets on behalf of the Service. Partnership approaches will be encouraged. At local level any of the above organisations may bid for local projects alongside local organisations such as playgroups, family centres, schools, parent and toddler groups, museums, libraries and community and youth organisations wishing to work with families.
At this stage accurate estimates on participation are difficult and will depend on the amount of funding available. The following figures are ball-park figures and will need further refining in the light of funding and experience.
•	Number of participating adults 	900 
•	Number of participating children	965 
•	% of adults and children with disabilities/learning difficulties	5% 
•	%male adults	30% 
•	% of adults and children from minority ethnic groups	15% 
•	% adults 60+	5% 
•	% primary school children	75% 
•	% secondary school children	25%.
 
Family Literacy and Numeracy (5.23 - 26)
The service has provided family literacy and numeracy for many years and has acquired substantial expertise and specialist knowledge. Activity has been funded from the schools standards fund (with matched funding from the LEA) and from the Basic Skills Agency which has enabled a more flexible range of provision with additional funding. In 2001-2 the LEA has contributed earmarked funding to enable the provision of 'first step' family learning which includes basic skills components in order to support engagement and progression. A further development this year has been the small-scale development of DfES-funded Early Start family learning programmes in conjunction with PEEP, Oxford Sure Start, the Ace Early Excellence Centre, Barton Village First School and the Bicester Under Fives and Families project (BUFF). Basic skills staff have given training, advice and guidance to these schemes in relation to the basic skills needs of parents and have provided staff for some programmes.
We have every intention of expanding provision in 2002-3 in conjunction with the planned expansion of family learning. 
Provision is planned at two levels: 
1.	A departmental Reference Group determines priorities and identifies particular schools and communities for targeting. The group consists of literacy and numeracy advisers from the Schools Advisory and Improvement Service, Basic Skills managers, the Parent Education Development Team, local partnership convenors and the senior officer for family basic skills. Plans are made in the context of the Education Development's plan for raising achievement and the ACLS priorities for widening participation. The group draws on schools' baseline data for numeracy and speaking and listening, knowledge of individual schools and indices of pupil achievement and social need in order to determine priorities. The Reference Group has selected three geographical areas as being in greatest need of family literacy and numeracy provision: Banbury/Bicester, Oxford City and Abingdon/Didcot/Berinsfield. Funding for the programme outlined below is allocated between the three areas and local partnerships (below) plan courses according to local needs and opportunities.
2.	A partnership group of key staff from schools/family centres and the ACLS is then set up for each area, convened by a local worker. This group then chooses at which locations to run courses and advises a development worker (fractional post) who is appointed to develop provision in the chosen locations. Locations are selected on the basis of local knowledge, indices of adult literacy and numeracy levels matched against schools' baseline data for numeracy and speaking and listening. Thus families in areas of low literacy and numeracy levels, and low pupil achievement are targeted. 
Partnership with local learning centres and voluntary organisations is a key element. These local partnerships aim to ensure that provision is relevant and coherent with other forms of family and adult learning in the area. Collaboration with local adult education centres ensures two-way progression through integration of family literacy and numeracy within a broader programme of family-centred learning. In the areas targeted for family literacy and numeracy, the family basic skills development workers have a specific duty to work with adult education colleagues to integrate family literacy and numeracy within the broader strategy for family-centred learning. .
Delivery methods vary according to the prescribed curriculum and activities and whether the groups are adult or intergenerational. After initial outreach, courses consist of a mix of individual, paired and small group work as well as full class teaching. Assessment strategies vary according to whether the courses are specifically basic skills based or are broader. For the former, standard BSA assessment materials and locally adapted materials are used. These include an initial individual assessment followed by individual action plans monitored and reviewed regularly with the participants by means of learning logs and portfolios. For the latter a similar range of continuous assessment measures are used but without formal individual assessments and action plans. In addition, tutor observation, student and tutor self-evaluation are also used to assess learning and evaluate effectiveness. Accreditation is offered in the form of OxOCN Family Learning and City and Guilds adult literacy and numeracy qualifications.

 
The main programme for 2002-03 will be as follows:
Course	Number of courses	Participants (approx)	
Standards Fund 	 	 	
Family Literacy 72 hrs	5	40	
Family Numeracy 45 hrs	3	24	
Numeracy workshops	3	24	
Additional BSA funding	 	 	
Keeping up with the Children	10	100	
Numeracy workshops	5	40	
Literacy workshops	5	40	
First step courses and workshops	 	110	
Anticipated total	 	378	
It is hoped that, subject to funding, it will also be possible to build on the successful Early Start initiative which targets parents with basic skills needs who have 0-3 year old children. 
The agenda of 'Skills for Life' is closely followed within the constraints of the budget. Contexts are chosen where a significant impact can be made on the generational cycle of under-achievement. This draws the service into close co-operation with other initiatives such as Sure Start, SRB, Early Excellence and family centres. Nursery schools are currently developing family support and opportunities for family learning. A 'Dads and Lads' project is currently being set up from LEA funds and we expect to respond to basic skills needs as they arise. Neighbourhood nurseries are still at an early stage of development but it is intended that, with assistance from 'First Step' funding, we will be able to gain the active involvement of nursery staff in promoting family and adult basic skills programmes. Of equal significance is the recent merger of Education and Social Services early years, family centre and childcare teams into an early years and childcare service. This service will include the lead officer for family basic skills and family learning. We expect this to open up fresh opportunities for family basic skills development with the most needy. This will be further enhanced by the proposed restructuring of the management and delivery of family learning, drawing family learning and family basic skills into an integrated and coherent structure for planning and delivery.

Working in partnership (5.28)
The OCC Service has engaged in wide consultation with major and smaller bodies when reviewing the structure and aims of its provision. The local annual planning cycle ensures that local plans inform and are informed by county and district level partnerships as well by partnerships in individual communities, with other agencies, local voluntary organisations, community groups and employers.
A major national brewery is currently researching a pub based computer access scheme with the County Council as a partner. The scheme will focus on villages isolated by lack of transport and access to shop and other facilities.
The distribution of laptop access in village locations is helping to bring together many service agencies including district councils, health education services, parish councils and rural development services. 
The Bicester Chamber of Commerce’s business plan ‘ Bicester Vision’ is helping bring together education, training and community agencies in a more co-operative approach to promoting the prosperity and development of the town.
The five District level ‘Widening Participation’ partnerships involve a range of stakeholders within each District Council area. In each case, the five District level partnerships have representation from the County Council’s Adult Learning, Youth and Library Services, as well as from the district council, the Employment Service, Further Education, local training providers, and the careers service provider (CfBT). The OCC Adult and Community Learning Service employs and line manages the co-ordinator of these district groups on behalf of the Oxfordshire Learning Partnership. The OCC Service is a partner in specific local initiatives to widen participation funded by or through the Learning Partnership, including Access to HE projects.
 
Widening Participation groups are extending membership to include health and welfare services in collaborative partnerships focused on a broad learning theme.
The OCC Service is and will continue to be a partner in SRB, Sure Start, Early Excellence Centre, Playing for Success, and other national programmes with Oxfordshire locations.
The LEA leads on initiatives to build an electronic learning network within the county linking schools, libraries, local learning centres, community centres and local companies, and the OCC Adult and Community Learning Service will continue to play a full part in interagency bids to widen access to ICT.
The LEA is a major partner in the county-wide Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) partnership and its New Start Adult Education and Training Guidance service provides a significant proportion of the information, advice and guidance available to adults in the county, with outreach as its priority.
The learning communities’ initiative is bringing together cross-sectoral partnerships in innovative schemes to support and promote learning activities. In Banbury this includes a children’s university, mentoring schemes, community safety initiatives and community education developments
Some specific examples of how learners have benefited from partnership are:
Learners on the ‘Moving On’ course in Banbury, Bicester and Chipping Norton, where OCC ACL and North Oxfordshire College jointly planned and marketed a return to learn course. The providers developed a model in which OCC ACL taught the first half of the course, with NOC staff visiting to become familiar to the learners, followed by NOC offering, as the second half of the course, a range of tasters of FE programmes. The learners enroling on full-length FE courses the following autumn demonstrated the effectiveness of the model.
Learners on the Oxford City Access to Higher Education course, managed by the OCC Headington centre, take a broad ‘Contemporary Studies’ Open College Network-accredited course, supported and moderated by Brookes, which enabling them to succeed as mature students in HE because of having acquired secure prerequisite skills.
The Umbrella Project in Didcot brings together the OCC ACL centre, Social Services, and the NCH (voluntary sector) family centre in a partnership for learning which enables clients of each to share the partners’ combined resources.
Learners in the Barton, Blackbird Leys and East Oxford Single Regeneration Budget catchments have a choice of SRB-subsidised free or very cheap new classes, which the ACL centres would not otherwise be able to afford to market as such. New learners in an area of high social need are not put off by advertised course fees and the process of applying for concessions.
Access to ICT for learners (5.30 - 31)
The OCC Service will develop informal and formal learning at its own learning centres, and in the new ICT centres in partner voluntary organisations, for which it has secured CMF/NOF funding. However there is still a dearth of ICT available to adult learners for the mainstream curriculum, and difficulty in maintaining quality, updating hardware and software, and giving full access to the Web, in the facilities dedicated to adult learners which existed before the CMF/NOF initiative and were therefore not new provision. 
The map of provision shows the 14 centres where there are OCC ICT centres for adult learners, which normally have 10 or 12 networked workstations. Because of NOF/CMF community-based projects coming on stream, the overall access to ICT picture is changing quickly, and we have partial, negotiated, access to ICT which we do not own, and therefore cannot accurately audit. By March 2002 there were 58 desktops and 120 laptops on order or delivered for NOF/CMF ACL projects or partnerships including OCC ACL.
We would be glad to work with the LSC to quantify need having determined the criteria for the audit. The ICT centres are listed in the table of all premises given in Annex D. 
The OCC Education Department’s progress in co-ordinating Broadband development should impact on access to ICT for learners (see action plan below).
 
A Wantage-based laptop scheme is placing computers in family homes to enable parents and children to learn together. The initiative brings together several families to offer each other support and assistance in developing home based learning using computers
The OCC Education Department’s objective that supports this area:
To develop e-learning facilities to enhance learning at any age in any place and at any time
Action Plan:
•	Implement the Oxfordshire Community Network (OCN) of fast, secure network facilities across the county 
•	Select and develop, with schools, other learning centres and suppliers, a rich range of e-learning materials and services and make these available to all learners and institutions 
•	Support teachers and learners in exploiting new forms of teaching and learning to reflect these new resources 
•	Monitor and evaluate the impact of these new facilities both locally and nationally on access and outcomes for learners, and review the development programme in the light of experience
A recent introductory event in a village in South Oxfordshire to laptop technology attracted over 75 residents – a significant percentage of the village’s population. They planned their access to the computers and an appropriate training and induction programme. 
In Blackbird Leys the community plans to open 18 IT centres for community access. The aim is to use the facilities to develop local community activity and bring together different residents in innovative ways in an electronic community. 
The widespread use of webcams in local IT projects in Wood Farm and Blackbird Leys (Oxford) Berinsfield and Banbury family centres is planned to develop cross community systems of support and advice. 
County broadband technology is planned to bring together in one network schools, libraries, adult education centres and a range of community organisations in both rural and urban areas. 

Fees and fee policies (5.32)
Until now Centres have been responsible for the setting of their own fees and formulating their own concessionary policies. Whilst this could be justified by reference to the local accountability of the Community Education Committees, it is now accepted that a common service-wide approach to fees and concessions is necessary. The Adult Learning Service is therefore planning to tackle the introduction of common fee policies in two stages: -
•	Firstly, by harmonising fee concession policies across the County in 2002/03. A consultation exercise with Community education Committees is now underway to determine the nature of the policy and after this is agreed in Summer 2002 it will be introduced in all Centres in Autumn 2002;
•	Secondly, by harmonising course fee levels across the County in 2003/04. Currently there is a variation between Centres of about 15% in the standard hourly charge levied on learners (between £2.00 - £2.30 per hour). Centres may need to engage in difficult budgeting exercises as a result of deciding a new standard fee level and it is felt that a year to prepare for this change is a sensible period.
The Concession Policy text to be used across the County from August 2002 is attached as Annex E.
There is a centrally-funded bursary scheme to give full fee remission to needy students in ACL (as opposed to FE) provision, together with subsidised or free childcare, transport, books and materials, as needed. All basic skills, and many Access or Widening Participation special projects have been free to the learner.
Volunteers taking specific roles, e.g. to support the integration of an adult with learning difficulties into a mainstream class, may have their fee waived.
The service has moved towards harmonising its concessions, so that the FE criteria apply, and there are the same entitlements to free tuition and to the various elements of learner support, across the board. The issue for the future will be whether that degree of support is funded nationally for ACL, and whether there will continue to be development funding that can be used to offer free or very cheap introductory learning experiences across a wide range of curriculum areas.
Learner support (5.33 - 7)
Across the service a range of learner support is available:
•	Crèche facilities for some classes
•	A concessionary fees policy which remits fees for those on listed benefits. This policy will be harmonised across all centres by September 2002. 
•	Access bursaries to assist specific students with additional course costs
•	The New Start Guidance Service provides a free comprehensive information, advice and guidance service.
Information Advice and Guidance
The New Start Adult Guidance service is ACL’s guidance service, which provides comprehensive and impartial information, advice and guidance to anyone resident in Oxfordshire, regardless as to whether they are an ACL student or not.
The service works to the Guidance Council’s national standards and is accredited by the Guidance Accreditation Board (GAB). The service is a member of NAEGA and Guidance Practitioners are members of ICG. The service is a full member of the Oxfordshire IAG partnership and represents both New Start and ACL on the IAG Management Group.
New Start employs a team of five f.t.e Guidance advisers and an additional 1.75 f.t.e Information Advice workers externally funded via the Oxfordshire IAG partnership. Recent research has indicated long-term benefits of IAG and the strategic benefits of IAG need to be reflected in more secure long term funding than is currently the case.
In the last full year 1061 individual interviews were carried and a further 872 people, were seen in groups. Additional activities included:-
•	the staffing of information stands at, for example the Adult Learners’ Fair and local community events; 
•	The presentation of IAG services to ACL classes and other organizations; 
•	Presentations made to professionals such as Social Services and Employment Services colleagues to raise awareness of the service and facilitate effective referral; 
•	The supporting of a number of partnership bids including SRB, ESF and CMF/NOF.

A Kidlington student began a basic skills course when she had to give up work, and now has English GCSE, and is about to finish AS Level English
 
Learning support (5.38)
The service offers these forms of learning support:
•	Study skills and language support for students 
•	Basic skills provision 
•	Discrete and integrated provision for adults with learning difficulties(PLD students) 
•	Volunteer support for PLD students 
•	Basic skills awareness training for ACL tutors to help them identify student ABS needs 
•	Study skills tasters for ACL learners on courses with a high theoretical content e.g. ITEK aromatherapy courses 
•	Screening (by a three hour course) for entrants to GCSE Maths and English 
•	ESOL/ABS support for other curriculum areas such as childcare 
Greater use of the Additional Learning Support Funding will be made to provide funding for a range of support mechanisms for students. This will include funding Learning Support Assistants for adults with learning disabilities, providing resources and staff training.
Support staff need to be employed on contracts rather than being employed casually. This will be implemented wherever possible.
A programme of staff training in this area will be provided. This will include:
•	Training for Learning Disabilities tutors on supporting adults with complex needs; 
•	Training for mainstream tutors on supporting adults with learning disabilities in their classes; 
•	Basic skills awareness for ACL tutors.
The appointment of a specialist manager for the Learning Disabilities service in the autumn of 2002 will facilitate the development of a range of training in this area. 
Clear publicity in a range of formats for both learners and staff on the availability of learning support will be developed. 
Risk analysis (5.40)
The likely risks for OCC ALP provision in 2002-3 derive largely from staffing, policy, financial and MIS factors
Risk	Consequence	Remedial Action	
Shortage of qualified staff (notably in ICT) available for various part-time or flexible hours of work , at the agreed rates of pay;

 	Inability to programme as planned 	Advertise imaginatively, use local networks; train new staff locally and flexibly	
Area management staff overstretched or demotivated by the process of change, combined with the complexity of data and other demands; dispersed service with several layers of accountability; sickness or being new in post affecting feasible workloads for staff.	Symptoms of stress, inability to meet planned targets; sickness; consistently long hours and other evidence of poor working practices	Identifying problems early; job planning and coaching by managers, team working, job efficiency and innovative use of local administrative support, as far as resources permit	
The effect of moving more resources into high-effort targeted work at the expense of more ‘bread-and-butter’, easily-managed provision.	Innovative targeted programmes are sustained, but overall learner numbers fall and income may fall	Regular monitoring and analysis of trends; comparison with MKOB and other similar providers; regular review of needs and policy with funders	
Moving from a relatively risk-free but low-investment financial climate to one where investment should back targets, but there is limited experience of the management of substantial risk. 	Inability to invest (e.g. in premises, renewal of ICT equipment, advance training of staff for emerging curriculum needs)	Regular review of funding issues with OCC officers and Members, and with LLSC staff; comparison with similar providers; advice from NIACE; aiming for reasonable permitted operating surplus 	
Failure to deliver overall planned growth after expenditure has been committed; falling income for some segments of work due to unexpected formula effects.	Forced financial retrenchment	Up-to-date MIS; good, medium and worst case scenario forward planning; Regular review of funding issues with OCC officers and Members, and with LLSC staff;	
Failure to collect, input, or have auditable evidence for data for the learners funded, because of systems or human factors, including the connection of Adult and Community Learning premises to Broadband being deferred or delayed; insufficient access to expert systems staff to implement local software upgrades.	Forced financial retrenchment	Advice from systems specialists, Aqua and independent specialists, re MIS
Regular review of funding issues with OCC officers, and with LLSC staff;	
Turbulence caused by factors beyond our control, e.g. Oxford City Schools Reorganisation; government policy on refugees, asylum seekers, and new non-EC residents; employment and housing factors. 	Fewer learners than planned in any given year	Up-to-date MIS; good, medium and worst case scenario forward planning; Regular review of funding issues with OCC officers and Members, and with LLSC staff	
Competition from other providers.
 	Fewer learners than planned; waste of planning, marketing, staffing; poor use of staff energy	Direct negotiation and negotiation in wider partnership context	
The aspirations of headteachers to have greater control over the whole operation on a school site, and to manage at least some of the local adult learning programme, and its resources, directly. 
Internal OCC Review of Lifelong Learning service structure leading to turbulence	Local uncertainty over structure, premises and support; divided energy, and distraction from local planning for adult learners	Regular review of issues with school representatives, OCC officers and Members, and with LLSC staff	

 

Data Collection and MIS Infrastructure (5.41 – 43)
The Adult Learning Service is aware that its current arrangements for data collection are not sufficiently robust to answer present needs, let alone the anticipated developments that the LSC may wish to make. The poor performance in data collection also hinders monitoring, evaluation and development planning. There is therefore an urgent need to tackle this area of work. A significant start has been made with the appointment in November 2001 of a Data Administrator who has the task of improving the current arrangements as far as this is possible and helping to plan improvements in the system. A further step forward is the development of a strategy to plan these improvements. These were outlined in the first submission of this document and are repeated in this section.
As a service we would be willing to take part in any further surveys the LSC might wish to undertake in developing criteria for the use and allocation of funds to support data collection.
Current proposals for Data Collection and MIS infrastructure and capacity to undertake this work within existing budgets
Oxfordshire County Council is funding the roll-out of broadband to all Secondary Schools and some Primary Schools. That handful of ACL Centres which find themselves close to Broadband terminals could be connected at relatively little cost, but this would still necessitate the installation of ISDN or ASDL lines for those Centres where broadband was not an option. The service is funding a survey of Centres to ascertain which of them could most easily be connected. Were LSC support for the MIS bid not to be forthcoming, we would still wish to proceed to install Aqua terminal services, although without broadband for the majority of Centres the system would be less robust and the benefits therefore smaller.
Data Collection and MIS infrastructure bid
Background
All Oxfordshire ACL Centres run an MIS system (brand-name ‘AQUA’). Data returns from centres are collated centrally to create ISR returns three times a year. The current process is cumbersome and rarely delivers data returns on time. In order to make the system for data collection and reporting sufficiently robust to meet the likely requirements of the LSC, considerable improvements are needed in the ICT infrastructure, in the way that the Aqua software is deployed, and in central staffing arrangements.
Priorities for MIS bid
(a)	ICT infrastructure
The County Council is investing £2.2 million in installing a broadband network over the coming year and this will be sufficient to take broadband to key County Council Education and Cultural Services sites. The funding will not cover the full cost of linking those sites to ACL administration centres. We need to find the funding for this capital cost. We are funding a survey to establish the costs of this exercise, the results of which should be known in Summer 2002. Meanwhile we are relying on the contractor’s estimated costs per site. For Centres which cannot be physically connected to broadband we need to establish ISDN lines which can carry more data more reliably than a phone line. 
(b)	Aqua software deployment
We are advised by Aqua that we need to move to a system called Terminal services. This is a server-based system which emulates a Wide Area Network (WAN) and enables each Centre to write their data into one central MIS. This means that collecting data from local Centres, which has slowed up our procedures for so long, would be eliminated, as data would be already present in the system. Investment in a server and new software licences would be required.
c.	Central staffing arrangements
Analysis of the pressure points in the data collection system have shown that the system is vulnerable to staff illness or absence: use of Aqua is a very specialised area and replacement staff are difficult to find and train at short notice. We propose to establish a data inputting support service for Centres which become temporarily unable to fulfil their own data reporting tasks. This would involve appointing a fulltime data inputter and draw on part of a further new data administrator post to manage the service.
Proposed Expenditure	 	£	
Broadband and ISDN installation	Broadband installation for 15 Centres @ £4,000 per site
ISDN installation for 14 Centres	60,000
5,600	
Aqua terminal services	Server
Server licences	8,000
600	
Staffing	Data inputter (inc. on-costs)
Data administrator (.4 inc on-costs)	14,500

9,500	
Total 
(excluding contributions from other budgets)	 	98,000	
Competitive tendering for MIS
Oxfordshire County Council has awarded the contract for installation of broadband and a new finance and personnel MIS to a company called Synetrix. This contract was tendered for through the Official Journal of the European Community in a compliant purchasing exercise. The contractor having been selected, ACL will be able to purchase additional services by negotiating an extension to the contract. Mike King, Project Manager for Broadband (the project is called Oxfordshire Community Network) will be able to give further details and may be contacted at County Hall, Oxford on 01865 816047. 
Aqua was chosen through a selection process which took place some years ago in which several rival systems were considered. Moving to Aqua through terminal services will involve renegotiating software licences, but clearly, the software is only available from Aqua themselves.
To procure the hardware referred to in the table above the Education Department’s ICT systems team would use a mini-competitive bid process, handled by the IT Procurement Officer within ICT Systems, John King. He may be contacted on 01865 456707.
Consultation with other Providers
We have taken advice informally from a number of LEAs with similar dispersed services to our own. These have included Somerset and Norfolk. We have had discussions with our partners in the local LSC area, Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes, and seriously considered a proposal to move to one common MIS system within the area. We decided against it because our analysis showed that it was more the problem of supporting the needs of our dispersed sites that we needed to tackle, rather than changing the MIS system itself. Hence the main thrust of the bid above, which should achieve significant efficiency gains through the introduction of broadband. More formally, two senior service managers attended a recent NIACE conference on MIS and learned particularly from the experience of Wakefield LEA in this area. Wakefield also use Aqua, and seeing how it could be used effectively and successfully in the field confirmed our decision not to change software, but to improve the way we use it.
Benchmarking
OCC ACL is already familiar with the FE funding formula through our work funded through our ex-External Institution status. In that sense we are already benchmarked in our performance in MIS, and as this bid makes clear are very aware of the need to improve our performance, particularly in gearing up our data collection operation to cope with the additional demands in terms of capacity which will be generated as ACL funding comes under the common funding formula.
 
Subcontracting (5.44 – 47)
Currently the service does not subcontract within its Adult Learning Plan provision – it has a small subcontracting element in its ex-FEFC work. Normally the service would expect to work with other organisations by employing and managing the tutor working with their clients. Models for subcontracting, where this flows from and supports partnership and curriculum balance, are being explored – e.g. in family learning where a variety of family centres (national and local charities) and other early years organisations already working with the service may have access to the family learning planned expenditure, if they have suitable and trained staff, with quality and data support from the OCC Service. If there is further change it will also involve local community organisations, who may also receive other funding, e.g. district council, ESF, LSC under another heading. Monitoring would use the same frameworks as the service uses for its own centres.
 
Accommodation strategy (5.48 – 50)
The map at the beginning of this plan, and the list at Annex D, indicates locations currently used – approximately 240 sites at any one time. But by far the greatest proportion of accommodation available to the service is the framework of small learning centres on school sites, combined with downtime in school classrooms. The expansion of the school population in Oxfordshire means that daytime, or dedicated, adult learning accommodation is hard to secure, and the newest housing estates lack any dedicated accommodation for adult learning. Nevertheless the local primary or secondary school is, in much of Oxfordshire, the principal community resource, both of publicly-funded space, and of specialist equipment for learning (e.g. ICT, other tools and technology, food preparation rooms, performance spaces). The service is committed to continuing to enable adult communities to use their local schools, and schools to be enriched by their communities. There needs, however, to be a complementary emphasis on purpose-built learning accommodation for adults, and flexibility, with classes on other partners’ premises and budgetary provision for hiring where appropriate. The ACL major capital scheme addresses the first of those strategic needs, and that need will continue even after this year’s successful bid. A subsequent phase would cover Didcot and some other large new housing developments.
There are possible issues for the OCC ACL service around schools wanting to raise the price paid for adult evening usage, or wanting to manage their own provision for adults, and raise fee income for the school. These are being addresses in a main representative forum, by briefing and relationship-building, and by senior OCC officers’ communication with headteachers and governors as required.
The OCC ACL service has already supplied the LSC with strategies for minor works and disability adaptations. If resourced, the service will put into effect its strategy for major and minor works to meet the needs outlined above.
Outline Proposal for ACL major capital scheme
The Adult and Community Learning Services in the MKOB area discussed with the Local LSC, and received their support for, submitting an area-wide proposal for major capital funding, with a single theme – to build new learning spaces for adult use in priority communities. This was the outline Oxfordshire contribution to that proposal. 
The Oxfordshire costing was for a group of projects to build new learning spaces for adult use in
priority communities in 2002-3
Total approximate value of Phase 1: £585,000 
In the event four of the projects were confirmed as proposals (a satisfactory site in Didcot couldn’t be settled on in the time available) and were granted LSC funding.
(a) 	Phase 1, 2002 – 2003
Cuddesdon Way, Blackbird Leys Estate, Oxford
The OCC ACL service has an 8-workstation open learning centre (LearnDirect access point) here, adjacent to the community library, in the heart of Oxfordshire’s most disadvantaged wards. The relocation of the open learning centre to a larger room with immediate indoor access to the library is already planned. This proposal would enable the whole Library/ACL complex to be redesigned as an integrated learning centre, and a flagship facility in a key location. It will have ICT content and learner support links to the county’s most central LearnDirect facility, at the Central Library in Oxford City Centre, due to open in Spring 2002.
To deliver: Plan preparation, building adaptation including internal partitions,
electrical work, ICT cabling and signage.
Union Street – Central East Oxford.
This site is the best-placed location in the county for work with the county’s settled ethnic minority community and with refugees and asylum seekers, and has some 600 learners using its teaching facilities, with creche provision. It is the base for city outreach workers and the OCC New Start outreaching guidance service. There is already enormous pressure on space and a waiting list for ESOL/EAL tuition. 
To deliver: Adult classroom, additional creche provision, associated facilities	
 
Banbury East Street Centre
This free-standing ACL centre is in Grimsbury is central to partnership work with a wide age-range of learning, including the main ethnic minority community in Banbury. The development would cater for current high priority needs and enable ACL to gain maximum benefit from Early Years Early Excellence Centre initiative currently being assessed by DfES
To deliver: Adult classroom and associated facilities	
South Abingdon	
This project would serve the most disadvantaged wards of the town, where there is currently no OCC Adult and Community Learning dedicated facility. It would build on family learning and other projects the OCC ACL Service has already built up with primary schools and family centres.							
To deliver: Adult classroom, creche and associated facilities				
(b) 	Phase 2, 2003 – 2004
Didcot Ladygrove
This is a fast growing new estate with young families and few community facilities. The main existing premises used for adult and community learning are for evening use only, and on the other side of the town and there needs to be dedicated space for daytime learning, linked with a new primary school
To deliver: Adult classroom and associated facilities	
Similar developments to serve targeted communities: e.g. Carterton, Bicester	

 
Staffing (5.51 – 55)
The detailed information about staffing of the whole service, with full-time equivalence (fte) and in the LSC categories, is attached as Annex B to the submission version of the Plan
 
Accountability and Governance (5.56 – 57)
The OCC Service is accountable to the County Council via the Executive and the Learning and Culture Scrutiny Committee. 
Local programmes for all other curriculum areas are governed by Community Education Committees (CECs) with representation for learners, local business, partner agencies, and schools closely involved with provision. There are currently 27 of these.
Countywide services (Adult Basic Skills, Guidance, Learning Disabilities, some Local Learning Centre Development and special outreach programmes, and the Lip-reading programme, are managed by officers reporting directly to OCC. The specialist countywide service staff work closely alongside other area staff.
It is service policy to encourage mergers when neighbouring committees wish to do so or where membership of CECs is considered too small or unrepresentative, and some have done so. The OCC Service expects that there will be opportunities to debate locally any forthcoming national guidance on the governance of adult learning.

 
Audit (5.58 - 62)
The Local Authority operates under the supervision of the District Auditor, and has satisfied FEFC financial audit procedures as an External Institution, as well as audit for Single Regeneration Budget and European Social Fund projects, and will work with the LSC to refine its audit trails as required.

Quality assurance (5.63 - 68)
To ensure quality and to embed continuous improvement into practice, the service operates a quality spiral framework. Annual development plans and evaluation with action plans, in-house inspection and centre-specific action plans, staff development programme and linked observation are all part of this quality assurance and improvement plan. 
The move from the baseline position will be by tightening procedures and linking quality outcomes more rigorously to development plans and the strategic objectives of the service with clear quantitative targets where appropriate. Development of acceptable ‘measurement’ of soft targets will be researched. An integral part of the quality development will be an improvement in ‘listening to the learner’ in a range of ways for direct learning-quality feedback.
Arrangements for maintaining, improving and reviewing the quality of provision. 
Place of self assessment and development planning (including time used). 
Future plans to improve process.
Present arrangements are:
•	In-house inspection teams review 3 geographical or curriculum areas each year as part of the annual quality spiral. Inspection is based on the OCC Inspection Matters handbook. Until 2001 this was based on the OFSTED headings; the handbook has now been rewritten, to be based on the Adult Learning Inspection’s Common Inspection Framework and its guidance for adult and community learning. Each report is fed back to local committees, published within the service and to relevant county councillors, and leads to an action plan. The results inform development planning for the area and the service as a whole. 
•	A staff development programme of high quality for tutors, with a programme of observations. 
•	Curriculum specialists at manager level provide a consultant service to colleagues around programme planning, developments and accreditation; curriculum leaders at tutor level assist in curriculum development in many centres. 
•	Local and service development plans have been used for 6 years as part of quality assurance. Area Heads are responsible for the implementation of the quality spiral at area and centre levels, incorporating the outcomes of review in local development plans. These development plans are written with the active involvement of community education committee members and other stakeholders within the community and staff. Unit and area development plans are carefully monitored by ACLMT and county overview development plan is then produced. The development planning process is under review currently in terms of timescale and sequence.
•	Aqua MIS is being developed as a tool for quantitative assessment of progress.
Future plans to improve the process: 
•	Self assessment techniques will be incorporated into the quality spiral, with self assessments at centre, area and county levels. 
•	Development of improved SMART target setting. Improved quantitative data available to all managers via up-to-date Aqua MIS.
Brief summary of main aspects of current development plan for improving provision. Means used to monitor progress
The current development plan framework, which is the basis of the 2000-2001 Self Assessment Report which follows this format, with reviews of progress and targets in each area.
Developing information systems; planning and providing adult and community learning opportunities; using resources effectively; increasing and widening participation; promoting equal opportunities; raising standards of teaching and learning; supporting staff development. 
Development plans are monitored regularly by relevant managers and Community Education Committees and appropriate action planning undertaken to ensure progress. Aqua MIS is an important tool in monitoring, but we have yet to make complete use of its power to influence quality assurance and improvement.
The development plan format will be modified for 2002-3 to conform more easily to LSC frameworks.
Sources used to monitor learner satisfaction. Any development work to measure performance of learners or effectiveness of provision.
Learner feedback is currently gained in a number of ways, paper-based and non paper-based. The course evaluation process is designed to be applicable to every course, but with a range of different proformas and other techniques to be found in the OCC publication Evaluation Matters or the standard paperwork in the OCC ACL tutor handbook. Learners comment on a range of topics – learning environment, quality of teaching, achievement of learning outcomes etc. This information is passed on to the tutor, who completes a standard tutor evaluation form, which besides taking account of student comments, evaluates the course in headings taken from the standard programme plan. This tutor evaluation is passed to centre manager who monitors and draws up necessary action plan as part of quality spiral. Thus the voice of the learner is intended to feed back directly into provision. Listening to learners is also an essential element in in-house inspections. 
A development of this area is planned. Listening to the learner will be expanded via changes in observation procedures both in in-house inspection and in staff development; county-wide focus groups are planned, and telephone-based project to monitor retention is in progress and due to report in June 2002. 
The OCC publication Assessment Matters is used by a number of tutors to measurement of achievement in non-accredited learning; development work in 2002-3 will focus on using this more systematically.
The use of Aqua MIS to plan and monitor the effectiveness of targeted provision will be developed in 2002-3, when improvements in data management are expected to have made it both more robust and more timely. 
The service has featured in opinion poll evidence of user satisfaction commissioned by the Local Authority for a range of services. It will continue for the time being to use a simple 10% survey of learner satisfaction (and Audit Commission indicator). There are systems for collecting learner feedback routinely as part of course and programme evaluation, but they will be monitored more closely. The service is developing ways of listening to learners, and building up data that can be analysed over time. 
Highlight good practice in provision.
The service’s in- house inspection process, the staff development programme, including the City and Guilds 730 courses managed by the service, and the routine observation programme including supervisor, peer and self assessment, will identify and disseminate good practice and wherever possible use the skills of exceptional and good tutors in staff and curriculum development. Local, countywide service, and whole service annual reports will identify successes. Partnership, internal staff meetings, bulletins and other internal communication will be used to spread the detail of successful projects to partners, stakeholders and staff. will identify and 
 
Quality awards (5.69)
The service has the Basic Skills Quality Mark, and the Education Department is working towards achieving Investors In People across all Branches.
New Start has achieved Guidance Accreditation Board accreditation.

LSC Performance Review (5.70 - 3)
Drawing on local LSCs’ pilot performance reviews to inform plans, the service will work to sustain high quality and improve performance across the 10 key areas:
•	Quality of education and training and standards achieved by learners 
•	Continuous improvement 
•	Other aspects of leadership and management 
•	Quality of planning (strategic/business) 
•	Data management 
•	Financial viability and assurance 
•	Delivery of agreed volume of education, training provision 
•	Health and safety 
•	Equality and diversity 
•	Other national/local priorities
The service has made the Council’s National Framework for Reviewing the Performance of Providers available to all managers and CECs.
The kinds of evidence that will indicate performance levels in each key area, and outline plans for improving performance across key areas are:
Key area	Evidence	Outline plans	
Quality of education and training and standards achieved by learners	In-house inspection based on the ALI framework. Analysis of retention and achievement via data. Other classroom observations, routine or for induction, staff development or teacher qualifications, based on ALI or accrediting bodies’ frameworks. Learner feedback gathered during inspection and classroom observation, course evaluation, and by other means.	Feedback to tutors from classroom observation; course evaluation and review of tutors’ professional development needs. Analysis of data and observation reports by curriculum area; tutor activities within larger curriculum areas for staff development and to spread good practice and curriculum innovation. Continued use and updating of the nationally-published OCC open learning materials for staff development.	
 
Key area	Evidence	Outline plans	
Continuous improvement	Data analysis, ISR returns, analysis of local, countywide service, curriculum area Annual Self Assessment Reports and development plans, management reports. Monitoring of action plans after Performance Review and in-house inspections. 	Improved use of MIS to monitor progress and ensure SMART target setting.	
Other aspects of leadership and management	Self Assessment Reports, staff development plans, development plans, in-house inspection as above. Induction and appraisal, staff development needs identified.	Use data more quickly and comprehensively to monitor performance of units managed.
Use OCC, LSDA and other national sources of staff development for leadership and management development	
Quality of planning (strategic and business)	Strategic plans and LSC assessments of them, development plans from areas/centres and countywide services.	Develop quality of plans with more accurate target setting.	
Data management	Feedback from LSC/DfES on strategic plans/SAR/ALP. Management reports on use of Aqua MIS and Oxfordshire County Council systems. 	Speedier and more detailed use made of data in planning and managing service, supported by training.	
Financial viability and assurance	Local and central OCC financial information, procedures and audit reports. 	Staff training in financial record procedures; review of financial systems and record keeping	
Delivery of agreed volume of education, training, provision	Area annual reports, analysis of learner data	Refining of needs analysis, role of service compared with other providers. Supervision of local and countywide service managers supported by more timely data	
 
Key area	Evidence	Outline plans	
Health and safety	H & S policies, tutor handbook, induction pack, training programme, risk assessments, numbers of first aiders appointed/trained, class handouts. 	Countywide review of H & S unit-based practice. Monitoring of use of tutor handbook and induction pack.	
Equality and diversity	Equal Opportunities policy and procedures, Aqua data/learner records, DDA outcomes. 	Develop disability and inclusion statements; monitor retention and achievement by range of EO indicators.	
Other national/
local priorities	Data and evaluative evidence for family learning, development of local learning centres, targeting of specific groups of non-participants, addressing rural and urban deprivation.
Evidence of tutors operating according to the FENTO standards of competence	Projects to develop and disseminate good practice in widening participation to the priority groups.
Developing tutor training programmes in line with the new awards	

Equality and Diversity (5.74 – 81)
During 2001 the service produced a set of Equal Opportunities Guidelines which stated the central commitment of the service to:
•	Value the unique experiences of all individuals and groups 
•	Respect people’s right to hold their own values and beliefs and to be free from prejudice, abuse and unfair discrimination 
•	Recognise the right of all people to be included in educational provision made by the service
Workshops to disseminate the guidelines across the county are being organised for Summer 2002. A strategy for monitoring the implementation of these guidelines will be developed by the Equality Group of senior staff convened by the Adult and Community Learning Officer responsible for this area of work. The guidelines have been posted by NIACE on their website of examples of good practice.
This Officer will develop and monitor an Equality and Diversity Action plan to take forward the agenda. A Race Equality Plan for ACL is currently being developed. The Equality Group will convene regularly to monitor progress towards targets. Equalities data on staff and student recruitment and student achievement will be analysed, alongside other measures. 
The service targets resources at a wide range of priority groups to counter individual, inter-generational and community disadvantage: A significant proportion of the service’s work is concentrated on increasing the participation of under-represented groups and widening participation is the major remit of the Adult Basic Skills and ESOL Services; the PLD (Learning Difficulties) Service; the Access Outreach Team; Parent Education; the development of local learning centres and New Start Adult Guidance.
Widening participation activities for 2000/2001 have been listed in 5.20.
ACL also ensures equality by:
•	Monitoring student enrolments by gender, ethnicity and disability 
•	Developing discrete provision for PLD students in accessible locations. 
The summer programme for people with learning difficulties in Banbury is planning to work with Banbury Museum, to achieve a mixture of basic skills with creative work on the theme of the Canal.
In addition a County Development Manager for the PLD Service will be appointed in the Spring of 2002 to co-ordinate and develop services for this client group. An ESF project is currently running which has enabled an accredited ASDAN curriculum to be offered to over 60 individuals across the lifetime of the project.
Widening Participation Partnership Groups are convened in the four District Council areas and chaired by Adult and Community Learning Officers. These provide opportunities for local needs analysis through the networking of key providers, community organisations, District Councils and regional agencies. Joint bids for funding, sharing of expertise and collaborative development of widening participation activities such as Access to HE pathways for Learning Support Assistants have been a direct result.
Participation data illustrates that percentage participation by ethnic minorities is higher than the percentage level of ethnic composition across the County. However, improvement on access to mainstream learning, rather than discrete ESOL courses needs addressing.
Access to mainstream for adults with learning difficulties is limited by availability of volunteer support but does happen for a limited number of students. Where this is appropriate and volunteer support is available, PLD students will be supported to join a range of learning opportunities. 
 
Disability statement (5.82)
See Annex C

Health and safety (5.83 – 88)
The Local Authority’s arrangements for adult and community learners
The Adult Learning Service benefits from the work of the Education Department’s Health and Safety Section, which provides extensive advice, guidance and training to all Education Department staff. Local Health and Safety Policies are in force in all Centres.
The County Council has produced the Part 1 policy, the Education Department the Part 2 policy and Part 3 policies are written by each Centre using guidelines developed by Health and Safety Section. See Annex D.
Whilst the production of a Part 3 policy is the statutory minimum required, the commitment of the Authority to safe working for its staff and a safe learning environment for its adult learners is demonstrated by the following list of policies or guidelines that have been developed: -
Health and Safety Policy – Part 1
Health and Safety Policy – Part 2
Health and Safety Policy – Part 3 
A Practical Guide to Risk Assessment
Risk Assessment Record
Preventing and Managing Stress
Minibus Driving
Minibus Driver’s Checklist
Health and Safety Procedures
First Aid at Work
First Aid – Dealing with Accidents/Incidents at Work
Accidents
Smoking
Aggression – Violence to employees at work
Racial Harassment
Working Alone in Safety
Balancing Work and Home 
The Occupational Health Unit
Emergency Planning Leaflet
Model Emergency Plan
Within the service’s manual of guidance a section entitled Health and Safety procedures outlines the practical steps that need to be taken to implement the Unit’s Health and Safety arrangements. In these guidelines most procedures are written as instructions for all staff to follow. These are included in appendix --
In addition to this the Health and Safety Unit produces regularly updated bulletins and maintains an up-to-date advice service through the issuing of Health and Safety circulars.
The Tutors’ Handbook produced for county-wide use contains a section on Health and Safety and most Centres produce local Health and Safety guidelines for tutors as well. 
A standardised system of accident and incident reporting is in operation and all Centres are issued with carbonised books to record accidents which might result in a report to the Health and Safety Executive.
A set of guidelines entitled Out and about with Oxfordshire gives standardised advice to Centres planning visits or excursions and extends to guidelines on planning trips abroad. Whilst the guidelines are written with school pupils in mind, they embody good practice and Adult Centres are advised to follow them.
Tutors are required to produce risk assessments of the work they undertake. In carrying out the risk assessment they will pay attention to the needs of their client group. For instance, the risk assessment carried out by the tutor of a lip reading class with predominantly older learners with hearing difficulties will be very different from that produced by a tutor for a Keep-fit class mainly attended by young adults.
Communication on Health and Safety issues with learners
Tutors are encouraged through the Health and Safety Policy part 3 to develop a culture of health and safety within their learners. This must begin the notion that everyone has a responsibility for safe working and that health and safety is not an issue to be left to others. Individual learners are therefore encouraged to be proactive in health and safety issues which might affect the whole class or individuals within it. Observation records of craft, keep-fit and Yoga classes show a well-developed culture of health and safety within the classes where health and safety issues are most to the fore.
ANNEXES
Annex A. Structure of the Service 
 	ADULT AND COMMUNITY LEARNING SERVICE - STRUCTURE CHART 																				
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	Principal Education Officer								 	 	 	 	 	 	
	 	 	 	 	 	 	(Head of Lifelong Learning Branch)								 	 	 	 	 	 	
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
COUNTY MANAGEMENT AND SERVICE DEVELOPMENT	Head of Adult and Community Learning																				
	Adult and Community Learning Officer - Cherwell and West						 	Adult and Community Learning Officer - Oxford City						 	Adult and Community Learning Officer - South and Vale						
	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
	 	 	 	 	Development Officer (Local Learning Centres)												 	 	 	 	
	 	 	 	 	Head of Adult Basic Skills												 	 	 	 	
	 	 	 	 	Professional Development Officer												 	 	 	 	
	 	 	 	 	Parent Education Development Team Leader												 	 	 	 	
	 	 	 	 	County Guidance Co-ordinator												 	 	 	 	
	 	 	 	 	County Development Manager - People with Learning Disabilities												 	 	 	 	
	 	 	 	 	County Outreach Co-ordinator												 	 	 	 	
	 	 	 	 	County Administrative, Secretarial and MIS Staff												 	 	 	 	
	 	 	 	 	Widening Participation District Partnerships Co-ordinator (p/t)												 	 	 	 	
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
SENIOR FIELDWORK MANAGERS	Area Heads of Community Education										ABS/ESOL Co-ordinators										
	Centre Heads/Community Education Workers																				
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
OTHER FIELDWORK STAFF	Area Outreach and project workers					Learning Disabilities Team					Guidance Team					ABS/ESOL local and project development workers					
	 	 	 	 	 	Part-time Tutors and Trainers										 	 	 	 	 	
	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
ADMINISTRATION	Field-based Administrative and Secretarial Staff																				

Annex A.i.. Governance of the Service 
 	ADULT AND COMMUNITY LEARNING SERVICE - STRUCTURE CHART 																							
 	 	 	 	 	 		 	 	 	 	 		 	 	 	 	 	 		 	 	 	 	
 	 	 	 	 	 		 	Full County Council									 	 		 	 	 	 	

	Executive
The Leader of the Council and 8 other Councillors appointed by the Council, including the Executive Member with a lead role for Learning and Culture, including Adult and Community Learning 																							

	 	 	 	 	Learning and Culture Scrutiny Committee															 	 	 	 	
	 	 	 	 	15 councillors. Members of the Executive may not be members of the Scrutiny Committee. In addition, the Committee shall include voting representatives of the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches, and two parent governors of OCC Maintained schools															 	 	 	 	
 	 	 	 	 	 		 	 	 	 	 		 	 	 	 	 	 		 	 	 	 	
 	27 local Community Education Committees governing mainstream classes planned for the locality; 13 area head responsible for these programmes, and for servicing the CECs																							
	 	 	 	 	 	 		 	 	 	 		 	 	 	 	 		 	 	 	 	 	
	ABS/ESOL Service local and project development workers					Learning Disabilities Team							New Start Guidance Team						Area Outreach and project workers, e.g. Central Library, NOF projects					
	 	 	 	 	 	(Directly managed by OCC officers, accountable directly to OCC)													 	 	 	 	 	

Annex B. Staffing of the whole of the Service– detailed by full-time equivalent (fte) and by LSC Categories of Work 
 
Code	Category	Comments	Actual staff nos	Annual fte	
01	College manager	Central Service managers	8	7.3	
02	Centre manager	Includes centre heads, staff development officer, parent education team, Adult Basic Skills Area co-ordinators	14	11	
03	Finance manager	 	1	0.45	
 	 	 	 	 	
06	Database manager	 	1	1.0	
08	Other manager	Area managers, p/t Widening Participation Partnerships co-ordinator	15	13	
32	Other professional	New Start Guidance workers	9	6.5	
32	Other professional	Learning Disability programme development (Open Door) workers	6	3.4	
32	Other administrative	 	5	2.6	
32	Other professional 	Outreach and link workers	17	7.2	
41	Database officer	 	2	1.2	
62	Admin assistant	Local centre-based administrative staff, and administrative assistants for central support staff	62	41.5 	
63	Secretary	 	1	1.0	
99	Teaching staff	Full-time (Basic skills) and part time tutors	750	66	
 	Totals	 	891	147.2	

Annex C. Disability Statement (revised January 2002)
Introduction
Oxfordshire County Council’s Adult and Community Learning Service, a part of the Education Department’s Lifelong Learning Branch, welcomes learners with a disability and is pleased to publish this revised edition of its disability statement.
This guide is intended to help people with disabilities who wish to participate in adult learning opportunities within Oxfordshire. The aim is to inform people with disabilities of the appropriate point of contact for information and support covering educational facilities and programmes available, information or enrolment arrangements and other opportunities that exist within their geographical area.
The Department, in accordance with Oxfordshire County Council policy, aspires to being an equal opportunities employer and service provider and this approach underpins its personnel practice and all policy decisions.
The Department is committed to providing educational opportunities for all people to achieve their potential in learning, whatever their age, gender, race, faith, sexuality or ability. The Department acknowledges that everyone should share an equal entitlement to personal, social and intellectual development.
The underpinning philosophy of the Department is that lifelong learning is a right, no one should be excluded and standards should be raised where possible.
Who is this statement for
First and foremost this statement is intended to inform all potential students and users of adult and community learning provision of their rights under the Disability Discrimination Act.
It is also intended as a practical guide to inform all staff within the Lifelong Learning Branch including Area and Centre Heads, Guidance Workers, Outreach, Basic Skills and Learning Disability Workers, tutors of special courses such as lip-reading, tutors, support workers and carers.
Physical access to buildings
The services within the Lifelong Learning Branch of the Education Department are delivered in a variety of settings. Oxfordshire County Council continually reviews the standards of physical access within these environments and recognises that there are always improvements to be made.
The Department works closely with other branches of the County Council particularly where premises are the responsibility of the main user (e.g. schools) and aims to meet the minimum standards for access and use of buildings.
Wherever possible these premises will provide disabled access, toilets for the disabled and other provision (e.g. loop systems) to meet the needs of those with specific disabilities.
It is realised that in many of the buildings where activities are offered the premises are not suitable for, or not fully accessible to, disabled people. It is the policy of the Branch to encourage those who organize programmes to relocate activities into suitable accommodation for use by those with a disability wherever possible. The service has audited access to the premises it uses for organising, supporting and providing adult learning opportunities, and will work with main users of buildings, and with the Learning and Skills Council, to increase the percentage of its premises that people with disabilities can use.
Information regarding any particular centre should be obtained from the person responsible for that centre (see appendix for list of contacts).
Wider access to the learning environment
Centre Heads and other providers of lifelong learning are encouraged to have as wide a range of support for people with disabilities as possible.
All centres will have a fee remission policy which should take into account the needs of disabled students. The Adult and Community Learning Development Plan envisages harmonization of concession policies in centres across the county.
In many instances support workers are available. These include:
•	learning assistants, mentors, volunteers; 
•	information advice and guidance workers, examination and assessment arrangements; 
•	help with fees; 
•	a complaints procedure.
The Lifelong Learning Branch will ask its service deliverers to provide an up to date copy of their individual disability statements so that central support staff can offer relevant advice for enquirers who contact the staff in the Education Department rather than the local provider.
Training
The OCC Adult and Community Learning Service has its own professional development unit which promotes and provides training for managers, tutors and other staff, and programmes covering such issues as "inclusive learning", quality and equality. In addition the County Council provides disability awareness training courses for staff across the county.
Contact points
If you would like information on services in your locality, contact points within Lifelong Learning centres etc the following list covers all areas of the County Council:
Centre/Unit	Contact name	Telephone number	
Banbury 	Debbie Hultman	01295 266763 	
Berinsfield	Steve Reader	01865 340688 	
Bicester 	Sue Lee	01869 241532 	
Burford 	Sue Haynes	01993 822314 	
Carterton 	Laura Hutchins	01993 841776 	
Chalgrove 	Jenny Horsup	01865 400169	
Charlbury 	Stephen Williams	01608 810961	
Chinnor 	Alison Barrow-Williams	01844 354243	
Chipping Norton	Stephen Williams	01608 641644 	
Cumnor and Kennington 	Jan Rogers	01865 862009	
Didcot 	Anne Honeyball	01235 812002 	
Eynsham 	Laura Hutchins	01865 880380	
Faringdon 	Lynn Turner	01367 240922 	
Grove 	Alison Williams	01235 764821 	
Hook Norton 	Debbie Hultman	01608 730052 	
Kidlington 	Fiona Williams	01865 372165	
Oxford, East & South 	Pam Coleman	01865 712094	
Oxford, Headington 	Alison Soskice	01865 768359	
Oxford, North & West 	 	01865 511757	
Sonning Common	Tim Coulson	0118 9723362 	
Thame 	Mary Stiles	01844 213400	
Wallingford 	Steve Reader	01491 836710	
Wantage 	Alison Williams	01235 765021 	
Watlington	Tim Coulson	01491 613004 	
Wheatley 	Mary Stiles	01865 872664	
Woodcote and Goring	Jenny Horsup	01491 681359 	
Woodstock	Fiona Williams	01993 813134 	
Staff contacts
The Oxfordshire County Council disability officer is Alan Sinclair who is available on 01865 815753. The officers with particular responsibility for adult and community learning are Mari Prichard, Mike Bardsley, Suzanne Bridgewater and Hilary Dorling. Help can be provided to improve your skills in reading, writing or handling numbers. The contact for this if the Adult Basic Skills Unit on 01865 778827. Lifelong Learning Branch staff can answer queries or direct enquirers to other services that may be of use, including Early Years, The Youth Service, Student Support, Family Learning within the Branch, and services such as Library information, outside it.
Where to go and who to see if services are not satisfactory
A complaints procedure is available through your local centre or unit, or from the Lifelong Learning Branch at Macclesfield House, New Road, Oxford OX1 1NA. Complaints should be made in the first instance to the centre or unit in question.
Complaints procedures and the relevant forms can be provided in alternative formats.
If you are not satisfied that your complaint has been properly dealt with by the staff immediately responsible please in the first instance contact Suzanne Bridgewater, Adult and Community Learning Officer with responsibility for disability within the Adult and Community Learning Service, on 01865 810525.
If you feel subsequently that there has not been a satisfactory resolution, you have the opportunity to refer your complaint to your elected member of the County Council, or to the Chief Education Officer, Education Department, Macclesfield House, New Road, Oxford OX1 1NA.
Lifelong Learning Branch of Oxfordshire County Council hopes that you enjoy taking part in its lifelong learning opportunities and welcomes your ideas and suggestions. By continuing to work in partnership the Lifelong Learning Branch seeks continually to improve its support of your participation in adult and community learning.
 
Annex D – Accommodation 
a.	Location of premises currently used by OCC ACL continuously – as office and/or learning accommodation (as opposed to premises only used part-time for learning)
 
Abingdon CEC - Carswell School Annex	
Banbury CEC (Neithrop School)	
Banbury CEC East Street Centre 	
Bicester CEC (Bicester Community College)	
Bicester CEC (Cooper School) 	
Blackbird Leys (Able Centre/Basic Skills base)	
Burford (Community College)	
Carterton CEC (Community College)	
Chalgrove CEC (Chalgrove Primary School)	
Charlbury CEC (Charlbury Library)	
Chinnor CEC (Library Building, St. Andrew's School).	
Chipping Norton CEC (Burford Rd Wing)	
Chipping Norton IT Training Centre (ACE Family Centre)	
Cricket Road Centre (Professional Development Unit)	
Cumnor CEC (Matthew Arnold School)	
Didcot - new library	
EASOCEC (Peers School Campus)	
Eynsham CEC (Bartholomew School)	
Faringdon Area Com. Ed. (Faringdon School)	
Ferry Centre(NAWOCEC)-Summertown	
Grove CEC (Millbrook Centre, School Lane)	
Holton, Upper Lodge (Wheatley Park School)	
Hook Norton (Primary School)	
Icknield CEC (Icknield School, Watlington )	
Kidlington CEC, Gosford Hill School	
Langtree & Goring (old School. House) - Woodcote - Langtree School grounds	
Marlborough CEC (Marlborough School, Woodstock)	
Mount Farm CEC (Berinsfield)	
Oxford Union Street ESOL (East Oxford School)	
Sonning Common CEC (Chiltern Edge School)	
Thame Adult Education Centre (Towersey Rd, Lord Williams School)	
The Mill Arts Centre (Spiceball Park) – Banbury	
Wallingford CEC (Wallingford school)	
Wantage CEC (King Alfred’s School East)	

 

 

 
Complete list of premises used (2001)
Banbury
Main AE venue is free-standing CEC centre
Other OCC provision at The Mill
Community Education and Arts Centre	Community Education Centre 
The East Street Centre, Grimsbury – with ICT suite
Other CEC premises on Neithrop (junior and infants) School site 
The Mill is a separate OCC free-standing theatre and arts centre that offers arts-based learning activities for young people and adults 	
 	Village Hall, Community Centre
Bloxham, Deddington, Wroxton, Steeple Aston Windmill Centre, Deddington	
 	Secondary School
Banbury School,
Drayton School, Banbury
Warriner School, Bloxham	
 	Primary School
Adderbury, Steeple Aston	
 	Family Centres
Sunshine Centre, Grimsbury	
 	Other
Baptist Hall, Bloxham;Youth Building, Steeple Aston; Public School, Bloxham; Golf Driving Range, Bloxham; Cheshire Home, Adderbury SSD Home for elderly, Adderbury; Redlands SSD Centre for Adults with Learning Disability;Craft studio, Great Bourton	
Berinsfield
Main venue is attached to Primary school	Community Education Centre Mount Farm, Berinsfield – with IT suite	
 	Primary School
Berinsfield	
Bicester
Main venue is CEC in Secondary school	Community Education Centre within school with IT suite	
	Secondary Schools 
Bicester, Cooper	
 	Primary Schools
Kingsmeadow, Bure Park, St Edburgs in Bicester
Fritwell	
 	Youth Centre 
The Courtyard, Bicester	
 	Village hall
Steeple Aston	
 	Other	
Burford
Main venue is on Secondary school site	Community Education Centre on school site with IT suite	
 	Secondary School	
 	Village Halls 
Burford, Ascott-U-W, Shipton-U-W
Additional venue – a drystone wall in the middle of a field in Great Barrington which our regular two day workshops repair endlessly – only another few thousand feet to go!	
 
Carterton Main venue is on Secondary School site	Community Education Centre within school, with IT suite 	
 	Secondary School
Carterton	
Chalgrove
Main venue is in Primary School 	Community Education Centre within school with IT facilities 	
 	Primary School	
 	Village Hall	
Charlbury	Primary School	
Main venue is Primary 	Village Hall	
School 	Other: Methodist Hall, Baptist Hall, Quaker Meeting House	
Chinnor
Main venue is in Library Building	Community Education Centre in Library Building with IT suite	
 	Primary School	
 	Village Hall	
Chipping Norton 	Community Education Centre within Secondary School 	
Main venue is on Secondary School site	The ACE Centre/Computer Training Centre, Chipping Norton	
 	Secondary School	
Cumnor/
Kennington	Community Education Centre within Secondary School 	
Main venue is in Secondary School	Secondary School
Cumnor 	
 	Primary School	
 	Village hall/church hall/community centre	
 	Other	
Didcot
Main venue is in Youth and Community Centre	Community Education Centre
In Youth and Community Centre, with IT suite	
 	Secondary School	
	Community centre 
Methodist Chuch Hall, Ladygrove Hall (community wing of primary school) King Alfred Drive Community Centre	
 	Primary School	
 	Library	
Eynsham	Community Education Centre within Secondary School	
Main venue is on Secondary School site	Primary School
Eynsham, Long Hanborough	
 	Library Bampton	
 	Village Hall
North Leigh Memorial Hall, 
The Tolkien Room, Eynsham	
Faringdon	Community Education Centre within Secondary School including IT suite	
Main venue is in Secondary School	Primary School (some daytime, some evening)	
 	Village Hall	
 	Other	
Grove
Main venue is in Primary School	Community Education Centre attached to Primary School	
 	Primary School 	
 	Library	
 	Sheltered housing	
 	Village Hall 
Old Mill Hall, Grove; 
East Hanney village hall	
Hook Norton
Main venue is in Primary
School	Community Education Centre attached to Primary School 	
 	Primary School	
 	Village Hall, 
Hook Norton; Sibford Gower	
 	Sports and Social club	
 	Baptist Hall	
 	Brewery	
 	Tadmarton Golf Club	
Kidlington and Woodstock	Community Education Centres attached to Secondary Schools in Kidlington and Woodstock with ICT suite in Woodstock	
Main venues are on Secondary School sites	Secondary Schools
In Kidlington and Woodstock	
 	The Forum Youth Centre	
 	Village Hall
St James’ Centre, Stonesfield	
 	Other
Oxfordshire Museum Methodist Hall 	
 	Sports and leisure Centre	
Cowley & Littlemore	Community Education Centre on Secondary School site 	
Main venue is on Secondary 	Primary School	
School site	Middle School	
 	Secondary School	
 	Community hall	
 	Sports/Leisure centre	
 	Library	
 	Other	
Headington	Secondary School and Middle School Cheney and Bayswater	
Main venue is Secondary School	Primary School	
 	City Council: IT Hub, Barton	
 	Voluntary Sector Training Project 
Oxford Women’s Training Centre, Northway Centre	
 	Community Hall/centre
Neighbourhood Centre, Barton Cheney Community Hall
Headington Community Centre 
Pastoral Centre, New Marston	
 	Private School
Headington School Pool	
 	Other	
North and West Oxford
Main venue is Secondary School	Community Centre	
 	Secondary School	
 	Primary School	
 	Community/Church Hall	
 	Other	
Sonning Common
Main venue is Secondary School	Community Education centre within secondary school	
 	Secondary School,
Reade’s Lane	
 	Primary School, 
Grove Road	
 	Youth Centre, 
Reade’s Lane	
 
Thame
Main venue is on Secondary School site	Community Education Centre on School site, Lord Williams’ School, Towersey Road	
 	Secondary School 
Lord Williams’ School on 2 sites.	
 	Primary School	
Wallingford Main venue is 	Community Education Centre within Secondary School with IT suite	
in Secondary	Secondary School	
School	Primary School	
 	Village halls
Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, Crowmarsh, Moulsford	
 	Library	
 	Sports/Leisure Centre	
Wantage
Main Venue is in Secondary School	Community Education Centre within Secondary School	
 	Secondary School 
King Alfred’s College
St Mary’s School	
 	Special School
Fitzwaryn	
 	Day Centre for the Elderly	
 	Library	
 	Museum	
 	Sheltered housing	
 	Primary School 	
 	Adult training centre	
Watlington	Secondary School	
Main venue is in Secondary	Primary School	
School 	Sports/leisure centre	
Wheatley	Community Education Centre office is on Wheatley Park School site	
Main venue is on Secondary	Secondary School 
Wheatley Park 	
School site	Youth centre	
 	Village hall 
Wheatley; Stanton St John	
Woodcote, Langtree and Goring	Secondary School
Woodcote	
Main venue is on Secondary School site	Primary School	
 	Village Hall, Community Centre,
Goring; Checkendon; Woodcote	
 	Sports/leisure centre	
The LEA also uses a number of other sites that are not under the governance of Community Education Committees, for Staff Development, Workplace Basic Skills, Family and other Adult Basic Skills, and Learning Disabilities Team projects. 

 
Annex E
 
Letter to CECs re Concessionary Fees Policy 2002-03
The following policy has been agreed for the academic year 2002 – 03. It may be further revised for 2003 – 04, so please check before including it in brochures for Autumn 2003. A suggested form of words for inclusion in brochures is given on the following page. Each Centre will need to customize this according to their own agreed fee concession rate, which may be between 25% and 50%. How Centres flag up vocational and vocational courses is of course a matter for them; the symbols *** and $$$ are given as starting points.
 
1. Eligibility for concessionary fees will be as for provision under ex-External Institution work (Schedule 2), but will include people over pensionable age for whom the state pension is their only source of income.
2. The minimum rate of concession will be 25%. However, Centres may vary this up to 50% at the discretion of the Area or Centre Head and may use Centre funds or local access bursary funds to defray the marginal cost. (Learners in receipt of Access funding will need to meet the criteria laid down for that funding). It is expected that those in receipt of a higher level of concession would fall into one of the widening participation groups.
3. Centres may still use local Access funds to give a higher level of support, but learners would apply for these bursaries in the usual way.
4. Area and Centre Heads will continue to use their discretion in running special free or very cheap taster or other courses funded either by New learning opportunities funds, Access funds or Centres' own funds.
 
Oxfordshire County Council
Concessionary Fees policy 2002/3
You may be entitled to a free or reduced price course, 
if you are in receipt of certain benefits
	
•	Vocational courses (mostly made up of courses leading to accreditation or qualification, and marked *** in the brochure) are eligible for full remission of fees. 
•	Non-vocational courses (marked $$$ in the brochure) are eligible for a concessionary fee. The Centre’s concession rate is…. (insert figure between 25% and 50%).
Benefit	Vocational Courses
(marked *** in the brochure)
100% fee remission	Non-vocational Courses
(marked $$$ in the brochure)
Reduced fee	
Income support	ü 	ü 	
Working Families Tax Credit	ü 	ü 	
Job Seekers Allowance	ü 	ü 	
Disabled Persons Tax Credit	ü 	ü 	
Unwaged dependent of someone in receipt of the above benefits	ü 	ü 	
State pension (as sole income)	X	ü 	
Asylum Seeker	ü 	ü 	
•	For non-vocational courses, the reduced fee is shown next to the full fee in the brochure 
•	For vocational courses, you will need to show original documentary evidence that the relevant benefit is valid at the start of your course
	
Learner Support Bursaries
Oxfordshire County Council’s Adult and Community Learning Service Support Bursaries are designed to enable adults to return to learn by part-time study, who would otherwise face particular financial difficulties. 
	
Grants can cover fees, childcare costs, and essential materials, examination fees and travel, but may not cover all costs. The total award for any one student may not exceed £150 in one year, or £250 for childcare provision. Please contact your local Community Education Centre for further details.
 
Some of the courses in Oxfordshire County Council’s 2001-2 Adult and Community Learning programme ~ A Level English ~ Accountancy ~ Aerobics ~ Alexander Technique ~ Antiques Restoration ~ Aromatherapy ~ Art History ~ Arts And Crafts ~ A/S French ~ A/S German ~ A/S Spanish ~ ASDAN Towards Independence for People with Learning Difficulties ~ Assertiveness ~ Astronomy ~ Babysitting ~ Badminton ~ Ballroom Dancing ~ Basic Skills ~ Basic Skills Awareness ~ Beauty Care ~ Biology ~ Bridge ~ Building ~ Business Management ~ Calligraphy ~ Carpentry ~ Circle Dance ~ Circuit Training ~ Computer-Aided Design ~ Computer/Office Skills ~ Cookery ~ Counselling ~ Creative Writing ~ Cross Stitch ~ Deaf Awareness ~ Decorating ~ Desk Top Publishing ~ Drawing ~ English As A Foreign Language ~ English for Speakers of Other Languages ~ Environmental Studies ~ Families And Children’s Courses ~ Family Literacy and Numeracy ~ Family Workshops ~ Feng Shui ~ First Aid ~ Floristry ~ Food Hygiene ~ French ~ Garden Design ~ GCSE Drama ~ GCSE English ~ GCSE French ~ GCSE German ~ GCSE Italian ~ GCSE Maths ~ GCSE Psychology ~ GCSE Sociology ~ GCSE Spanish ~ General Studies Courses ~ German ~ Greek ~ Guitar ~ Health And Wellbeing ~ History ~ Homeopathy ~ Independent Living Skills ~ Italian ~ Japanese ~ Keep Fit ~ Latin ~ Law ~ Line Dancing ~ Lip Reading ~ Literacy ~ Local History ~ Maths And Sciences ~ Music And Dance ~ Music Appreciation ~ Navigation ~ Numeracy ~ Painting ~ Parent And Toddler Classes ~ Parenting Skills ~ Patchwork And Quilting ~ Photography ~ Plumbing ~ Practical Skills/DIY ~ Public Speaking ~ Self Defence ~ Sewing ~ Shiatsu ~ Sign Language ~ Singing ~ Spanish ~ Sport And Fitness ~ Sugarcraft ~ Swimming ~ Tai Chi ~ Upholstery ~ Using A Computer ~ Vehicle Maintenance ~ Webwise ~ Wine Appreciation ~ Yoga ~ Some of the courses in Oxfordshire ~ ~