Adult literacy

24 March 2022

Dear

ATISN 16091 – Adult Literacy

Thank you for your request dated 16 February 2022 for the following information:

• Who (and what department) is responsible for addressing adult literacy in Wales and how much money has been spent on this in the last three years? 
• Which public, private or charitable organisations have been allocated this funding?
• What criteria have been used to a) determine allocation of funding b) predict likely success of interventions?
• How has the success of interventions over the last three years been evaluated?

I received your email clarifying the request further, on 2 March 2022, where you asked for the most recent statistics showing the level of functional literacy in the population and what proportion of people are without functional literacy, specifically those who:

• Do not have English as their first language
• Have an identified learning disability
• Have diagnosed or suspected dyslexia
• Have a prison record
• Have a mental health difficulty for which they have been referred for intervention.

You also requested any other demographic breakdown by:

• Age
• Gender
• Geography - eg by county
• Living in area of recognised deprivation
• Rural vs urban

Our response

The latest statistics for adult literacy in Wales were published in 2011.

In terms of a demographic breakdown such as by: Age, Gender, Geography, Living in area of recognised deprivation and rural vs urban. Following a search of our paper and electronic records, I have established that the information you require is not held by the Welsh Government. 

Who (and what department) is responsible for addressing adult literacy in Wales?  Huw Morris is responsible as the Director of Skills, Higher Education and Lifelong Learning in Wales.

How much money has been spent on this in the last three years?  Which public, private or charitable organisations have been allocated this funding? From my preliminary assessment, I estimate that it will cost more than the appropriate limit set out in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 to answer these parts of your request.  The appropriate limit specified for central government is £600. This represents the estimated cost of it taking over 24 hours of time to determine whether we hold the information and to thereafter locate, retrieve and extract it.

In order to identify and collate the information that you have requested it would require a detailed examination of all skills, employability and adult education programmes in operation, to try to identify and disaggregate or estimate activities as there is no specific funding stream for adult literacy programmes.

This is likely to take at least 300 hrs in order to identify whether or not we hold the requested information and to conduct the subsequent collation and interrogation activities.  This is based upon a sampling exercise looking at one potential funding stream over the period requested. There are at least 8 potential funding streams to be interrogated. Consequently, I have decided not to provide you with the information you have requested. 

As for copies of the criteria have been used to a) determine allocation of funding.  We support employability and skills programmes and adult education services and as such do not have a specific criteria or a specific funding stream for adult literacy programmes. 

Predict likely success of interventions.  Following a search of our paper and electronic records, I have established that the information you require is not held by the Welsh Government within a readily available format.  This is because we support employability and skills programmes and adult education services and not specific adult literacy programmes so we do not have information on the predicted the success of adult literacy programmes.

How has the success of interventions over the last three years been evaluated?

Following a search of our paper and electronic records, I have established that the information you require is not held by the Welsh Government within a readily available format. This is because we support employability and skills programmes and adult education services and as such do not have evaluations on adult literacy.  We do have wider skills and employability evaluations which can be found by following the links below:

Employer Skills Survey: 2019
Qualification levels (StatsWales)

Next steps

If you are dissatisfied with the Welsh Government’s handling of your request, you can ask for an internal review within 40 working days of the date of this response. Requests for an internal review should be addressed to the Welsh Government’s Freedom of Information Officer at: Information Rights Unit, Welsh Government, Cathays Park, Cardiff, CF10 3NQ or Email: Freedom.ofinformation@gov.wales

Please remember to quote the ATISN reference number above.   

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: 

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF 

However, please note that the Commissioner will not normally investigate a complaint until it has been through our own internal review process.

Yours sincerely