Skills for Life

Local government employs over 300,000 people within the North West and it is estimated that 11% of those staff have difficulty with literacy skills, up to 40% with numeracy skills and there are further weaknesses in ICT and language skills where English is not the first language.

Skills for Life References and Resources
Skills for Life is the national strategy to support people to improve these core skills and through this improve their opportunities. The strategy sets out challenging national targets for literacy, language and numeracy improvements. The Skills Funding Agency provides funding for training to improve core skills through the Train to Gain programme and the government plans to spend a further £1 billion during 2010/11.

The North West Local Government Skills Award is now the framework to support authorities in delivering all skills development commitments, including Skills for Life (SfL).