number of committees of inquiry, including its Inquiry on English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), which articulated a wider social vision for the role ESOL could play in empowering individuals and communities, and Eight in Ten, which reviewed the state of adult learning in colleges in England and made a case for new thinking and a new vocabulary to formulate policy and provision for adult learners. NIACE’s 2008 survey of adult participation showed that participation in learning was at its lowest level since Labour came to power in 1997, and, while a number of the least skilled were benefiting from the skills strategy, it was clear, as Leisha Fullick writes, that ‘this had been achieved at the expense of diversity across the system, and of other equally marginalised groups such as the elderly and those out of work’. The decline in the number of adults

engaged in publicly funded provision was startling. More than 1.4 million adults had been lost in the two years between 2004-05 and 2006-07, with the biggest loss among older learners. Modest gains in workplace learning, wrote Alan Tuckett, had come ‘at a very high price for social cohesion, for community wellbeing and for civic engagement’. Train to Gain had seen a number of positive outcomes, not least that people in their 40s and 50s were now accessing training, often for the first time, but there were obvious problems with the programme – much of the public funding channelled through the programme was displacing private money that was already being spent on training, while public support was being taken away from other adult learners to pay for it. Ewart Keep wrote in the September 2007 issue of Adults Learning that the new dawn briefly heralded by David Blunkett’s preface to The Learning Age was ‘fading to nothing ... the wider concept of lifelong learning is effectively dead as an important element in English official thinking’. Providers and employers were increasingly frustrated by what Conservative Shadow Minister for Vocational Education John Hayes termed a ‘Byzantine’ system of institutions responsible for the promotion of training. Alison Wolf warned readers of Adults Learning, in October 2007, that the Leitch recommendations, while promising a more ‘demand-led’ system, would in fact mean yet more central planning courtesy of a ‘whole network of additional quangos’. Demand, she argued, only counted when what was demanded was what the government was prepared to provide. The frenetic pace of policymaking was part of the problem. The sector, Frank Coffield wrote, was ‘now weighted down by layer upon layer of policy, some well-thought out, others ill-considered; some still in place, others abandoned. Most create new responsibilities. But responsibilities are never shared. Some contain not only inconsistent, but irreconcilable, strategies to be run simultaneously. Some move power to the centre, some to the region and some to

John Denham‘s Learning Revolution White Paper included plans to open up thousands of new spaces for adult learning and for a £20 million ‘Transformation Fund’ to support ‘innovative new approaches to reach and engage new learners’

the locality. The upshot is a curious mixture of advances ... and of regressions.’ NIACE took the view that nothing short

of a new settlement for adult learning would do. The Big Conversation was followed by an independent Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning, sponsored by NIACE and chaired by Sir David Watson. The two-year Inquiry, which was launched in September 2007, aimed to offer an authoritative, coherent strategic framework for lifelong learning in the UK. NIACE’s Board invested £1 million from the organisation’s reserves – a significant financial risk considerably magnified by the emerging consequences of the credit crunch. The Inquiry’s 10 commissioners, supported by a secretariat of NIACE staff, invited experts from government, business, academia, trade unions, public service providers and the voluntary and community sector, as well as learners and providers, to help identify a broad consensus for the future direction of adult learning policy in the UK. Inquiry Director Tom Schuller told readers of Adults Learning that ‘a decade after the publication of The Learning Age the task of providing and securing an overall strategic framework for lifelong learning remains as large as ever’. At around the same time, the renamed Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills launched a consultation paper, Informal adult learning: the way ahead, intended to

stimulate debate about informal adult learning in England and pave the way towards a ‘new offer for the 21st century’. NIACE Associate Director Stephen McNair described the consultation as a genuine ‘call for help’ from a Secretary of State – John Denham – who ‘sees the diversity of learning needs, but who has very little money to spend’. Some saw it as an opportunity to reassert the social purpose of adult education, to reconnect adult education to informal, self-organised learning and to make a case for the public value of learning. The consultation attracted 5,500 responses.

Learning revolution The Learning Revolution, the government’s White Paper on informal adult learning, was published in March 2009. It included plans to open up thousands of new spaces for adult learning and for a £20 million ‘Transformation Fund’ to support ‘innovative new approaches to reach and engage new learners’. The paper aimed to strengthen support for self- organised adult learning and to encourage stronger cross-departmental co-operation in supporting the learning dimensions of libraries and museums. In echoes of David Blunkett’s preface to The Learning Age, the White Paper proclaimed: ‘The Government recognises that informal learning can transform individual lives and boost our nation’s well- being. At its best, it can bring people and

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