In June 2007, the Basic Skills Cymru Financial Literacy team tendered for different sectors to develop and pilot a financial literacy course to be used within the sector. The pilot projects involved the design and/or adaptation of financial literacy resources to support delivery to both adults and children within family learning programmes; the development of a scheme of work and lesson plans; and the piloting and evaluation of each project.

Applications were received from the following sectors: Family Learning, Careers, Prison, and Housing Association. Tenders were short listed and contracts awarded to;

Each pilot project was awarded up to £5000 to develop, pilot and evaluate their projects.

Summary

In summary all of the pilot projects were successful and many of the tutors/organisations can see the benefit and would be willing to continue to develop literacy and numeracy through the context of financial literacy.

Learner retention seems to have been a common theme throughout with only one organisation achieving a full cohort of learners completing the course. Many of the organisations made use of the Basic Skills Agency resources around financial literacy, and all of the tutors developed supplementary resources which were tailored to meet the needs of the individuals on their programmes. This will be useful in the future development of resources which will be specifically targeted for use in these sectors. The development of these resources will commence in 2008/09 along with the development of case study reports from each of the pilot projects and will be available for use and distributed in early 2009 at the ‘Financial Literacy in Alternative Settings’ event.

Following on from comments received from Merthyr Tydfil Housing Association, Basic Skills Cymru are pleased to announce that the suite of OCN units in development have been submitted to OCN Wales for inclusion in their portfolio and will soon be available so that organisations such as Merthyr Tydfil Housing Association/Merthyr College will be able to utilise the accreditation to assist with funding difficulties.