Liverpool is to launch a new community learning partnership to boost adult learning in communities across the city.
The partnership will bring together the City Council’s Adult Learning Services plus four community organisations the Council currently subcontracts delivery of community learning to: Alt Valley Community Trust in Croxteth, Everton Development Trust in North Liverpool, Granby Toxteth Development Trust in Liverpool 8 and STEC in Speke Garston.
The partnership will also include City of Liverpool College and other specialist training organisations delivering community learning in Liverpool, such as Local Solutions who provide learning for carers, Greenbank College who work with people with disabilities, specialist women’s training and education centre Blackburne House and the Workers’ Education Association.
The aim of the partnership is to co-ordinate better the spending on community learning in the city based around the needs of the city’s communities and its economy.
The partnership will see improved promotion of community learning opportunities right across the city and focus community learning more on the Mayor’s agenda for jobs and growth in the city.
The launch will see the signing of a community learning protocol by the City Council’s Adult Learning Services and the other nine colleges and training organisations involved. Following on from that the organisations will commit to working together to produce a Community learning Plan for Liverpool and to identify joint funding bids.
Liverpool’s Cabinet Member for Employment and Skills, Councillor Nick Small, said, “This is an important milestone for community learning in the city. In the current climate it’s right that we all seek to deliver more with less. That means working much more closely with our partners to end duplication and work together to bring in new funding for the city.
“Liverpool’s economy is growing and we hope will continue to grow over years to come. It’s vital that community learning links in to the city’s growth agenda so that everybody has the full opportunity to benefit from the new jobs created in the city, but especially those who been marginalised in the past, like people living in deprived communities, women and people with disabilities.”
