The impact of the first three years of Newcastle Literacy Trust.
December 1999: Executive Summary

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Basic information about the Trust and the area served
1.2 Trust Policy
1.3 Record of evidence base of the evaluation

2. MAIN FINDINGS AND KEY ISSUES FOR ACTION
2.1 Main findings
2.2 Key issues for action

3. CONCLUSION and authors
 

1. Introduction
1.1 Basic information about the Trust and the area served

Newcastle Literacy Trust has been in operation for three years, initially as Newcastle Literacy Collaborative. It achieved charitable status in May 1999.

Its aims are defined as " to support the raising of literacy levels outside the statutory education system and to promote literacy for the achievement and enjoyment of all who live and work in Newcastle."

The project has completed three years of a projected ten-year life. The initial three-year funding from the National Literacy Trust, supported by funds from the Tudor Trust and Newcastle City Council, is concluded. Core funding for the current year is now in place, provided again by the City Council and this time by The Northern Rock Foundation.

The Trust has three established employees, a director, an assistant director and an administration officer. There is also a one-year, full time post for a literacy development worker. A council of trustees representing the local authority, the business community, local media and regional training organisations supports the work of the trust.

Newcastle is the major town in the Tyne and Wear conurbation. It also exists as a local authority and discrete area in its own right. Politically Newcastle has 26 wards, ranging from the more affluent Jesmond and Gosforth areas to very deprived areas in the East and West of the City. This tends to be reflected in adult literacy statistics. Basic Skills Agency statistics suggest 17.6% of adults have difficulty reading and writing, compared with 15% nationally. However the figure rises to above 20% in nine wards, and reaches 25% or over in four wards.

Newcastle occupies 112km square, and has a population of 276,500. There is currently some concern over population drift away from the area. The resident labour force is 126,400. The most recent figures (October 1998) show that unemployment is 7.6% overall, with 10.8% of men and 3.5% of women out of work. Employment by sector has changed considerably from the days when manufacturing was the most heavily represented sector.

1.2  Policy

Newcastle Literacy Trust aims to harness the energies and expertise of the whole city in order to create a powerful, co-ordinated and mutually supportive network of activities for the enhancement of literacy for the enjoyment and achievement of all who live and work in the city.

1.3  Record of evidence base of the inspection

Three external evaluators working for Community Performance spent a day each scrutinising pre-inspection documentation against the OFSTED framework for adult education, and preparing a series of key issues for examination during the visit. Our range of the observation forms and interview prompts were designed to match the evaluation priorities of the contract.

During the three days and nights of the visit the team scrutinised further documents and reports, examined files of press cuttings, minutes of meetings, funding applications and evaluations, visited partner organisations, interviewed 35 managers or staff from a slightly smaller number of organisation or departments of the City Council, observed five direct fieldwork sessions or lessons, and conducted some further short interviews by telephone. Resources such as audio and videotapes were scrutinised.

Trust staff were interviewed about the aspects of work for which they were responsible.

Confidential letters about the work of the organisation were received from a number of organisations and individuals and these were also scrutinised.

Community Performance would like to thank the members of the Trust for their help in preparing for the visit and providing their time freely for interviews and discussions. In particular we would like to thank Lin O'Hara and Nicola Ward for arranging the programme and organising the documentation, and Lin and Maggi Hunt for saving us hours of time by driving us to and from venues across the City. We would also like to thank the YMCA for their hospitality in putting their conference room at our disposal throughout the visit.

2. Main findings and key issues for action

2.1  Main findings
 

• Newcastle Literacy Trust is a small, highly successful organisation that has, in its first three year phase of operation, succeeded in having an impact on the level and quality of the literacy activity in Newcastle that is disproportionate to its size. It provides very good value for money.
• Newcastle Literacy Trust has a high profile and a well-established presence across a wide range of agencies in Newcastle.
• It has contributed positively to raising the profile of literacy in these organisations.
• The Trust has established itself as an appropriately titled charitable Trust with diverse and influential trustees, and a strong and broadly based advisory body, wrongly titled an 'executive committee'.
• The Trust is very successful in promoting literacy amongst its partner organisations and celebrating the successes of both individuals and organisations regularly in the media. It is less successful in promoting clearly its own services and products.
• The Trust has very high expectations of itself and those it works with, and is held in high regard as a resource for Newcastle. However, the trust has not yet established an agreed set of quality standards against which partners may evaluate their work.
• The quality of learning by staff, trustees, workers, managers and executives is very good, with many people attributing this directly to the skills and commitment of the Trust staff.
• The Trust has become a good source of information and guidance within the network of staff and organisations, and has added value to the work of Careers staff in specific projects. However, entitlement to information and guidance for pupils, students and learners in the community is not as clearly established.
• The Trust has developed a successful methodology, balancing very good levels of expertise and experience, used for intervention, innovation and support, with a clear strategy to share and promote good innovation and practice.
• The range and quality of design of developments and initiatives that have been created in partnership with others during the life of the project is outstanding. From a small sample seen the quality of direct delivery to clients, young people and adults by partner organisations is mostly good or very good, occasionally it is unsatisfactory. At present no one organisation or group has responsibility for quality assurance across the full range of their provision. The trust collects good levels of narrative evidence concerning literacy developments but is less clear about the hard data it needs from others in order to demonstrate progress.
• Communications skills and methods are very good across the range of newsletters, reports and media coverage.
• The work of the Trust in raising awareness about literacy needs and responses has extended the "art of the possible" in hard-to-reach target areas in many people's minds.
• The Trust makes many effective contributions to the professional development of staff and organisations with which it is involved.
• The Trust is responsive to the professional development needs of staff providing good access to courses and conferences; however procedures for the induction, supervision and development of staff need formalising.
• The Trust has a clear vision, and a sense of direction that receives a good level of support from partners. In strategic terms its work is beginning to be seen in the plans of other organisations and departments of the authority, although not always in written form, making subsequent implementation a matter of trust.
• The trust can demonstrate good penetration of its aims and values among local authority officers, politicians and services, some schools and colleges, the library service, the regional training and enterprise council, the voluntary sector, and the media.
• The Trust has been particularly successful in demonstrating the potential demand for literacy activity among the City Council work force, and in youth work amongst disaffected pupils and young people. However implementation of policies and practices across services and departments is at an early stage of development.
• Leadership is strong among Trust staff, and in the balance and range of roles of members of the trustees. The Trust is well supported by a broad and balanced executive committee of practitioners (in practice an advisory group). They come from a wide range of agencies within the partnership.
• In the process of becoming a trust, a strong structure with good management practices has been established, capable of sustaining practice beyond changes in key staff.
• The Trust has succeeded in establishing a financial base for its first year as an independent organisation, with key partners committed in principle for a longer period. It is well positioned to attract further funding.
• Development planning is satisfactory. Priority areas have been narrowed, and there is a general plan of action for the next three years. However the extensive range of activity within the plan has not been carefully matched to available time and resources, and criteria against which the impact of decisions can be assessed are not in place.
• The day-to-day management and administration of the Trust and its resources is good, and indicate a sustainable organisational structure

In order to develop further the impact of the project on the range and quality of literacy work, and the culture within which it operates, the trust, in collaboration with its partners, should:

• Establish clearly, and market, the range of support and services it can provide, maintaining a balance that ensures the ability to provide information, advice and support. Effectively any additional project management should be supported by growth.
• Seek to extend the number and range of Newcastle employers with whom it works.
• Develop a group of "trust associates", which can contribute to the bank of expertise and experience available within trust staff and trustees, widening the project's ability to support and develop work amongst existing and new partners.
• Take careful account of the implications for local services of the Learning and Skills Councils, and agendas deriving from the Social Exclusion Unit, such as 'Bridging the Gap' and the 'Neighbourhood Support Fund', when reviewing priorities for the coming year.
• Continues to extend and develop work with organisations that can link effectively with "hard to reach" young people and families, and strategies that are successful in involving men in literacy activity.
• Widen the understanding of the contribution of information and communication technology, both as a form of literacy, and as a means of delivering more traditional forms of literacy.
• Celebrate and inform the work of good practitioners.
• Continue to encourage partners to include literacy policy initiatives in strategic plans, and promote and support their implementation.
• Explore further the potential of the trustees and council members in strategically expanding and strengthening the influence of the trust.
• In order to sustain appropriate project capacity that is able to meet increasing demands, the trust should ensure that external funding applications by partner projects should contain an element of funding for consultancy, staff development, quality assurance, advice and support or other management services.
• The trust should review its practice as a good employer, particularly by formalising induction, supervision and the professional development of all staff.
• Establish a set of quality standards for literacy work, and seek to establish a suitable, mutual, quality assurance strategy
• Negotiate a longitudinal study of the impact of the project and its methodology on literacy practice and the culture in which it operates, paying particular attention to baselines, and indicators of progress.

 It has been able to do this by developing innovative applications of community development and community education strategies. It has worked in partnership with many organisations, small and local, and large and regional or citywide. Where suitable organisations or groupings did not exist, it has set about creating them.

The methodology has a small number of key and inter-dependent strands that are given powerful expression. It has established powerful groups of supporters across a wide range of influential departments and organisations, public and commercial sectors. It has seized the moment in relation to external themes and opportunities, such as social exclusion, or the National Year of Reading. It has set about widening the thinking and deepening the understanding of individual parents and workers on deprived estates, and of chief executives and directors of key organisations across the city. It has used the power of direct experience of individuals to inform the argument at the top.

When challenged about the inherent difficulties of the work in particular locations or groups, it has embarked on capacity building activities with local staff or people to create innovative models of practice, find resources and motivate and train staff. The Trust has then promoted the success of the learners in the community, the workers and their organisations at an unprecedented level in the media, often, and appropriately, at the expense of their own contribution. It has made good literacy work into a healthy virus that is slowly infecting thinking, policy, development plans and practice. Literacy is increasingly seen as an activity associated with success, rather than with failure. A culture is beginning to change.

It has heartened and motivated sometimes demoralised workers in services over- faced by the scale of the work in front of them. It has done many innovative things once. The challenge now facing the recently established Trust is to strengthen the partnerships, and to make more explicit the approaches. It needs, without losing its ability to create and intervene, to use the strength of the Trustees and partners to implement the policies and practices needed to sustain and enrich private lives and community organisations, and to contribute towards attracting work and inward investment in Newcastle.
 

Reporting Consultant: Paddy Hall 'Community Performance'
Team: Marrilynne Snowden, Mick Murray

This evaluation was funded with the generous support of
The Baring Foundation