ABSTRACT
The work reported here took place against the background of a major new initiative in Britain, both to understand and to tackle the problem of poor basic skills in a substantial minority of the adult population. Concerns were driven by the growing body of evidence that basic skills diffi culties were a major impediment to successful functioning in modern society culminating in the work of the UK Government’s Moser Committee1 and the ongoing policy development that arose from it, Skills for Life (SfL). This included defi ning national standards for adult literacy and numeracy. These map the range of literacy and numeracy skills and capabilities that adults are assumed to need in order to function effectively in the workplace, in the family, and in the community. A separate set of standards has been produced for literacy and numeracy.
