Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (2009)

ICF GHK was contracted by DIUS to undertake a review of the management information needs of its learning, quality and systems directorate. The directorate has responsibility for adult education, vocational training and qualifications, apprenticeships and the further education teaching workforce. The review was informed by a series of high-level interviews with DIUS civil servants and external stakeholders, as well as an audit of available data sources and research evidence. This information was used to design a revised performance scorecard for the directorate based around the notion of the ‘learner journey’. The learner journey was defined in terms of: pre engagement; decision making; participation; achievement and progression. ICF GHK developed and designed this scorecard in the form of an electronic dashboard which was populated with the data obtained through the audit. The dashboard was developed as a prototype to organise and make sense of wide array of information about adult learning. It encompassed research and data about funded learners and the wider population (in terms of attitudes to learning etc). Significantly, while its primary focus was to capture information about engagement and participation of individuals, the dashboard also included indicators relating to the quality of the lifelong learning ‘system’ and information about the learning infrastructure (for example, the FE workforce and the use / availability of ICT in further education settings).