The UK government’s £20m Transformation Fund, created to support informal adult learning, has kicked off with the first ‘Early Bird’ projects receiving funding. A mobile film studio for disadvantaged young adults, football training for the homeless and university lectures for pensioners are among the 18 projects that won grants.

The projects, each allocated a share of £1m by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), are focused on learning for pleasure, personal and community development. They aim to cover a range of learning initiatives that benefit both communities and individuals.

The Transformation Fund delivers on commitments made in The Learning Revolution White Paper, published earlier this year, which announced a new approach to improving peoples’ lives through learning for pleasure.

Minister for Further Education, Skills and Consumer Affairs, Kevin Brennan, said: “These new projects will help to transform the way adults engage with learning - be it through music, creative writing, or parent groups - at the same time as promoting new partnerships in local communities.

“Learning for pleasure is hugely important - contributing to health, building confidence and improving community cohesion. In the longer term, informal learning can also act as a stepping stone towards more formal qualifications and employment.”

In a related announcement, the department revealed that the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) has won the tender to manage the Transformation Fund and oversee the distribution of the remaining £19 million grant fund.

Chief Executive of the NIACE, Alan Tuckett, commented: “NIACE is proud to have the role of supporting the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills managing the Transformation Fund. We argued in our response to the Informal Learning Consultation that there is no better stimulus for local adult learning providers than the creation of a fund to trigger innovation and new partnerships.

“There’s already evidence from the ‘early bird’ bids of how creative and imaginative community-based adult learning can be when it’s given the opportunity for blue-skies thinking and the money to put those ideas into practice.”

The fund, available this year and next, adds to the £210m which the Government has already allocated to support informal adult learning. Also invested each year is £360m in museums and galleries, £10m in UK online centres in libraries and other community settings and £21.5m in union learning.

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