The Adult Community Learning Partnerships tool has been commissioned by the Welsh Government and co-produced by Learning and Work Institute and local ACL Partnerships, with input from national stakeholders including Welsh Government, Estyn, Adult Learning Wales, ColegauCymru, Careers Wales and Holex.

This tool is designed to support Adult Community Learning (ACL) Partnerships across Wales work together more effectively. It provides a structured framework for planning, reviewing, and improving their collaborative practices.

Key benefits include

• Mapping current collaboration: Understanding how ACL Partnerships are currently coordinating their activities, both strategically and operationally.
• Identifying areas for improvement: Pinpointing opportunities to enhance collaborative practices.
• Providing a consistent approach: Benefiting from a standardised model that can be applied across Wales while still reflecting local and regional differences.

The tool draws on evidence and insights from

• a rapid review of evidence on current practice in the work of ACL Partnerships in Wales and other ACL partnership models from across the UK and internationally,
• six scoping interviews with national strategic stakeholders who offered a range of perspectives on the current strengths and challenges of the Partnerships,
• in-depth interviews with five local Partnerships which were chosen to illustrate a range of evolving practice in ACL partnership working,
• an in-person workshop for Partnerships and stakeholders, to review and develop the tool
• two meetings of the project’s strategic advisory group.

The resource is divided into five domains which reflect high-level themes of ACL Partnership practice: