The UK Government has committed to the creation of a National Retraining Scheme (NRS) which will aim to prepare workers for future changes to the economy, including through automation, to retrain into better jobs.

To inform the development of the National Retraining Scheme, the Department for Education (DfE) established the Cost and Outreach Pilots to test:

• what approaches to outreach are most successful at engaging adults in learning;
• whether offering a subsidy to the course fee encourages the uptake of learning.

Learning and Work Institute worked as DfE’s development and evaluation partner on the pilots.

The evaluation focused on assessing the impact of the pilots on:

• the level of participation in learning, course completions and the achievement of qualifications in pilot areas;
• the profile of learners in pilot areas;
• outcomes for individuals who took part in the pilot.

The evaluation also assessed how and why impacts were achieved and the approaches that were most and least effective.