Literacy and numeracy training for adults has cost the taxpayer billions of pounds but is a waste of time and money, according to a government adviser.

Attempts to help illiterate adults or those who struggle with simple maths have not boosted Britain’s economic output, Anna Vignoles, a director of the Centre for Economics of Education, will say today.

One in five adults has severe literacy problems and two fifths have trouble with numeracy.

Professor Vignoles, who has written reports for the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, will tell a conference at the Institute for Fiscal Studies in London today that short basic skills courses are almost worthless from an economic perspective.

Although such skills are crucial if people are to improve their earning power, they must be learnt early, she will say.

“The array of low-level qualifications available to adults has not boosted productivity and earnings. Gains from workplace courses are particularly small. Adult basic skills training might increase equality of opportunity, but unfortunately it won’t boost economic competitiveness.”

Spending on one programme alone — Skills for Life — reached £995 million in 2006-07. Yet Britain remained in the bottom half of international basic skills league tables produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Professor Vignoles believes that adult literacy and numeracy lessons can improve skills, but only if they are intensive and last for between 100 and 150 hours, rather than about 20, as at present. If this were the case, the cost would soar.

“I’m not suggesting adult education is a bad thing, but these schemes were specifically set up to improve basic skills, for economic reasons,” she told The Times.

She added that the ethos behind basic skills training needed to be rethought, so that it was promoted as a way of helping families, not the economy.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills said: “We have no intention of writing off the 12 million adults who struggle with literacy or numeracy. The £5 billion we have spent since our Skills for Life strategy was launched in 2001 has enabled 5.7 million people to go on 12 million literacy, language and numeracy courses, with over 2.8 million achieving first qualifications. We consider it money well spent.”

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