The magic of words and numbers opens myriad doors to learning, says DAVID HARBOURNE, executive director of the new Learning and Skills Council North Yorkshire

I'm a great believer in finding out what works well and then doing more of it, because we can otherwise waste a lot of time reinventing the wheel.

A good example of this is in the area of numeracy and communication skills - often referred to as basic skills. In this column, I recently pointed out that quite large numbers of people feel less than 100 per cent confident about their ability to write clearly, or to work with figures.

And for some, this can be a real barrier to achieving their aims in life, whether at work or at home: how do you help your children with their homework if you don't know how to do it yourself?

In the course of my travels around York and North Yorkshire, I recently heard about two very good examples of organisations helping people to improve their use of words and numbers.

One is the Army. I suppose it should be obvious that the Army needs its personnel to be able to do sums and to communicate clearly, but it had not previously struck me just how fundamental this is nowadays.

It's not just the purely military aspects of the Army's role that call for a good standard of maths and English, either. Even the humanitarian aspects of their peacekeeping role involve working with figures, such as calculating refugees' needs for food and the other basics of life, and communicating in clear, simple ways with people at all levels.

Accordingly, the Army puts a lot of very professional effort into helping personnel to improve their ability and confidence in these areas.

The other example is a childcare group. Set up to provide out-of-school care for young people, the group relied on the efforts of volunteers both to get it started and to manage it over the long term.

Like so many voluntary groups, therefore, it needed people to act as secretary and treasurer, and to take notes of meetings. This was the point when everyone at the first meeting shuffled uncomfortably and stared at their feet, because no-one felt confident enough to take on the responsibility.

As it happens, this led to the breakthrough because they realised they were all in the same boat, and they agreed to do something about it as a group. A tremendous amount of learning stemmed from that one tricky moment, and some members are now studying for qualifications they previously thought well beyond their reach.

What the Army and the voluntary group have in common is that they are giving people a fresh chance to learn. They don't label people in any way: they just say, OK, there's something you need to learn. Forget the past - you can learn, and we will help.

Individuals achieve more than just an improvement in their numeracy and literacy. They gain greater self-confidence and - in some cases, at least - a real lust for learning.