This is an interview with a representative of the Chester Asian council. He describes the initial stages in the development of basic skills, namely, the identification of learning needs and requirements, from both the individual's and the businesses' perspectives. This was achieved by surveying relevant individuals within the Chester community with whom he was already acquaintated, and then a network of people revealed to him by his initial enquiries. Analysing the information obtained from his questioning, divulged to him that there were many people interested in pursuing food hygiene courses. This is a result of many Asian, especially Bangladeshi, businesses belonging to the catering sector.

This is an interview with the owner of an Indian Takeaway Restaurant. This owner details his employment history; crucially he started as a kitchen porter in London and has risen to be a joint owner and head chef of a restaurant in Stoke. He re-located to Stoke because it was better suited to his needs.
He goes onto explain why recognising skills and knowledge in the form of qualifications is important to him: he wanted to have "something of an achievement" because he had no qualifications from traditional education. This absence of qualifications was not because he did not want them, in contrast he had always desired a good education so that he could support himself and his family back home, instead it was because he was prevented from obtaining them by "family problems" when he was young.

The value of the hygiene course is discussed here from the perspectives of a couple of the participants. This is followed by dialogues on a few issues in its design and implementation by, first, a course tutor, and second, a course designer, which are interspersed with clips of a food hygiene lesson.
The participants considered it an excellent course because it informed them about areas of food hygiene which had been previously unknown to them, it raised their awareness about the importance of adhering to food hygiene guidelines they already knew and has consequently improved the way they work and their hygiene standards.
The course tutor draws our attention to one concept that arises in the course that some participants found difficult; that of negative numbers. "They were not at all sure what was meant by going negative". It is necessary to understand the concept because of the importance of freezer temperatures to food hygiene.
An employee of LJMU, who helped to design the course, reminds us of the importance of being aware of the literacy and numeracy levels of the intended recipients of the course. For example, when educating about how to calculate how long things can be safely kept refigerated before the food becomes spoilt by using the best before label, one has to remember this procedure assumes a certain level of both literacy and numeracy. Therefore, one should gauge what level their pupils are at, and it may be that a colour coding system is more helpful in developing a good understanding of best before dates. Further examples are given as to which areas of food hygiene this idea is particularly relevant, including lkeeping a log of food quantities and stock, monitoring kitchen equipment and programming kitchen computers.

Discussed in this clip are the secondary benefits of the food hygiene course. An employee of LJMU, who helped to design the course, points out the course is important, in addition to the actual food hygiene it teaches them, because it gives many of the participants their first taste of qualifications and training. Also, involvement in the course can often reveal skill gaps amongst the students, often in numeracy and literacy, which course tutors can then try to remedy in parallel with their teaching of the basic curriculum.
An employee of the council then argues what an excellent advert the course is for learning; he has found that people, who have participated in the course, tend to be more receptive to the prospect of enrolling in other adult education courses. Indeed, it is his task to capitalise on this increased receptivity and enrol people in further courses which would be of benefit to them. For example, many participants of the food hygiene course are from the Bangladeshi community, many of whom's English was sub-optimal, therefore he encouraged, and managed to get, many to enrol on a language course that would improve their English.

Within this clip problems encountered during the course are discussed. A participant of the course describes how he found it particularly difficult to understand written English (especially headings) whenever he came across it, so in both the lessons and the exam. He explains this problem stems from having been born, and brought up until he was fairly old, in Bangladesh. Consequently, he only briefly attended school in England.
The course tutor estimates about 50% of people taking his course were almost completely comfortable learning in English, needing only the odd word explained in a different way. The rest, whose native and primary language was Bengali, generally needed his colleague to translate whatever he had just said or written. This translator was also necessary when they took their exam at the end of the course; he translated the questions so they were able to understand what was being asked.

An employee of LJMU again highlights benefits of the course that go beyond the improvement of working practices by education about basic hygiene, cleanliness and safety. She points out that the course actively facilitates interest in further training, concerning either their job (such as more advanced health and safety) or more general skills (such as numeracy and literacy), by signposting local learning resources and relevant courses.
Whilst, the course tutor explains why the continued participation in their course is an excellent example of a "network in operation": the Chester Asian community is fostering this type of education because individuals who participated are, by word of mouth, promoting knowledge of, and positivity about, the course, which is resulting in more people from the network signing up to take part.

This clip discusses ways of engaging basic skills development. An employee of LJMU believes that recently there has been a realisation that, to a certain extent, basic skills have been delivered as an abstract concept and that this may not be very engaging for a lot of people. She is of the opinion that a more effective route of developing basic skills is to teach it through the medium of another subject area, a subject which is related to either their job or day-to-day activities. She argues that this point is becoming clearer as more and more specific projects, such as the food hygiene course, are being successfully delivered to communities and achieving a simultaneous improvement in basic skills.