Ealing is a diverse London borough with a large migrant population. In 2005 we had about 12,000 arrivals, and more than 100 languages are spoken in our schools.

Without speaking English it is very difficult for migrants to find employment, and it makes it harder to integrate socially. In the borough, we have many different providers of English for speakers of other languages (Esol), from the local college to church groups or social landlords.

These providers are all funded by different agencies or Government departments and are all trying to achieve different outcomes. This means that the quality of Esol being taught is variable. Some teachers are very good but others have no formal training or don't have the resources to assess a migrant's needs properly. Not all the groups are helping people to learn or progress with their English as well as they could.

We realised that a newly arrived migrant is far more likely to approach a local community group than a big institution. A college might have the best qualifications available but a migrant often won't go near it. We knew that there were areas of the borough where migrants were being overlooked by the system and we were concerned they were slipping through the net. So we decided to set a standard for all providers of Esol teaching in Ealing. We approached the Improvement and Development Agency, which runs a Migration Excellence programme to help councils get to grips with the issues presented by migration.

The first step has been to join the funding streams together - finding out how much money is out there, which groups of migrants are a priority for us and deciding how we can agree on what to do with the money. Working out exactly how many groups are teaching Esol and how much was being spent was more difficult than it seemed.

Now we are going out to providers in the community and need to agree who does the initial assessment and feel sure that the standards we put in place are going to be deliverable.

Our Esol providers are strong in different ways. For example, some teachers rated “excellent” by Ofsted may not reach as many learners in our target groups as a community organisation that may also be able to stay with learners and monitor their progress.

We don't want to close down any Esol groups. For those not meeting the standard, we want to support them and find different ways of working. It might be that the college takes on a mentoring role for organisations that are struggling to provide good quality Esol, for example. When the standard is in place, whichever organisation a person chooses to visit will be able to do a proper assessment and either provide for them or refer them elsewhere.

One challenge is that the population is always changing - we have a churn of about 25 per cent. Different Government departments have different perspectives on Esol provision, which makes things difficult, and the level of demand is outstripping what colleges can supply. Lessons are not free and there are big questions over funding in the future.

It is an area that a lot of councils are struggling with, but, as far as I know, no one has brought in a recognised standard.

— Matthew Booth is head of policy for the London Borough of Ealing

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