I recently completed my annual review of Public Accounts, the federal government’s roll-up of its spending for last year.
In fiscal year 2021-22, the Adult Learning, Literacy and Essential Skills Program (ALLESP) received an additional $73,720,043. The funds topped up the existing budget of $18m. The Office of Skills for Success (OSS), formerly the Office for Literacy and Essential Skills (OLES), manages the program.
The additional funds meant the program had a total of $91,729,043 to spend. The increase was likely provided to kick start the new Skills for Success program announced in May 2021.
Overall, ALLESP was not able to spend $71,846,858. As you can see from the chart below, this past year was an anomaly for the program.

The underspending was probably due in part to the size of the budget and the challenges of managing the first open call for proposals fiscal year 2013-2014.
In fact, a look at the projects approved so far in 2022-2023 indicates that the surplus from last year is being spent.
- In the current fiscal year, the Women’s Employment Readiness (WER) pilot program, a sub-program of ALLESP, approved projects totalling just over $38m. The pilots are designed “to test new ways to provide pre-employment and training supports to women who face barriers to employment. The pilots will also test methods to help employers remove barriers that women face in the workplace.” All pilots are due to end in fiscal year 2023-2024.
- Based on the Open Government database, to date, $88m has been committed for ALLESP projects, most of which end in 2023-2024.
If half the committed funds under ALLESP-WER and ALLESP are paid out this fiscal year, the 2021-2022 surplus will be fully expended.