Sussex is to share in a £1 million series of initiatives to improve basic literacy and numeracy in the workplace.

The South-East England Development Agency (Seeda) is aiming the funding at the seven million adults in the region who are unable to read and write to the standard of an 11-year-old.

The money is more than a sixth of Seeda's £5.9 million skills budget.

According to the Basic Skills Agency, 23 per cent of people in the UK have basic skills challenges and 47 per cent of these are actually in work.

This means that almost 300,000 people in the South-East are working but are not able to take on anything beyond low skilled work.

The focus of the majority of Basic Skills programmes is on teaching outside the workplace but Seeda has identified a gap in educational provision which it says is critical to the future prosperity of the South-East.

Seeda chief executive Anthony Dunnett said: "This very important area of adult literacy is often neglected. Many people in low skill jobs will be severely held back by literacy problems and in some professions hidden literacy difficulties can even be dangerous.

"We want to bring this issue out into the open and help with career progression and boost the skill base of the region."

A recent study by business information specialists Ernst & Young put the cost of poor basic skills to the UK economy at more than £10 million.

The £1 million fund is being split between pilot projects, which are all partnerships between learning institutions, businesses and councils or community bodies and include the development of a snack bar in Brighton and Hove to help young people develop literacy and numeracy through menu writing, cash handling and developing a web site.