In a misplaced rush for economic prosperity through vocational training, adults are in danger of elbowing aside their potential as learning and civic communities. In this article, the author argues that a skills strategy must be integrated within a broader learning-for-life vision which ranges over every aspect of learning in health, in social care, in community development, in culture. The one cannot be subordinated to the other. To achieve this at local level, what better than to place a statutory duty to promote and secure adequacy in adult learning on the single organisation available which has the democratic locus and capacity to do so: local government. However, if this is to be achieved there will have to be either a significant review and relaxation of the current adult learning funding regime or a crude increase in the amount of money available to "social purpose" community-driven education. Above all, a greater and more direct involvement of local government in shaping and influencing adult learning might restore the democratic link which has been markedly missing from the past 13 years of "making the wrong thing righter."