On the 31 December 2005, former Basic Skills Agency Executive Director for Wales, Rhiannedd Pratley, was awarded an OBE for services to education in Wales during her time at the Agency. Of the sixteen years she spent at the Agency, the last four of these were as Executive Director for Wales where Rhiannedd led the work on the Welsh Assembly’s National Basic Skills Strategy.

Rhiannedd gave up a career teaching science to become involved in the literacy campaign of the 1970s and, since then, all her working life has been devoted to raising standards of literacy and numeracy for children and adults.