Functional Skills at KS3?

I've just been catching up on three weeks worth of TES - one of the pleasures of a short holiday in August.

One story that caught my eye was Functional Skills at Key Stage 3. I found this a little bit hard to understand at first and in fact a colleague from another company phoned me to ask what it was all about and I had to admit I didn't know anything about it!

In all fairness, I still haven't got to the bottom of my understanding but I think that it's to do with the new KS3 curriculum that starts now with the roll out this year to year 7 only. I shall do some more digging - in the meantime if anyone knows out there - your comments welcomed.