Skills agenda
Introduction
There is a pressing need for local government to build capacity in its workforce to meet future requirements. Some of the challenges on the horizon are:
- a tight labour market
- anticipated skills shortages in certain key areas
- an ageing workforce
- increasing demands for modernisation, efficiency and excellence
Workforce Development and Cross Public Sector Working
One way of easing the affects of these issues would be for Local Authorities to work closely with other public sector bodies to look at innovative ways of recruiting, developing, retaining and awarding employees.
The Regional Cross Public Sector Workforce Development Project is an 18 month project to assess the extent of cross public sector working around workforce issues and to encourage and explore opportunities for developing good working practices around this issue.
Workforce development plans identify an authority's strategies for building the skills and capacity needed for organistional success.
Workforce development planning is about acting now to gather the people and skills necessary to deliver effective services in the future.
An authority's workforce development plan should be part of a wider people strategy - or human resource or workforce strategy - and fully reflect the authority's corporate priorities and objectives.
Workforce development plans should be based on workforce planning analysis, which involves:
- identifying the current and future skills and numbers of employees needed to deliver new and improved services
- comparing the present workforce and the desired future workforce to highlight shortages, surpluses and competency gaps
- comparing the authority's diversity profile at all levels with the future local population's diversity profile
For those thinking about producing their own workforce development plan, the IDeA's 3 step approach is helpful.