Capability Reviews: Progress and Next Steps - The Civil Service

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departments (SCS Survey 2006). It is these leaders in the SCS who are in largepart responsible for performance management of their own staff and also forcreating an environment where others manage performance effectively. Whilstdepartments are working to improve, this is a difficult process, requiring bothcultural and behavioural change (managers taking their responsibilities in thisarea seriously) and also process change (linking individual performanceconsistently to organisational goals). The challenge is to improve peoplemanagement as a routine part of effective line management and to increasestaff confidence that the skills and systems required to manage performanceeffectively are in place.• Better HR. Many departments now have HR directors who are making asignificant impact on HR and business strategy. Permanent secretaries andboards are engaging with this more seriously, with HR moving up the agenda.There is generally greater awareness that people issues are a core part of thebusiness and that HR is more than a transactional function. There is a growingunderstanding of the complexity and challenge of people issues we face in achanging world and labour market. This is both positive and vital. But there is stilla long way to go before Whitehall HR is ‘best in breed’, with professional skillsembedded throughout the workforce.• Skills development. Again, there are positive examples here. Of SCSrespondents, 54 per cent thought their Capability Review has been quite or veryeffective at developing skills to meet current and future challenges (OLRresearch). But most departments lack a clear skills baseline to build on and anunderstanding of their future workforce and its skills needs. This means that skillsdevelopment programmes are often short term and focused on technical skillssuch as programme management and finance.What is the centre doing to build skills, capacity and capability?This area is dealt with by a number of different players: the National School ofGovernment, Government Skills, CSCG and a number of heads of professionsituated in different parts of the centre and in departments. Considerable activity isunder way.• Government Skills, the Sector Skills Council for government, is fully operationaland has a remit for skills across the whole government workforce. It hascompleted a baseline skills audit of over 40,000 people and is developing a skillsstrategy for government. Government Skills is also considering the next phase ofProfessional Skills for Government, including plans to require all those in the FastStream and entering the SCS to have a broad range of experience.40 COMMON CAPABILITY GAPS: PROGRESS AND NEXT STEPS
Case study: A skills strategy for governmentBackground‘Government Skills undertook a major programme of evidence gathering andanalysis over the course of 2007, and validated the finding of the CapabilityReviews that greater focus on raising skills standards for individuals was a keyelement in the strengthening of corporate capability.ProposalsGovernment Skills has worked with employers in central government to develop astrategic response to these issues which will be launched as a new Skills Strategyfor Government early in 2008.The Skills Strategy, once agreed, will commit government employers to a significant,collective effort to raise skill levels right across the workforce. Implementing thestrategy will deliver, over a 2–3 year period, a new environment in which:• employees at all levels understand the professional skills standards they need toattain, and see the career benefits of attaining them;• employers are working together across government to target investment oncurrent and future common skills priorities;• providers are delivering higher-quality, better value for money skills developmentinterventions that are responsive to the needs of the sector; and• educational institutions are beginning, through a practical dialogue withgovernment employers, to develop fresh approaches to strengthening the skills ofthe talent pool from which we draw our future workforce.Specific proposals for action to make this happen include:• strengthening professions;• setting professional skills standards for all, and linking them to careers;• joint commissioning to meet common skills needs;• investing in a major expansion of apprenticeships; and• starting an ambitious programme of engagement with the higher education andfurther education sectors.ConclusionArticulating, agreeing and launching a Skills Strategy for Government will only bethe beginning of a real response to the challenge of raising skills. Onceimplementation begins, there will be some valuable early benefits, particularly in thearea of common action, but the significant advances in organisational capability willcome to fruition in the medium term, as the strategic changes feed through intohigher skills standards.’• The SCS performance system has been strengthened for 2007/08 to includecorporate objectives and leadership behaviours and to provide for a clear linkbetween business and personal objectives. A Top 200 taskforce has produced aperformance management pack for members of the Top 200 group.CAPABILITY REVIEWS: PROGRESS AND NEXT STEPS41
Page 1 and 2: Capability Reviews:Progress and Nex
Page 3 and 4: This has been an excellent example
Page 5 and 6: 1. Tranche 1 departments: a year on
Page 7 and 8: Department for Children, Schools an
Page 9 and 10: This will act as an innovative and
Page 11 and 12: • ‘Managing for improvement’:
Page 13 and 14: Home OfficeStarting from a low base
Page 15 and 16: Department’s wider agenda. Develo
Page 17 and 18: Ministry of JusticeThe MoJ was crea
Page 19 and 20: A number of significant programmes
Page 21 and 22: 2. Common capability gaps: progress
Page 23 and 24: later tranches have not been able t
Page 25 and 26: or hinder it:‘lack of leadership
Page 27 and 28: All of these aspects came together
Page 29 and 30: Case study: Collective leadership i
Page 31 and 32: • Engaging the wider SCS. This is
Page 33 and 34: Participants’ comments included:
Page 35 and 36: Consequently, the areas of focus su
Page 37 and 38: Building up the supply and demand s
Page 39: Case study: Development work with d
Page 43 and 44: The recent CSR has emphasised the i
Page 45 and 46: At six months after the review:•
Page 47 and 48: Our challenge now is to ensure that
Page 49 and 50: • a more comprehensive approach t
Page 51 and 52: The Tranche 3 report identified the
Page 53 and 54: Case study: The Home Office Strateg
Page 55 and 56: The group is expanding to include l
Page 57 and 58: • The Sunningdale Institute facil
Page 59 and 60: Exhibit 3: Change trajectoriesCapab
Page 61 and 62: original reviews. The re-review wil
Page 63 and 64: Departments increasingly have to wo
Page 65 and 66: LeadershipKey questions that test c
Page 67 and 68: DeliveryKey questions that test cur
Page 69: Capability Reviews TeamCabinet Offi

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