Skills Audits
Workforce planning is a vital tool that allows authorities both to make the best use of their resources now, and to build capacity for the future. The heart of these resources is an authority’s people: without the right people, no business process re-engineering or finance planning will deliver the performance changes currently being demanded of local government. In contrast, huge improvements in performance come when the right people with the right knowledge, skills and behaviours are deployed appropriately throughout an authority.
Workforce planning is about achieving that effective distribution of people, and a successful skills audit is a key part of it. Workforce planning provides the link between business strategy and implementation – providing crucial information to support decisions in areas such as recruitment and retention, staff development and training. An essential part of this information is a clear understanding of an authority’s capability, as a whole, by department, and by individual – this is information that cannot be gathered without a skills audit.
A skills audit allows an authority to analyse its current workforce’s skills, and to compare those with the skill levels required. It also allows an assessment of skills and competencies likely to be needed in the future to deliver new and improved services.
As a part of a coherent workforce planning process, skills audits lead to a number of benefits including:
- More efficient tackling of staff shortages.
- Reduction of contractor costs and the costs of vacancies and high staff turnover.
- Enabling redeployment versus redundancy.
- Training to meet anticipated future skills by internal staffing.
- Business-focused training that is sufficient and appropriate for each individual.
- Coping with peaks and troughs in demand for different skills, delivering improved services by linking business strategy to people.
Click the link for more details about the skills audit.
Skills Audits in Local GovernmentIn September 2005, to support authorities in Greater Manchester undertaking skills audits and to share the outcomes across the region, a 'Learning Partnership' was established, and evidence of the above benefits came to light.
Each of the authorities selected a group of employees to undertake the skills audit exercise with and the different target groups and approaches have produced some rich learning.
The individual authorities were generous in sharing their experiences at a dissemination event on 13 June 2006 to share the learning from the first phase of the project. To view a newsletter produced to share the learning click the link below.
Funding for the project was provided by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) Greater Manchester and provided to the North West Employers’ Organisation to facilitate the skills audit process amongst the ten Greater Manchester Metropolitan Borough Councils.
Skills Audit NewsletterFor more information contact Liz McQue, Chief Executive, on 0161 214 7101, or click the link below to e-mail Liz.
Liz McQue