How can government win the battle for civil service skills?

Identifying, attracting, developing and deploying the right skills across the public sector workforce is critical to the success of all governments. But the civil service still has trouble planning the skills it requires, understanding the skills its officials already have, and developing the right skills and knowledge in the right places. In 2021, the Johnson administration’s Declaration on Government Reform described plans to “invest in training to equip our people with the skills and knowledge they need to tackle the challenges of the future”. As restrained public spending raises questions over whether and how skills reform and provision will be resourced in future years, the panel will discuss what civil servants’ and ministers’ priorities should be for improving the skills moving forward. This event, supported by Workday, convened an expert panel to discuss the progress made, and lessons learned, on government skills in recent years: Zamila Bunglawala, former International Director at the Department for Education Richard Doherty, Senior Director at Workday Pamela Dow, former Executive Director of the Government Skills and Curriculum Unit Nancy Hey, Executive Director of What Works Centre for Wellbeing This event was chaired by Alex Thomas, Programme Director at the Institute for Government. #IfGcivilservice We would like to thank Workday for kindly supporting this event.