Home > News > December 2004 > 17-Dec-2004

EO launches accelerated development pilot programme

The Employers' Organisation for local government (EO) has launched a succession planning pilot programme in partnership with Regional Employers' Organisations in the East Midlands, London, and Yorkshire and Humberside.

The Accelerated Development Programme (ADP)is aimed at employees with two or more years' experience and senior management potential.

The two-year programme sets out to address skills shortages in procurement; project management; working in a political environment; policy development and partnership working. The intake will be sixteen participants in each of the three regions.

Lisa Butterfill, HR and Training Consultant from the East Midlands Regional LGA said: "The procurement module that the ADP students will undertake will equip them with an understanding of the role of procurement in modern local government.

" With the clear connection between the national procurement strategy and the Gershon review, in that both are aimed at changing the way we do things in order to get as much of the resources as possible used for the delivery of much needed frontline services, this procurement module will assist managers to understand and deliver on a key strategic issue."

The ADP was developed in response to demand for succession planning support - only 4% of authorities currently have succession plans to develop young talent. An increasingly competitive job market will continue to put pressure on local government to develop and retain staff.

With increasing partnership activity between local authorities and other agencies, Mike Leitch, Assistant Director at the Local Government Management Board for Yorkshire & Humberside welcomed the programme's focus on developing competence in partnership working: "It is a fact of life that local authorities can no longer deliver, or would wish to deliver a wide range of services to their communities on their own.

"As inter-agency working becomes the norm, councils are either opting, or being forced into working with more and more partners, and procurement is now seen as a way to generate more from restricted budgets, and provide value for money. For local government managers to engage in these new ways of working new skill sets need to be mastered. It is pleasing to see that participants in the Accelerated Development Programme will be provided with the opportunity to gain and develop those skills."

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