Over a third – 36% – of civil servants have resorted to self-directed study in their own time to ensure they have the digital skills for their role, according to a survey published on Monday.
The Government Digital Trends survey – carried out by Dods on behalf of Sopra Steria – found that while 35% of respondents have had digital training, nearly half (43%) do not feel this training has been adequate.
The proportion of civil servants who do not think their training is adequate has grown each year since 2015, when the survey was first carried out. In that year, 37% of civil servants said their training was inadequate.
Levels of training are rising – in 2015 only 13% had had any digital training, compared to 35% in 2017. More civil servants are also receiving digital training through inductions, up from 3% in 2015 to 8% in 2017. However 29% of respondents in 2017 said they had not been given any training in the digital skills needed for their role.
Lack of skills is identified as a key barrier to digital transformation, with 62% of civil servants placing a lack of training for staff as among the top three barriers to change. Only 12% of respondents in 2017 said they had already had the right digital skills for their job, down from 17% in 2016.
Speaking to Civil Service World, Sopra Steria’s head of central government Tom McCann noted that respondents pointed in particular to a lack of service design and agile delivery management skills. “These two skills are essential for driving true transformation,” he says. “Without the skills and capability to look at services end to end and redesign them, we risk, at best, digitising the legacy. This is an opportunity missed. To inject pace, government should continue to work closely with industry and industry bodies like techUK, and support and embrace the Digital Academy initiative in GDS.”
You can download the full results of the survey here