A new Leadership College for Government will open in April as part of an overhaul of public sector leadership and management training, it has been announced.
The college, announced in yesterday’s levelling up white paper, will be the “centrepiece” of management skills development reform and will “equip public and civil service leaders with the skills, knowledge and networks to solve today’s most complex problems”, according to information freshly published on GOV.UK.
The “world-leading institution” will form part of the Government Campus for Skills, which was launched at the beginning of last year to deliver on a promise by then-Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove to create a “properly resourced campus for training people in government”.
It will have a "rigorous curriculum" incorporating several existing programmes, including the Civil Service Leadership Academy, Civil Service Leadership Group, and the National Leadership Centre.
It will also take on the accelerated development schemes, including the Future Leaders Scheme aimed at promising Grade 6 and 7s, and the Minority Ethnic Talent Association programmes.
In November, the deputy director of the GSCU’s leadership programmes strategy said programmes being offered through the various leadership schemes would be updated to ensure they were “complementary, coherent, and effective”.
In a blog post foreshadowing this week’s announcement, Caroline Murray said training would focus on the three ‘ps’ of people, performance and partnership skills.
The leadership college will deliver a number of short and long programmes alongside events to “unite and develop civil service and public sector leaders with potential for the most senior roles”.
“Its work will be underpinned by a coherent curriculum framework to ensure clarity, precision and accessibility in the skills, knowledge, and qualities we expect and need for effective government,” the college said.
In-person training for the college will be delivered at three physical sites in the Midlands, the northeast, and Yorkshire and the Humber.
Training will be offered not only to civil servants but to local government staff, particularly local authority chief executives and senior officers.
“This will help to build local leadership capability across the UK, supporting accompanying efforts to empower local leaders… [and] increase collaboration between central and local government and across local government,” the levelling up white paper said.