National Audit Office NAO

There are other obstacles to ensuring posts are filled by staff with appropriate skills. Decisions over staff postings and promotions do not always give sufficient weight to the skills requirements of the roles. There have been significant efforts to professionalise the civil service in recent years, but standards associated with particular professions are not always reflected in recruitment to posts. There are also practical challenges to better deployment of skills both within and across departments, including poor data on existing skills of staff, poor incentives to share skilled staff and barriers to cross-departmental deployment.

The effectiveness of learning and development investment has not been routinely evaluated. Evaluation of learning and development activities carried out by departments tends to focus on the individual learner's experience, but examples where evaluation has considered the impact on departmental performance are rare. This misalignment is not helpful and more can be done to review skills development in the context of business performance.

Data weaknesses limit departments' understanding of the skills they already have, and hence the development activities that are required. As a consequence of the division of management responsibilities, combined with weaknesses in departmental information systems, knowledge of existing skills remains patchy at a corporate level. This has made it difficult to maintain oversight of skills development needs and to choose effectively between competing skills priorities. Incomplete and unreliable management information on what skills development is undertaken, by which members of staff, and at what cost further weakens departments' ability to manage and maintain the link between business needs and skills development activities.

In-house development of skills has not been consistently integrated into day-to-day operations. There has been insufficient attention given to the importance of 'on-the-job' learning and the role that line managers play in facilitating this. While some departments have made progress in using a range of internal development options, there has to date been an overemphasis on classroom-based training provided by learning and development professionals.

Departments currently face significant challenges in buying-in and retaining key skills. Almost 80 per cent of respondents to our survey considered there are significant skills gaps in their organisations, and of these 84 per cent said difficulties in recruiting skilled staff were a significant contributing factor. At the same time, planned reductions in departmental headcount increase the risk of a loss of key skills. The information on existing staff skills required to manage this risk is not universally strong: less than 40 per cent of respondents to our survey considered that their organisation was 'very' or 'fairly' effective in maintaining information on the skills of staff.

Departmental skills strategies and governance arrangements have not been adequate to ensure skills development activities are well-aligned with departmental business needs. The approach we found in departments is fragmented, with highly devolved structures. Accountabilities are unclear, with management responsibilities divided across HR functions, professional leads and business managers. We reviewed 13 departmental skills strategies covering 2008-11, and in less than half could we clearly trace the links between business objectives, the prioritised skills gaps and the solutions selected. Most did not define current and future business needs clearly.