Case Study A measured approach

Two years on from signing up to the Skills Pledge, work at Bristol City Council to develop a whole-organisation approach to improving the numeracy skills of their employees has just taken off. Prior work in this area has been sporadic and promotion of it depended on individual managers or trade unions. A proposal written for senior management that linked to the Skills Pledge resulted in the establishment of a Skills Board. The Board meets every two months and is supported by the Deputy Chief Executive, chaired by Jane Taylor, Service Manager for Communities and Adult Skills, and attended by representatives from the Council’s Learning and Development Team, Regeneration, the West of England Partnership and trade unions.

Council’s Economic Regeneration Team and Learning Communities Team has provided in-house training, such as Skills for Life and beginner ICT for caretakers. This enables them to work more closely with the Learning and Development Team who make direct links to each directorate at the council. Together they have planned to deliver five courses from November 2010 to March 2011. The Learning Communities Team will use their funding to provide the five courses, while the Learning and Development team and trade unions identify and signpost participants from particular departments at the Council. If this is successful, they will pay a contribution to the cost of any future courses, allowing the delivery to be more flexible.

Jo Weenink is Development Worker for The Learning Communities Team and leads on Learning for Work. She is aware that numeracy skills are key to many roles at the council and says:

‘In the job of Park Warden there is a lot of numeracy embedded into horticulture, for example, wardens have to work out quantities of manure for flower beds quantities of plants and bulbs to order and mixing weed killer in the right proportions.

Poor numeracy skills are having a much higher impact in some council departments than others. The Council particularly wants to raise the standard of numeracy skills in Health and Social Care to ensure that staff can safely fulfill their job roles. However, managers have found it difficult to insist that staff take up discrete numeracy provision opportunities, as this requirement is not included in employment contracts and employees have requested that numeracy training is embedded in the work that they do.

A restructure has meant that all training is now funded from one corporate budget. Partnership working with trade unions and the

Caretakers for schools, neighbourhood centres and housing have a responsibility under health and safety, dealing with chemicals for cleaning; managing costs. There could be a real benefit for individuals and the council in improving the numeracy skills of existing staff.

One of the biggest benefits of this work has been the chance for teams to work together, pool resources, and develop a coherent plan.’

In the current economic climate, improving the skills of individuals is expected to contribute to cost savings across all departments. Also, the Board is expecting many more requests for numeracy learning opportunities to enhance employability skills of entry-level employees, particularly during a time of public sector funding reductions and organisational transformation.

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