Kent Partners Skills Programme

What Was the Stimulus?

Kent Prospects (economic development strategy) and Kent Learning (lifetime learning strategy) were launched in July 1996 as 10 year strategies. Their development was driven by Kent County Council (KCC) and Kent Training and Enterprise Council, working with a very wide range of interests, and accountable for progress to the Kent Economic Forum and the Kent Forum for Lifetime Learning.

Following consultation, there was agreement amongst partners that skills, knowledge and competence in partner organisations should be treated as a strategic issue. Without greater investment in this capacity, it was felt that Kent would lose out, with partners achieving less than they could: fewer job and learning opportunities, and reduced investment and resources secured for Kent.

How Was The Need Tackled?

The Partners Skills Programme (PSP) - part-funded by the then Department for Education and Employment as a national development project - was taken forward by a task group drawn from the partners in the two strategies. It was concerned with raising both:

• individual capacity: the capability of partner staff and representatives to perform effectively, now and in the future
• institutional capacity: a function of organisational/ partnership resources, systems, culture and ways of working

The group started by analysing needs for improving performance and skills. They took each of the priorities in the two strategies, and asked:

• what new things do partners have to be able to do?
• what things do partners have to do differently, and what do they have to do better?
• what training and development needs arise from these?

This review identified common needs across partner organisations, relating to:

• strengthening the focus on customers and on results, ensuring that partners are highly responsive to the needs of the people and organisations they serve, with policies and practices judged in terms of the outcomes of what they do, rather than their spending of budgets
• embedding partnership working (consolidating the basis for collaboration, clarifying roles and responsibilities, developing trust and mutual understanding)
• developing skills in leadership, influence and managing change - all central to successful economic development and lifelong learning practice

Other common needs, more related to operational requirements, included project and programme management; engaging and sustaining private sector involvement; marketing of strategies and services; and raising the quality of bids and business plans. A bottom-up dimension was encouraged by use of a Project Management Training Needs Analysis tool. This tool was based on relevant occupational standards and an analysis of skills and knowledge specific to economic development and lifelong learning activities. The standards provided rigour in reviewing needs and the basis for a common language relating to performance requirements across partner organisations, each with their own way of doing things.

The philosophy behind the programme was akin to "action learning": focusing on practical needs and issues of concern to policy-makers and practitioners and devising learning activities which helped them tackle work priorities while learning at the same time. The task group decided to concentrate on inward investment, sector development and regeneration project management as priorities, and set up a range of training and development activities (training courses, facilitated workshops, etc) to address needs in these areas. Some activities were geared specifically to senior decision-makers, to help win support for change, while others were aimed at practitioners.

What Were the Outcomes?

Taking each priority in turn:

Inward Investment
An evaluation six months after the series of workshops found a range of learning and performance outcomes, such as:

• greater understanding of the inward investment challenge (eg, a realistic appreciation of prospects, what's needed to secure investment for Kent)
• better appreciation of partner roles and responsibilities - and dispelling "myths and misunderstandings" which were hindering co-operation
• progress in implementing proposals for co-ordinating inward investment activities
• new collaboration between public and private sectors in handling enquiries

Sector Development
Outcomes of workshops with sector co-ordinators and partners included:

• a better understanding on the part of those involved of the role of sector co-ordinators and the need for sector development partnerships
• a new job profile and contractual requirements for co-ordinators
• improved relationships between co-ordinators and partners
• greater clarity about how the sector groups can influence partner activities, directly and through the Kent Economic Forum

Managing Partnership Projects
Participants from regeneration partnerships found the two-day training course valuable in developing their understanding of partnership concepts, in introducing them to tools that they can apply in their own partnerships, and providing real life case studies to compare with their own experience. Aspects of the course were subsequently built into activities to meet the needs of specific partnerships, both new and existing.

Later development work included:

• reviewing action needed to co-ordinate and develop services in a one-stop shop
• helping town centre managers review good practice in partnership working
• building a consortium of training providers to deliver the New Deal in Kent and winning the bid
• promoting dialogue between providers and employers in West Kent to overcome skill shortages.

The Partners Skills Programme formally ceased in 1999 when TEC funding of economic development initiatives was withdrawn, pending the introduction of Individual Learning Accounts and the creation of the Learning and Skills Council. However, it led to other initiatives, for example, two substantial European Social Fund projects, "Building Skills in Kent Charities" (management training in voluntary organisations) and "Partnering 2000" (helping SMEs develop partnering skills, to make the most of collaborations with other businesses and the public sector).

What Was Learnt?

• There is a continuing need to promote the value of learning activities to underpin effective partnership working. Many partner organisations found that time for training and development was at a great premium, in a context of diminishing resources and overwhelming pressures to deliver. Greater interest was shown where the subject matter was seen as urgent/ critical, rather than longer-term/ desirable.
• A top-down initiative will have little impact if individuals do not feel that what is proposed is a priority for them in helping them personally with their job or career - hence, the introduction of the TNA tool and participant involvement in structuring the workshops and courses delivered.
• Successful outcomes from partnership working depend on key individuals creating the environment for effective collaboration; reviewing together how their partnership is working and how to improve it; and clarifying their own role, expectations and responsibilities
• Skills Programme activities created new opportunities for networking within the county which did not previously exist - across organisational boundaries and professional interests

Contact

Solihin Garrard
Project Manager, Kent Partners Skills Programme
Makesfive ltd
18 St Augustine's Road
Canterbury CT1 1XR

tel: 01227 762727
fax: 01227 769804
e-mail: contact@makesfive.com
www.makesfive.com

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