Local learning

Citation

(2004), "Local learning", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 53 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijppm.2004.07953baf.003

Local learning

The UK public sector has shown a real interest over recent years in improving the services it supplies to its customers and clients. This is, admittedly, in part, because it has been forced into such a position by central government but it is the improvement not the motivation that matters to those customers. As with commercial organisations, local authorities are realising that they must unlock and share the knowledge they already hold to find their own recipes for improvement.

Local government had been a challenging place to work. There has been increasing pressure from central government – and at the same time the consumers of services have become more aware, more vocal in their demands. People generally demand more involvement in decisions affecting their lives and they expect services that fit their own personal circumstances and lifestyle choices. This creates a variety of challenges with no one right approach. Local authorities can no longer expect to address their problems with a “command and control” approach; they are no longer in the position they once were of being impervious to criticism, secure in their “authority”. Now they have – like the rest of the world – to address their problems through a process of sense, adapt and respond.

“The key to adaptation, to improvement, is learning”, says Richard Grice, Assistant Director at the Improvement and Development Agency. “If we don’t know all the answers, we need to look at the problem from new perspectives, find out what others have done successfully and adapt it to our own circumstances.”

No one is as smart as everyone

At the IDeA we believe we have much to learn from one another and that no one knows as much as everyone. Why face problems alone when there is a whole community of people out there in local government who share the same challenges and with whom we can learn? If the answers don’t already exist somewhere, we have to create them ourselves, together.

With over 400 local authorities in England and Wales, helping local government to learn from itself is no small task. New technology is critical to our work and IDeA Knowledge and Learning Pool, our on-line knowledge and learning services, are designed to smooth the path and reduce the costs for people in local government to share their knowledge and learn from one another.

New-look IDeA knowledge

The new-look IDeA Knowledge (http://www.idea.gov.uk/knowledge) has over 32,000 registered users. It brings these people together to network and share knowledge. To find out who is doing what well in local government and how they are doing it, IDeA Knowledge is an excellent first port of call.

IDeA learning pool

For those who want to dig deeper, the IDeA has recently launched Learning Pool (http://www.idea.gov.uk/elearning), a new e-learning service that brings councils together to create, access and share targeted e-learning for local government. E-learning relates to the use of technology to design, deliver and manage learning. Training demands have been growing rapidly to support the modernisation agenda and e-learning promises increased access to learning, economies of scale and greater speed of response. Learning Pool integrates a number of elements designed to appeal to a broad spectrum of users, from those who simply want to access a ready made e-learning course to those who want to work collaboratively with other local authorities to create their own.

Learning Pool provides councils with a simple-to-use authoring tool that enables non-technical users to build e-learning and two day training workshops focusing on instructional design and authoring. As more people are trained and they cascade this knowledge in their organisation, there is the real potential to have a large number of in-house authors, developing and sharing material across the sector.

“We have already used the authoring tool to produce some basic programmes, including time management, absence reporting and induction”, said Ken Roxborough, one of the early adopters from South Derbyshire District Council. Simon Green, Training Manager at Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council said, "We’ve developed a module recently using the IDeA authoring tool that will support our performance management system. We are also looking to deliver policy booklets as e-learning – why write a booklet when you can do it as e-learning and update it centrally?"

The IDeA is supporting Learning Pool by sharing an initial 15 hours of targeted e-learning, which will be added to year on year. The range of e-learning courses covers subjects including e-government, project management and leadership. These online resources can extend existing training provision at low cost, providing greater choices for different groups within councils. Other e-learning titles are being added from partners in areas such as ECDL and management training. Gareth Jones, ICT Learning and Development Manager at Hertfordshire County Council, highlighted the benefits of these resources. "We need to educate our learners on what it means to work and learn in this way. With Learning Pool we can provide this exposure in a more cost-effective way.”

Using peer-to-peer file sharing technologies, members of the learning pool community will be able to connect directly with each other to pool and share resources. Anything can be shared, from Word documents and presentations, to e-learning modules. By having access to resources that exist in the Learning Pool, councils may be able to avoid duplication. Resources can be easily tailored to meet local needs, while retaining a large proportion of the original content, saving time and money.

The environment is constantly changing. New technology can enable individuals and organisations to tap into existing knowledge, to learn, to adapt – if the will and the infrastructure exist.