Promoting trust in the public sector will be vital if organisations like  Sutton Borough Council are to be successful in 2008 says Paul Martin.

The need to achieve better outcomes while funding is tightened is one challenge that local government will face over the coming year, but this is nothing new. A new mission that has fallen to local government is to affect change in citizen’s behaviour on a number of fronts – sustainability, waste recycling, obesity. This is a recent development that will require local government to build trust in the community in order to persuade us to change our ways.

Leadership teams will need to evolve the way they approach the public to achieve this buy-in. “There is already an expectation of administrative transparency in local government, but our local leaders need to understand that they will have to be highly visible in order to build relationships with the community and achieve results” says Martin.

The skills gap with have a particular impact in local government organisations like Sutton Borough Council in 2008. “We lack good people with procurement and commissioning skills” say Martin. With local government departments sourcing their services from ever wider and more diverse suppliers, those people with experience of managing complex commercial agreements will be in high demand.

But the skills gap is not just about technical skills like contract management. It is the responsibility of employers, both public and private sector as well as central government, to provide the basic tools for the individual to develop soft skills. Martin argues “to succeed in today’s ‘new’ economy workers will need a greater range of interpersonal skills, communication skills and high level problem solving so we have to establish a framework that helps our people develop these skills.”

Ensuring young people have early exposure to the workplace is one way of ensuring they begin to develop these skills. “Young people need flexibility in their career choices because it’s not all about getting as many people into university as possible” says Martin.

Martin agrees that there has been a shift within the younger generation in regard to their career ambitions, with a greater level of interest in ethical roles. However, this shift has been strongest in voluntary and charitable organisations, not local government. One of the big questions for 2008 will be how local government employers can tap into the ethical and aspirational desires of this young workforce?

http://www.sutton.gov.uk/