Officer Learning and Development

The Officer Learning and Development project has now been successfully completed. The project worked with all the local authorities in Surrey to build the capacity of employees, through developing skills and knowledge in a partnership context. Through this joint approach, authorities achieved greater value for money from their training budgets and consistent skills were embedded in Surrey officers. The project was managed by the Surrey Training Officers Group (STOG), composed of HR and Training Officers from all 11 local councils and Surrey County Council.

The project successfully ran a shared management development programme. 28 events were offered and a range of courses were available, to enable a tailored approach. A total of 187 delegates, spread across the Surrey authorities, attended. This was supplemented by an advanced coaching programme for senior and junior/middle managers. Feedback and evaluation was obtained from all participants, but a more detailed 360-degree evaluation report by Dr Angus McLeod was undertaken with the senior managers.

As part of the project, STOG engaged South East Employers (SEE) to run a Surrey-wide mentoring programme and, using SIP funding, purchased places for mentees. The SEE mentoring update showed that 40 people from Surrey had taken part, 22 mentors and 18 mentees.

Another element of the project saw STOG reaching out to other specialist groups to encourage sharing and replication of the STOG model. The project also tackled the topic of transformation and managing change, through training sessions with key strategic officers across Surrey.

The project set up the roots for a shared STOG website, where officers can access resources and book training courses securely. The website is currently in development.