About us
We support civil servants to develop the skills, knowledge and networks they need to deliver their best for citizens and ministers, now and in the future.
What we do
Government Skills brings together all the central Government teams responsible for training, learning and development, including leadership and management and accelerated development schemes.
Our full range of learning is provided through Government Campus which offers hundreds of learning opportunities, many of which are free and bookable directly by individual civil servants, as well as by team managers and learning and development leads.
Responsibilities
We are responsible for:
- Harnessing evidence to identify the skills the government needs now and in the future, and to assess the impact our learning service has on the effectiveness of the Civil Service.
- Championing the value of high-quality and targeted skills learning across government by highlighting its transformational impact on both individuals and organisations.
- Ensuring all those who work in government have easy access to learning that helps them thrive in their career and excel in their role.
- Agreeing contracts with learning providers that ensure those who work in government get the learning they need, while also ensuring best value for money.
Personalised learning
We want to foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement among civil servants and to support them to create their own personalised learning journey.
To do this, we are developing a new cross-government learning platform that will enable civil servants to rate their skills across a range of areas, identify their skill gaps or areas for development and view tailored, quality-assured learning that is recommended by their peers as an opportunity that will meet their needs.
The new learning platform will make access to hundreds of cross-government courses easier by providing a single ‘front door’ with a single sign-on.
Crucially, it will also gather data on civil servants’ skills - enabling the Civil Service to understand current and future skills gaps with a degree of accuracy it has never had before.
Government Campus
Government Campus offers hundreds of courses to people working in the UK Civil Service and beyond.
As well as producing much of our learning in-house, we also have contracts with outside providers who together, on our behalf, deliver one of the largest public sector learning services in Europe. This ensures all those working in departments, agencies and professions have access to relevant and high-quality learning opportunities - in a way that secures best value for money.
Learning includes the highly-rated Civil Service Induction, mandatory training subjects such as health and safety, security and data protection, risk management and counter fraud and a host of other skills development covering leadership, project management and much more.
Government Campus’ role is also to promote curated packages of learning which have proved their value in supporting individual civil servants to thrive in their roles.
These packages of learning cover topics such as data and digital learning, project management and learning for senior civil servants.
Government Campus’ Leadership College for Government (LCG) provides specialist leadership and management development designed to help public sector leaders, including those in the Civil Service, acquire the skills, knowledge and networks they need to solve today’s most complex problems. As part of Government Campus, LCG offers both short and long leadership programmes and programmes aimed at both senior civil servants and those looking for rapid promotion.
Government Campus’ College for National Security aims to support those working in National Security to build connections, deepen experience, and share knowledge across UK Civil and Crown services.
Talent development
Apprenticeships
Government Skills supports departments to implement the Civil Service Apprenticeship Strategy, encouraging apprenticeships in a range of professions from policy to finance to leadership.
We ensure apprentices across government benefit from high-quality learning and development and have the chance to work alongside subject experts so they can put their learning into practice.
Our aim is to develop career paths that allow apprentices to have long, fulfilling Civil Service careers in their chosen field.
Fast Stream
The Fast Stream is our flagship leadership and management programme. It is one of the UK’s top graduate schemes, and is regularly recognised by Times Top 100 Graduate Employer list.
It ensures the Civil Service has a valuable, flexible pool of high-calibre trainees who work across all the corporate functions and supports a pipeline of future talent.