November 2017: Public Services Leadership Taskforce Terms of Reference
Updated 29 October 2018
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1. Purpose
Great leadership is crucial for all large organisations and the public sector is no exception. Ensuring that our outstanding public sector leaders have the support that they need to be effective in a complex and challenging environment will ultimately improve public sector productivity and support the government’s commitment to boosting productivity across the board.
The government has therefore announced that it intends to establish a Centre for Public Services Leadership to complement existing provision and act as a centre of excellence; creating a framework for collaboration between providers, public and private sector leaders, driving standards of leadership training, and researching effective leadership interventions to improve public sector productivity.
A taskforce of outstanding public and private sector leaders will advise on the role, remit and responsibilities of the new academy. The taskforce will provide an interim report to the Chief Secretary of the Treasury and the Cabinet Office Minister for Government Resilience and Efficiency by Spring Statement 2018.
2. Objectives
The taskforce will specifically consider the role, remit and responsibilities of the Centre for Public Services Leadership and make specific recommendations on how to:
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create a framework for collaboration between existing providers of public sector leadership development, and with private sector and academic institutions
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develop opportunities to establish networks between outstanding public and private sector leaders to learn from and share mutual best practice
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drive quality of leadership development training and support across the public sector through some form of standards assurance, which could be applied to both public sector and private sector providers, and academia, and could ultimately be a globally recognised brand of quality assurance
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undertake gap analysis with a focus on cross-public sector disciplines and potential impact of new technologies such as GovTech, to drive the use of cutting edge technologies and increase innovation and productivity
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strengthen research on public sector leadership and productivity, working alongside leading academics to establish and champion the use of data and evidence on the relationship between effective leadership and improved productivity
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support and strengthen existing initiatives being taken forward across the public sector to champion leadership and its impact on public sector productivity, for example the Cabinet Office’s ‘What Works’ network and the government’s response to Sir Michael Barber’s Review
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embed a culture of life-long learning within the public service, ensuring a recognition of the benefit of ongoing personal development at all levels of public service leaders
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determine the best target operating model for the academy, given the proposed umbrella structure in relation to existing provision and recognising its proposed functions
3. Devolved administrations
The taskforce and secretariat will work with the devolved administrations to understand the potential role, remit and responsibilities of the Academy in relation to those devolved activities taken forward by the governments of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and come forward with specific recommendations in their interim report.