What should a civil service skills audit look like? Dai Hudd blogs for Guardian Professional

The civil service desperately needs a thorough skills audit if is to provide its specialists with enough resources to keep them, Prospect Deputy General Secretary Dai Hudd argues in a blog on the Guardian Professional website today.

Hudd presses the government to heed the warnings in last week’s damning report by parliament’s public accounts committee on managing early departures in central government.

He says: “We welcome recognition by the director of Civil Service Learning of the need for a skills audit, but are disappointed that work has not yet started on a detailed audit or analysis to determine the capability requirements of the service.

“We need a better balance between generic capabilities and specialist skills. Relying on what is already known risks excluding the key specialist skills that a modern government depends on to operate successfully.”

The current definition of 22 civil-service professions is unhelpful, argues Hudd, and should be changed to clarify the scope of professional communities and to support external recognition. Prospect proposes developing a ‘taxonomy’ – effectively a scientific classification – of skills.

Read the full blog on the Guardian’s Public Leaders Network.

Prospect members are also encouraged to sign up the network.