One role of the WLGA Employment Team is to help councils to:
- anticipate and tackle future workforce challenges
- build workforce support for new ways of working
- attract, develop and retain talent
- create a skilled, motivated, sustainable and innovative workforce able to meet changing needs
This involves working with local authorities to understand and develop the skills and capacity of their workforce; and also working on behalf of local government to ensure that new initiatives, policy and strategies take account of local authorities needs to achieve a skilled, sustainable workforce.
There are a number of emerging priorities that local government has recognised need to be tackled from a skills and capacity perspective
- HR Capacity Building to support a change programme.
- Working across organisational boundaries, for example Health and Social Care, Children and Young People
- Addressing key skills gaps in areas such as basic skills, organisational development and management
- Addressing key skills shortages in areas like Social services, Environmental Health, Planning and engineering.
Local government also plays a key role in supporting wider initiatives with the aim of not only meeting its own employment needs but also those of the community it serves, this wider community development role includes:
- Support for development opportunities such as Apprenticeships, Work placements and Graduate schemes
- Targeted action to engage with and provide opportunities for those who are hard to reach, including the economically inactive
- Contributing to the work of Government and external agencies to deliver improvements and respond to increasing economic challenges, such as the recession.
The WLGA is also the ‘home’ of the Welsh arm of Skills Plus – the national strategic link for local government to the Sector Skills Councils, which seeks to influence how our workforces of tomorrow will be skilled.
For more information contact: Karen Long