Skills development at Birmingham City Council

1. Birmingham City Council: Empowering employees
through skills development using JGP’s Skills Portal
www.jgp.co.uk
Project summary
In an effort to promote mobility and flexibility within its workforce, Birmingham City Council has made a focused drive to
empower employees through skills development. Birmingham City Council’s internal recruitment and staff deployment team
‘In-Source’, led by Glen Knott, spearheaded this initiative with the help of a highly customised Jobs Go Public Skills Portal.
The result; A greater understanding of staff skill sets, encouraging staff mobility, flexibility and dynamism through internal
placement opportunities.
In an age of ever-improving system technology coupled with improved efficiency and cost effectiveness within local governments via
process restructuring, there is increased pressure for local authorities to adapt to the changing environment and develop appropriate
skills amid their workforce. Through gaining an increased understanding of employee skills via the JGP Skills Portal, Birmingham
City Council is giving employees a chance at an alternative role within the authority.
With 877 members of staff already registered within the JGP Skills Portal , Birmingham City Council have a solid view of the skills
landscape available to them and are actively offering internal placement positions, predominantly in areas of increasing business
demand.
Background
With 59,000 employees Birmingham City Council is the largest council in Europe. Remaining at the
forefront of innovation and development in recruitment is essential for such a large public authority. A
greater focus on employee flexibility and mobility was seen as crucial to this forward thinking approach,
a focus realised with the help of the JGP Skills Portal. JGP being the people behind
www.jobsgopublic.com, the largest public sector jobs board in the UK.
To find out more visit: www.jgp.co.uk
Or contact Richard Tyrie on: 0207 923 5610 or email: richard.tyrie@jgp.co.uk

2. Birmingham: Empowering employees through skills
development and exible working
www.jgp.co.uk
The City Council is looking ambitiously to the future and is involved in a range of improvement programmes that will improve the way
services are delivered to the public. In response to these challenges, in April 2007 Birmingham City Council set up ‘In-Source’ bringing to
life the council Chief Executive’s vision of a mobile and flexible workforce. In-Source was subsequently armed with a highly customised
JGP Skills Portal system to streamline administrative processing, help conduct employee skill audits and promote job placement options
within the authority. In-Source primarily focuses on promoting workforce mobilisation and flexibility through placements and resource
pools.
The main challenges facing Birmingham City Council were;
Create a mechanism to develop a flexible, mobile workforce by empowering staff with job placement options, especially in areas of
increasing service demand.
Adapt to the ever increasing introduction of automated IT systems, potentially leaving competent council employees without the skills
needed for the future.
Avoid a paper-based nightmare when implementing the above initiatives.
Create a more dynamic workforce overall.
In the words of Glen Knott, Recruitment Solutions and In-Source manager for Birmingham City Council:
“We wanted to provide an effective means of both mobilising and developing staff across the organisation”.
In combination with a customised JGP Skills Portal, Birmingham City Council was able to confront their resourcing hurdles and enhance
their internal skill deployment capabilities. With every additional employee who registered on the JGP Skills Portal, Birmingham City
Council gained a clearer picture of the internal skill framework available to them. From this greater understanding of the organisation’s skill
framework, paths to employee development could be mapped.
To find out more visit: www.jgp.co.uk
Or contact Richard Tyrie on: 0207 923 5610 or email: richard.tyrie@jgp.co.uk

3. Birmingham: Accurately maps available skills without
creating administrative workloads and paper trails
www.jgp.co.uk
The solution and return on investment
Through creating a profile within the JGP Skills Portal employees make themselves more marketable as their employer gains a greater
understanding of their skill set. This places Birmingham City Council employees in a strong position as the portal helps identify placement
opportunities where employees can develop the skills and knowledge in the new structure.
An increased opportunity for job placements is now available to those Birmingham City Council employees registered with In-Source via the JGP
Skills Portal. Employees are informed of internal placement opportunities through various sources including regular events, intranet and publishing
on the skill portal. This initiative is enhancing the desired flexibility of Birmingham City Council’s workforce.
Finally the JGP Skills Portal has allowed Birmingham City Council via In-Source to accurately map the available skills database without creating the
administrative workload and paper trail that would previously have accompanied such an operation.
The successful partnership between Birmingham City Council and JGP was expressed by Glen Knott, Recruitment Solutions and In-Source manager:
“The JGP Skills Portal played a key role in the early stages of the design and development of our strategic plan for In-Source. It helped us develop
our processes and, as a front end tool the jobs board has been superb”.
As with any innovative initiative the JGP Skills Portal and Birmingham City Council partnership has been a learning process. Through rigorous analysis
of the project, some stages could have been done better. When providing a fully customised system for a service in its infancy, it is not always clear what
exact requirements will be and took a lot of time and effort to nail down. Constant communication and consultation between JGP and Birmingham City
Council, in particular In-Source, was required to ensure the final product was functional and fit for purpose. Still, more resources could have been
dedicated to this requirement gathering stage in order to gain a clearer picture of the desired end product.
To find out more visit: www.jgp.co.uk
Or contact Richard Tyrie on: 0207 923 5610 or email: richard.tyrie@jgp.co.uk