2019 - A breakthrough year for L&D at Norfolk County Council

This year has been one of my best ever leading the Norfolk Development Academy for the County council. I have been reflecting on the successes, many of which represent the fundamental L&D challenges that organisations face. The fact that the Norfolk Development Academy team have successfully addressed so many of them is an immense source of professional and personal pride.

The team I have been honoured to lead are a truly wonderful group of individuals who have created the strategic foundation, policies, processes and delivered them within such a short a time-frame. They deserve the main focus so the roll call:

Consultants – Tony Morley, Beth Victory, Tracey Beardmore, Josh Barnbrook, Martin Hinchliffe, Matthew Adams, Kerry Brundrit and Elle Phillips.

The support team lead by Hannah Castle – Jayne, Darren, Rachel, Charlotte and Ryan.

The Apprenticeship team lead by Lauren Reader – Emma, Amy, Molly and Sam.

Debbie Beck, my manager, who is a wonderful person to work with. She fully understands and communicates the complexities of local government with insight and humour.   

Jane Hanrahan and the Social Care Academy team who are inspirational.

The start of the journey was to create a dynamic and enabling L&D policy which will lay the foundation of effective organisational learning by enabling the formal audit of the key learning levers and establish a sound basis for the assessment of investment in learning activities.

The development of a working pilot group with the analytics team to develop an effective learning community which encapsulates 70:20:10. When learning communities are fully implemented across the council will enable all groups and teams to identify, source, curate, deliver and evaluate their own learning. This is the future of L&D and how brilliant that a council is one of the leaders.

The creation and delivery of a wide range of new learning programmes for professional leadership, employee core skills and leadership development. Those in L&D will know the immense effort this takes to deliver within this period.

The review, expansion and improvement of the development solutions offered through the Learning Management System (Learning Hub) and a strategy for the future provision.  

The establishment of a Kirkpatrick-style evaluation process that ensures outcomes can be clearly measured for efficacy and alignment to the organisation’s needs.

The development of management training for all new managers aligned to the values of the organisation and the performance management process.

As the lead subject matter expert in L&D it has been my pleasure to collaborate and create many transformative strategic learning solutions in partnership with organisational leaders.

We have built some exceptional relationships throughout the council with specialist internal training teams enabling them to design and deliver engaging and effective training for some of the most challenging technical subjects.

We have built external partners, a wonderful team of external training consultants who will deliver the best designed training for leaders and managers that will be seen anywhere.  

Norfolk County Council is a place where I have found some of the most passionate, committed, motivated and effective people I have ever worked with. They are all working in areas of critical social need where financial pressures are a constant. They deliver impressive results which are often ignored by the media in favour of the negatives. Council workers can deliver many thousands of wonderful solutions to their clients with little fanfare. One miss-hap or mistake and all are accused and often pilloried. My respect and gratitude for your work and the many things I have learned.

Having travelled the word and experienced many government systems I feel strongly that the existence of the quality local government we have in the UK defines a civilised society and is often the difference for people between just existing and living well.

In the new year I am re-launching my consultancy and I hope to reveal some news about a new direction which is a long-cherished ambition.     

I wish all of my family, friends, contacts and colleagues the 2020 you most wish for yourselves.