Helping Government learn

Much learning in government occurs after large projects, initiatives or crises.

However, important learning should also take place routinely on a day-to-day basis, as teams and individuals carry out their work, or as a result of research and evaluations.

Feedback from outside the organization - particularly from service users - is also vital for improving service delivery.

In order to learn successfully, many organizations within the public sector need to change how they approach their work.

The main barriers to learning within departments are: ineffective tools to capture and share learning; keeping insights and information within the team rather than sharing them across the organization; high turnover within the workforce, leading to a loss of knowledge; and, a lack of time given to capturing lessons from experience.

Other conclusions and recommendations outlined by the National Audit Office include: there are too few incentives to encourage staff within departments to devote more time to learning from their work. Staff should be encouraged to consider in detail why projects went well or not and to offer new ideas, with reflection and evaluation of projects put on a more, systematic footing.

More departments need to build learning into their staff appraisal and reward schemes.

Nearly half do not have learning as a part of their competency framework for senior staff.

Departments appreciate much of the support and guidance they receive from the center of government including both the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury, but they are often confused about which units and organizations they should approach for guidance.

The proliferation of toolkits, guidance and other products risk 'guidance overload'.

Guidance needs to be focused on what departments find useful.

Efforts should also be made to build on cross-government networks, which are highly rated for supporting learning.