The National Audit Office (NAO) is an independent body responsible for scrutinising public spending on behalf of Parliament. It audits the accounts of all central government departments and agencies, as well as a wide range of other public bodies, and reports to Parliament on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which they have used public money. Its work saves the taxpayer millions of pounds every year.
The challenge
The NAO relies on the skills of highly qualified specialist staff such as researchers, statisticians and economists along with qualified accountants to audit the finances and spending of public organisations. Graduate trainees must therefore undertake professional training over three years to become fully qualified. However, the NAO found that many of these employees left shortly after gaining their credentials.There are 70 new graduates every year, and of these, 63% left within two years of completing the course, rising to 90% within five years.
In order to retain the brightest staff, the NAO wanted to develop a talent management programme that would ensure that the best employees were not head hunted by commercial competitors. Furthermore, the organisation wanted to enhance the skills of its existing leaders as well as nurture leadership skills in promising employees.As competitor organisations were implementing similar schemes, the NAO could not afford to ignore this industry trend.
The NAO assessed a number of organisations that specialise in leadership and development. It was Roffey Park’s approach, which combines responsibility for selfmanaged learning with extensive experience in people development, that struck a chord. The NAO selected Roffey Park as it has a proven track record in delivering successful programmes, and because its charitable ethos and people-centric approach closely matched that of the NAO.
“Roffey Park was a clear winner because its people share the same values as the NAO.They value integrity, responsibility and harnessing the potential within all participants,” explains Pat Taylor, Head of Talent Management at the NAO. “They understood our brief from the outset and presented a response which we knew would meet our objectives.”
Meeting the challenge
The NAO set out to develop a programme that would enable it to create a culture of learning with a view to developing leadership skills in its high potential employees. As a first step, Pat Taylor worked with the Centre for High Performance Development to define a leadership model against which candidates could be assessed.This model identified twelve competencies which were used in the selection process and then to evaluate the successful candidates during a two day Leadership Diagnostic Centre. Pat Taylor then worked with Roffey Park to develop the bespoke training programme – entitled the Future Leaders Development Programme. The programme consisted of three two-day workshops complemented by eight learning set meetings over the course of twelve months.
The learning sets, tailored to meet the specific needs of the participants and designed to provide a small group environment, gave each participant dedicated time to share, talk through and explore solutions to their real-life, work place challenges and issues. Topics included boosting personal impact, managing time, increasing confidence and tackling difficult behaviour, as well as overall career development.
By contrast, the workshops focused on wider subject areas such as leadership, and the first involved each participant’s development manager. The content of subsequent workshops was determined by the needs of participants within the framework of the talent management programme.
“Being selected for the programme was an enormous boost in itself,” comments one of the first participants, Susan Ronaldson, Audit Manager. “The learning sets helped me explore issues and define strategies to deal with them in a positive environment that encouraged reflection and collaboration.”
The programme was carried out in tandem with several other new initiatives at the NAO that were designed to increase retention rates.These included an internal leadership programme called Unlocking Our Potential, a much stronger focus on providing interesting and challenging career path options for newly qualified staff and improved reward packages.
The candidates selected for the Roffey Park course were also given senior internal mentors and attended Building Experience Meetings at which they used the feedback from the Diagnostic Centre to produce a development plan.The participants were also tasked with identifying and managing a corporate project in groups of four – each group is sponsored by a senior manager, and their work will lead to a real external output that benefits the organisation. In addition, some participants undertook Masters degrees and short-term secondments to other organisations.
“By supplementing the Roffey Park course with some wider developments across the NAO, we were able to present an integrated approach to nurturing management that would help everyone,” explains Pat. “The first year was so successful that we ran the programme again in the following year with few changes to the structure or methodology.”
The results
There are three specific criteria on which the success of the programme is judged. Retention is the most important of the three and is one area where the course exceeded expectations. Of the candidates, only one has left – and that is to study for a PhD in Canada. In normal circumstances, the NAO would have expected at least 50% to have moved on by now.
In terms of encouraging fast track promotion, four of the candidates have been promoted to audit manager – one of whom made the grade more rapidly than any previous employee.And as a group, their formal performance appraisal marks exceeded expectations.
“The Roffey Park programme has produced results far beyond our initial expectations,” concludes Pat. “Not only are retention rates above the historical level, but every candidate has shown a real improvement in aptitude. The course has helped us prepare for the future and shape the type of organisation we want to become.”
The NAO is now exploring ways of extending the work it does with Roffey Park. One of the first possibilities is to introduce a second phase aimed at Audit Managers aspiring to reach director level.Whatever the plans for the future however, the Future Leaders Development Programme will remain a core part of the NAO’s training schedule.