The Path Forward Vol. 2: UK and Sweden Bilateral Relations with Pamela Dow
Directly from the Cabinet Office, Ms. Pamela Dow, Executive Director of the UK Government Skills and Curriculum Unit held a virtual talk for the BSCC membership. Pamela began by underlining that the pandemic and the EU-exit uncovered weaknesses, in the resilience and responsiveness and effectiveness of their institutions.
Considering this the UK Government realised, collectively, the needed to place a greater emphasis on – and be more prescriptive about – the skills, knowledge, and networks of the people. The Government Skills and Curriculum Unit has, therefore, set up a 5-strand framework:
- Foundations of public administration. This covers basic knowledge and capabilities that the government employees should master, e.g. communication.
- Working in government. The government employees should have a basic understanding of how the government operates, e.g. how the public money is managed and the relationship with the ministers and the Parliament.
- Leading and managing. There is a difference between leadership and management, however, both must be equally emphasised.
- Specialist skills. For example, in data, engineering, law, procurements and education.
- Domain knowledge. Related to strand 4, the domain knowledge is about applying the specialist competence in different departments.
The objective of this framework is to connect different departments, share the tacit knowledge and attract niche competence such as different international capabilities and languages. You can read more about is here.
Q&A
During the Q&A session, Ms. Dow and the attendees further discussed the Government Campus Curriculum. Some of the topics discussed were, how the UK educational system could be integrated with this agenda, how the expectations for leaders and managers differ over time and how the public sector differs from the private sector in terms of talent acquisition.
