Why improve your skills?
Everyone needs to have the right skills for their job, and this site aims to give everyone working in environmental services the opportunity to see how their skills measure up, and the chance to improve their skills through training.
By improving your skills, you can become better at your job. This may also mean better career prospects and more money for you, and a better workforce for your employer.
Why are skills important?
In 2006, the government carried out a review of skills in the UK called the Leitch Review. This showed that skills are the key driver of prosperity and fairness – the more access that people have to training, the better skills they will have, and they will be less likely they to suffer from disadvantages.
The Leitch Review also showed that compared to other countries, skill levels in the UK are lower and our productivity is trailing. In particular, skills in the local environmental management area are lacking.
Even though government is trying to close this growing ‘skills gap’ by aiming to improve skills across all sectors, other countries are also improving their skills all the time… Being ‘world class’ is a moving target, and the UK is running just to stand still.
If this problem is not addressed, the shortage in skills will gradually worsen. This will have an impact on the future social and economic success of the UK.
No matter what job you currently do, or how advanced your skills are today, we need to see every individual rising up the skills ladder, reaping financial benefits for themselves, their families, their employers, and the wider community.
Skills for life
By improving your skills, not only will you be able to do your job better, but you will also see the benefits in all aspects of your life, as more opportunities open up to you.
The government has therefore invested £1.6 billion in the ‘Skills for Life’ strategy to help 1.5 million adults in England improve their literacy and numeracy skills.
For more information on Skills for Life, visit the Get On website.
What are the benefits for your organisation?
Local authorities need to be able to deliver successful and well-managed services, and this increasingly depends on the skill of their labour force. Local authorities should be able to draw on a flexible, skilled workforce at all levels.
For managers, having a confident and competent workforce also helps to build motivation and encourage team working.
Well-trained employees are also more likely to have higher job satisfaction, complete tasks to a higher standard, and this will ultimately increase local residents’ satisfaction with delivered services.
How does Local Environment Skills help you?
This website has been designed to benefit everyone who works in delivering local environmental management services.
Finding the budget to spend on training has often been a problem for local authorities, and during these times of economic difficulty, budgets for staff training are often the first casualty of spending cuts.
However, "spending to save" is a term written for skills development. By investing in your staff now, you will reap the benefits in the long run. Any initial costs will be far outweighed by the savings you will make from a highly skilled and motivated workforce. The skills assessment tool on this website identifies skills gaps for each individual user, and any suggested training is tailored specifically to each user’s needs. This is designed to help your spend on training to be more targeted.
The government is also encouraging skills development, and there are a number of free training opportunities and funding schemes for skills development that may be applicable to your organisation.
Schemes such as Train to Gain offer you the chance to boost your business by improving the skills of your individual staff members. The Train to Gain service offers expert, tailored advice to businesses of all sizes, across a wide range of skill types.
Partial and full funding for training is also available through Train to Gain. You can check your eligibility for funding here.
