Chi Onwurah – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2015-02-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance his Department provides to its managers on how many days training should be made available to staff.

Esther McVey

There is no specified number of days an individual should have for training as it would depend on an individual’s job role, the length of time they have been in post, any changes to their job role and their personal capability level and developmental needs.

Training can be undertaken as attendance at formal classroom based events recorded as training days but developmental needs can also be met through less formal activities – job shadowing, mentoring, on the job learning, downloading resources from Civil Service Learning and so on.

In line with the Departmental People Performance Policy, development needs are set and reviewed as part of regular discussion between an individual and their line manager looking at continuous development to maintain and potentially enhance performance. From these discussions the amount of developmental activity necessary (including formal training days) will emerge for each person.

In addition the Civil Service Reform Plan outlines a Civil Service wide commitment to each individual having at least 5 days a year of developmental activity but this will not be just training – many other activities would contribute to an individual’s 5 days a year.