Recommendation 3

The ODP is not doing enough to join up with the wider public sector, including local government, which plays a large part in the delivery of public services, or with the private sector. The ODP’s focus is on the 290,000 members in the Civil Service and not on the capability of operational delivery professionals in the wider public sector, for example in local authorities. However, many government objectives involve both central and local government—for example, the delivery of planning services—and a lack of join up will hinder their effective delivery. The ODP described the benefits of building networks and told us how it has invited a small number of mayoral authority staff to its learning events. However, there is untapped potential for central and local government to more routinely learn from each other and to collaborate on building capability. For example, the skills framework the ODP has created would be relevant to local authority staff. Further, the ODP helps its members build career paths by highlighting roles in other government organisations to its members, but there is no visibility of opportunities across the local and central government divide. There is further potential to join up more with the private sector, which is not only involved in the end-to-end delivery of public services but is also a potential source of innovative ideas for how to improve them. recommendation The ODP should set out how it will encourage innovation and join up delivery between: • central government and local government, by more routinely placing members in local government roles, using its capability development and learning offers to facilitate better connections, providing career paths, and sharing learning; and • central government and the private sector through facilitating two-way secondment opportunities and knowledge sharing. 4