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Common actions on skills across central government

The Government Skills evidence base shows that there are common skills gaps across the sector. In response to this, one of our key areas of work under the Skills Strategy is to develop common actions to address these common skills needs.

Our common actions project specifically aims to improve value for money on learning and development investment through two forms of common action.

• Common procurement – purchasing from a contract which is open to many departments.
• Common commissioning – purchasing according to a common specification.

Common actions also give other benefits, such as:

• improved quality of learning and development (L&D) services
• easier interchange of staff between departments
• closing the priority skills gaps across government
• greater access to L&D services for individuals and their managers.