Government Skills
27 November 2008
The winners of the Civil Service Awards 2008 have been announced at a ceremony at Lancaster House.
Congratulations to the Centre for Applied Learning in the Northern Ireland Civil Service for winning the HR, Learning and Development Award for its Essentials Skills Programme.
The Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) ran a pilot Essential Skills (Skills for Life) Programme in 2007, which transformed the futures of 300 support grade staff providing messenger, security and reception services for NICS buildings.
The pilot was supported by Government Skills and the Department for Employment and Learning in Northern Ireland. A consortium of learning providers, advisers, employers and trade unions was established to take a coordinated and collaborative approach to the pilot. The pilot provided staff with a package of training covering IT, communication, literacy and numeracy. These essential skills opened up different career pathways for people, helping them to move from support grades to administrative roles.
Steve Hare, Chief Executive of the Centre for Applied Learning, said after the award ceremony: “We are completely delighted this training and development intervention shows what can happen when you help people to learn new skills in support of modernisation and business change.
“The real winners were those who were trained. When you get training right, you change lives.”
The Prime Minister said the award winners deserved to be celebrated for their hard work and were a reminder of why the UK civil service had a “world class reputation”.
“The civil service awards are a showcase for the achievements of people who work hard everyday to serve the public,” Gordon Brown said.
Sir Gus O'Donnell, cabinet secretary and head of the civil service added: “The Civil Service Awards highlight the depth of talent that exists across government and shows that the modern civil service is a place of great ideas, efficient delivery and skilled individuals committed to the highest standards of public service.”
Details of the Civil Service Awards winners [External website]
