to Develop Blended Development Options and Reduce Facilitated Traditional Learning

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY / In one short paragraph please describe this project and what it has achieved.
We will use this in any future publicity material.

CECiL (City of Edinburgh Council Interactive Learning) provides an online-learning facility 24/7 for all the Council’s employees from any internet location including the workplace, dedicated learning resource centres, at home or through the organisation’s library network. Now in its fourth year the CECiL platform has transformed the way in which the Council approaches and delivers learning and development. CECil has substantially reduced the costs in providing training, enabled a vehicle for high volume training delivery at lower cost, increased the blend of learning delivery options, enabled a quicker response to informing of policy/procedural change, facilitated increased learner style options, improved quality, improved Human Resources/Leadership Development (L&D)service and increased the range and diversity of training and development options available.

PLANNING / · a clear rationale, defined processes and focus on stakeholder needs
· contributes to organisation’s goals, community plan and SOA, and national policy context

It was recognised that extensive management and leadership training was required to ensure that the Council achieved one of its key objectives of becoming a top performing council. Additionally, the increasing requirement for staff to use“self-service” computer systems created aneed for training that could not be met realistically by conventional classroom based approaches alone.An initial scoping exercise highlighted that in order to train a population size of around 13,000 staff for one particular roll out programme, the traditional classroom based approach would have cost in the region of £480,000. This was not financially viable.

A key organisational goal was to reduce training costs while enhancing the learner’s experience. In the light of this staggering cost, the case for e-learning was presented and the following Return on Expectations and Investment was set:

- to develop blended development options and reduce facilitated traditional learning

- to enable an effective efficient large scale delivery vehicle to train around 18,000 staff

- to enhance the skills and reputation of the internal L&D consultancy team

- to enable a move from transactional to transformational service delivery

- to improve the HR/L&D internal brand

- to reduce costs, increase quality and increase flexibility

A series of key stakeholder engagement interactions ensured that all viewpoints about e-learning were gathered and included in the final proposal. Projected cost savings were highlighted andthis was a key success driver along with transformational change.

DELIVERING / · implemented in all relevant areas and across all the required stakeholders
· carried out in a structured and logical way , using robust and sustainable methods

CECiL has delivered the required training across a range of council-wide issues including training in management development, new human resources systems/procedures,Prince2 Project management, Equality and Diversity, Health and Safety, and induction training, all at reduced cost, travel time, catering costs and reduced time off service (impact on and service delivery minimised), while enhancing quality. Additionally, service specific modules have been developed for a range of service specific areas, including Child Protection, Information and Data Security and the Human Resources Shared Services Centre, empowering and enabling managers to manage staff better. The savings achieved from the five largest training programmes amount to over £800k. The cumulative savings for all e-based projects is in excess of £1.1m.

In terms of launch, key stakeholder engagement was paramount. The initiative received sponsorship from the Chief Executive and his team’s sign off and a number of department representatives formed the e-learning Steering Group, a forum representing all cross-council e-learning views. This group and the extended pilot group enabled the positive evaluation of CECiL prior to launch.This group is still in place today. Other key partners included BT, our IT system provider and the internal communications team. The main external partner was Brightwave, the e-learning system and infrastructure provider as well as a variety of content providers.

INNOVATION + LEADING PRACTICE / ·Demonstrates leading practice
·Achieves genuine innovation or new ways of working

The Council has formed a number of strategic partnerships in IT and e-learning content:

AshridgeBusinessSchool isa leading and respected academic institution in Europethat provides current up to date literature, analysis tools, current research papers/data, reference guides and self assessment toolkits on current management and leadership skills development. These resources allow access to the most up to date management/leadership thinking as well as links to toolkits in areas ranging from Emotional Intelligence to Customer Relationship Management or from Coaching to Critical Thinking. Ashridge also provide the hugely popular Pocketbook range that allows staff to access simple comprehensive learning resources. Brightwave provide the e-platfrom to host, launch and track all learning materials and modules. Internal teams can create their own content at a fraction of the price of having to go and commission the materials externally. This approach has been taken in Edinburgh where we have built programmes in Performance Management, Attendance Management, Equality and Diversityand ‘Enhancing the Customer Experience’. The Council’s leadership and development model has been shared with the Improvement Service. The Learning Nexus partnership allows Council staff access to e-learning materials from an external provider.

Furthermore, all computer training, with the ECDL certification option, are now done on line saving the Council around £72k annually.

Edinburgh was the first council in Scotland to implement the Brightwave platform. Due to its enormous success, Brightwave has now been selected as a provider of choice to provide the same solution that the Council pioneered, across the Clyde Valley Consortium, a group of councils collectively commissioning the Brightwave service. Edinburgh has also entered into a sharing protocol with a number of councils in order to share best practice, materials and experiences, as well as reducing costs as multi requests to external design teams are reduced, savings money for all!

Through the Brightwave partnership, Edinburgh Council L&D team also developed ‘360’, an online 360 degree feedback tool.Mapped against the organisation’s 9 point competency framework, this tool enables the collation of e-based feedback on individual performance from a variety of sources including external partners and peers. Previously this type of activity was bought in at an average cost of £295 per head and did not reflect the Council’s own behavioural framework. It is now delivered free of charge, the only cost is time.

The beauty of CECil is its flexibility to access. As well as at the delegate’s desk, staff can access at home via their own PC or at libraries, in fact any internet point, even when on holiday abroad if they wanted to!In addition, ‘learning labs’ set up in council premises across the city, enables a dedicated space for learning, away from the usual workspace.

The Council’s recently designed ‘Elected Member’ development programme enables flexible learning formembers. Development options include a variety of different ways to learn for members and e-learning is ideal for this group. Furthermore, as Edinburgh already has the Brightwave platform, accessing selected components of the Improvement Service’s member training programme could not be easier for the Council as we can simply merge the chosen components into our existing programme.

RESULTS + IMPACT / · a convincing mix of customer perception and internal performance measures
· clear line of sight to the delivery of the Single Outcome Agreement
· a full range of relevant results showing improvement over time

The costs per head of delivering training in CECiL have shown substantial savings, normally about 85 per cent of the cost ofa classroom based approach.Case studies illustrate this:

HR Service Centre Launch:Background

12,900 staff needed to be trained in an 8 week window with the launch of the new e-HR staff and self management system. This would enable HR to concentrate on more strategic operations, facilitate change and transform the service. The results were as follows:

-All 12,900 staff trained in the 8 week time period given – just in time training enabled

-£414k savings made versus traditional classroom approach

-‘@home’ access meant that 9% of staff completed the training at home, outwith work time

-End of module tests – 82% passed first time, averaging 84% pass mark

-Received the BT Innovation Award 2008

Child Protection: Background

The high profile nature of child protection necessitated a speedy response to the needs of professionals in this area. The Edinburgh Child Protection Committee needed to ensure that Council staff totalling 6000, partner nurseries totalling 2000 and other adult/child services in the Police, Health and Voluntary sectors had access to a consistent, reliable and credible training resource targeting Level 1 child protection. The results were as follows:

-savings of £101k realised versus traditional classroom based training

-staff freed up to impact assess and evaluate the position – better use of time

-a CD option meant that hard to reach staffnot on CECiL could get the training

-Training delivered 3 months ahead of schedule

-E-based solution cost £2.63 per head versus £15.38 per head classroom

LM1 Management Development Programme: Background

LM1 launched with a heavy reliance on facilitated classroom delivery. There was a need to reduce the number of days delivery due to budget cuts and resource availability. There was also a need to introduce a blend of learning approaches to suit a number of learner styles.The results were as follows:

-17 days delivery programme reduced to 12and the average delivery per consultant

reduced from 9 days to 4

-Consultants time therefore freed up to concentrate on value add, bespoke, consultancy and coaching activity (pre-e-learning integration 46% of time spent delivering. Post e-learning blending, 19% of time spent delivering training).

-Runner up - ‘Government In Business Awards’ 2010 - Workforce Development Category

Cumulative savings against a traditional classroom approach have topped £1.1m. Additionally, in terms of service credibility, the success of the ‘e’ approach has also increased demand and our ability to build e-learning content internally- reputation enhanced.In addition, a number of selected testimonials are:

‘I found it a very good refresher even for managers’. – Enhancing the Customer Experience

‘The course was very relevant, informative and easy to understand.’ Introduction to LM1

‘Good medium to do this sort of development as I could do it at my own pace and also get an assessment of what I had learned. I also liked the opportunity to develop my skills in this area and improve on my score as I developed.’ Attendance Management

‘The course was easy to follow, extremely informative, with the appropriate legislation and examples. Also highlighted some new duties that as working for the council I should be aware of .Thanks - Equalities, Diversity and Human Rights

‘This is very helpful and it is essential that we all use the site to give our best to other staff and anyone we contact.’ ‘First Impressions’ Induction Course

In conclusion, there is now a far greater range of training resources available than could otherwise be delivered. E-learning will not replace traditional facilitated learning options but must enhance it and show a return on investment. In terms of ROE/ROI the following have been realised:

A scaleable delivery resource achieved reaching an 18k+ populationYES

A reduction in traditional facilitative dependency YES

A movement to value add/consultancy based service YES

An enhanced internal consultancy team / improved L&D brand YES

Cost savings / reductions YES

Blended delivery options addressing a variety of different learning stylesYES

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