Updated: Updated events
To provide confident and powerful leadership in a multidisciplinary environment, leaders need a depth of knowledge and understanding of the core disciplines that underpin the work of the Civil Service. This includes key professions and functions, and the core Civil Service discipline of politics. The Leadership Academy can support you to develop and broaden capability through a range of workshops, resources, and events.
What senior leaders need to know
The guide sets out the knowledge, skills and behaviours that all senior leaders should seek to acquire in finance, commercial, project delivery, and digital, data and technology, in order to provide effective cross-functional leadership. This will help you identify gaps in your capability so you can target your development.
Core knowledge learning
A suite of learning opportunities providing an essential grounding in core Civil Service disciplines. Designed specifically for senior Civil Servants, in partnership with the professions, functions and parliament, focusing on the knowledge, skills and behaviours required to lead in a multidisciplinary environment.
Online learning
The following learning can be completed online, for free.
The spending journey: introduction to effective management of public money.
Developed for the Leadership Academy by the Government Finance Academy (GFA), this online learning presentation provides an overview of how money moves around government, to help senior leaders understand their roles and accountabilities in forecasting and managing spend. This will help you understand how public spending is planned and controlled, the activities involved in translating policy decisions into practical solutions, and key government financial principles.
Workshops and seminars
The following events are now scheduled, and available for all senior leaders.
In addition, ‘A leader’s guide to project delivery’ is under development. More information will be provided in the coming months.
| Area | Title | Date |
| Finance | The Spending Journey: introduction to the effective management of public money | 8 Dec |
| Digital, data and technology | Using data to make better decisions | 12 Dec |
| Politics | Parliamentary Insights: Introduction to Parliament | 11 Jan |
| Digital | Leading in a world of Digital Transformation | 26 Jan |
| Politics | Parliamentary Insights: Primary Legislation | 1 Feb |
| Politics | Parliamentary Insights: Delegated legislation | 22 Feb |
| Politics | Parliamentary Insights: Select committees | 15 Mar |
| Politics | Parliamentary Insights: Debates and voting | 19 Apr |
| Project delivery | Orchestrating major projects orientation. To register your interest email here | 27 Apr |
| Politics | Parliamentary Insights: Pre- and post-legislative scrutiny | 10 May |
| Politics | Parliamentary Insights: Parliamentary questions | 7 June |
| Politics | Parliamentary Insights: Introduction to Parliament | 12 July |
| Commercial | Commercial skills for leaders | Coming Soon |
Experience-sharing events
Drawing from the experiences of other senior leaders and sharing ideas is an essential way for leaders to develop. Through the Leadership Academy, senior leaders will have access to a range of seminars and events, aimed at generating dialogue, and learning from other Senior Civil Servants about their experiences of leading in a multidisciplinary environment.
Support from a specialist peer
We can match you with a peer from within the commercial, project delivery, and digital, data and technology professions, who can offer advice and guidance, and support you when leading outside your own areas of expertise. Drawing from the knowledge and experience of specialist peers will help broaden your understanding of core disciplines, and should be a key source of support.
Please contact the relevant mailbox to arrange contact:
- project delivery: scspeersupport@ipa.gov.uk
- digital, data and technology: SCS-peer-support@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk
- commercial: commercial-development@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
- finance: for finance-related advice and guidance, you should contact your departmental finance business partner, who can support you to broaden your understanding of government finance
Experiential and immersive learning
Going forwards, we will introduce a range of immersive and experiential learning, to embed, practice and hone the capabilities required to lead in a multidisciplinary environment. These will provide very practical and ‘hands-on’ development opportunities, to take your learning to a deeper level.
Learning offers from other core professions including: operational delivery, policy, legal and analytics will be added in the coming months.