It's easy to knock the public sector for poor leadership, development and a lack of encouragement for talent and innovation, says Nigel Paine. But before you start throwing stones, make sure your own house is in order first.

Virtually all the headlines about training innovation appear to come from the private sector. A scan of Chief Learning Officer Magazine in the USA and People Management here, show the public sector in a perpetual game of catch-up. Is this a true reflection of reality or simply an acknowledgement of the more effective PR machines in the private sector and their greater reach and power?

Deloitte UK published a report recently called Bold Moves, which appears to bear out the headlines. It emerged out of a series of interviews with public sector leaders from both central and local government. The focus was: performance management processes; responses to a changing workforce; and current progress in capability-building efforts across the public sector. The overall picture was not scintillating in any of these areas.

"Three quarters of those interviewed felt that junior and middle-managers were poorly equipped to deal with poor performance due to a lack of appropriate skills and, consequently, did not have the confidence to act."

In terms of performance management processes: 63% of managers in the government sector felt that their organisation tolerates poor performance.

Over 70% had systems in place for less than two years or were developing new systems, often in a climate of suspicion and distrust. There was also a lack of convincing support for performance management as you moved down the organisation.

In addition, three quarters of those interviewed felt that junior and middle-managers were poorly equipped to deal with poor performance due to a lack of appropriate skills and, consequently, did not have the confidence to act. This, in turn, created a culture of 'turning a blind eye' to weak performance or soft appraisals that achieved little. These actions undermined the whole performance-monitoring process and brought it into disrepute.

The second area looked at was how the public sector responded to a changing workforce and here the picture is no less bleak. Many agencies rely on external consultants to manage key processes and projects and very little of the skills and knowledge involved are transferred back into the mainstream.

In spite of external recruitment for key posts, the right people with the right skills are not coming into post or cannot be retained for long enough to change the organisations involved. Communities of Practice did not appear to exist in the way they do in the private sector and knowledge sharing is poor.

The third area concerned capability-building approaches. Although over 70% of interviewees had identified line of site between individual job descriptions and their organisational needs, most of the additional effort to define and build individual capability was confined to a small minority of staff identified as 'talent'.

These staff were part of a 'fast stream' or other development programmes. All of this was coupled with poor leadership development opportunities where individual managers were simply promoted and asked to manage. Many of these staff felt that it was HR's job to do the day to day work, not their own.

So those of us outside the public sector can feel a bit smug then! Not at all. Read the report carefully. Everywhere there are pockets of innovation that need to be expanded, and all the leaders recognised the extent of the problems and were trying to do something about it. And the three areas chosen by Deloitte are the three key areas for all organisations to focus upon. I can't see anyone prepared to throw the first stone here! Virtually everyone has work to do.

Deloitte gives central and local government five core areas to work on:

1.Expand the definition of talent to encompass all groups.

2.Define capabilities today and tomorrow.

3.Construct an organisation-wide plan to anticipate, source and develop the required capabilities.

4.Develop active career management schemes.

5.Create a consistent operating model for procurement and corporate service roles

To these five I would add a sixth: Ensure rigorous leadership development through out the organisation.

This is a terrific agenda for everybody.

Nigel Paine is a former head of training and development at the BBC and now runs his own company, Nigel Paine.Com which focuses on people, learning and technology. For more information visit his website at www.nigelpaine.com

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