Specialist skills in the civil service

Functions should work collectively with departments to develop capability and capacity plans which allow departments to fully exploit functional expertise. These plans should consider the most appropriate operating and funding models for each function, and agreement on service delivery levels and cost - bearing in mind the particular needs and approach of each individual function.

Departments should accelerate adoption of existing workforce planning tools, so that they have data on their functional resources and can understand what skills they have, where they are allocated and where capacity and skills gaps exist.

Where cross-functional matters are addressed to the Civil Service Board, these should be taken through the Heads of Function Steering Group first to ensure a collaborative and coordinated approach across functions.

The Cabinet Office and HM Treasury should continue to work with functions and departments to ensure functions contribute views and expertise on departmental spending bids. Functional expertise should be used within departments in planning and spending activities, including to inform spending review plans put forward by departments to HM Treasury.

Each function should continue to develop indicators and intelligence that provide evidence of its impact on cross-government outcomes, including how it has helped improve government operations and efficiency.

The Cabinet Office should make available consistent workforce data, statistics and information to all functions, based on its Civil Service Statistics data, which the functions could use in their workforce planning.

The Cabinet Office should continue to work with departments to improve the quality and completeness of Annual Civil Service Employment Survey data, the basis for its Civil Service Statistics data set.

Functions should ensure additional workforce data they collect aligns with the wider Civil Service Statistics data set. Where appropriate, functions should also engage directly with departments so both functions and departments can understand their specialist workforces, including their diversity and geographical profiles.

All functions should collect data on the impact and benefits of their training initiatives, to ensure training resources are targeted and deployed most effectively.