Case study: Management Development in Surrey
The Client
Services provided
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Training delivery
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Professional development courses
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Level 2 and 3 qualification for Institute of Leadership and Management
Surrey County Council is responsible for a population of over 1.1 million residents (ONS Mid-year estimates 2009). It employs more than 20,000 people to provide a wide range of services, including libraries, education, highways, adult social care, child care, and fire and rescue.
The Change and Efficiency Directorate manages the Council's business in areas such as finance, procurement, human resources (HR), systems, property and shared services. One of the roles of the HR function is to build a team of multi-skilled professionals, ready to support Surrey County Council with the demands of being a twenty first century employer of choice. This includes developing employees' capabilities and capacity, as well as helping to create effective succession planning.
The Tender
As part of its employee development activities, the Change and Efficiency Directorate wanted to increase their access to a range of qualifications from the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM).
In May 2010, The Directorate advertised for training companies to tender for the training delivery of the L2 Management qualification. It was specifically looking for local companies who would provide an innovative approach to the set curriculum defined by the ILM. As part of the tender process, they asked the interested companies to present their credentials and run a dummy training session to the panel, lasting 1.5 hours.
Management Development Training
Karen Archer-Burton, Senior Organisational Development Advisor is responsible for managing the contract with Crêchendo. She says “when we sent out the tender, we hadn’t heard of Crêchendo but when we met them, they ticked all of the boxes.”
Since September 2010, Crêchendo has run five cohorts for the L2 ILM qualification, each of which has a total of six days’ training, held onsite at a range of venues run by the Council.
This year, the service has been extended and the L3 qualification courses begin shortly (Spring 2011).
Fantastic Service
"We have the kind of relationship where whoever you speaks to; you always come away feeling really good!"
Karen Archer-Burton, Senior Organisational Development Advisor, HR & OD Service
Karen adds "The service is really good. Our team has regular meetings with Crêchendo and the contract is working really well.
The team is a pleasure to work with; they are really positive and friendly, and always treat us as a valued customer. For example, although we don't need to run courses at week-ends or in the evenings, I have no doubt that the team would be flexible if need be."
Karen sums up the relationship with Crêchendo as "the kind of relationship that whoever you speak to; you always come away feeling really good!"
