East Midlands Councils Member Development

Skills Portal Survey

February 2012

Background

EMC & South East Employers are partnering with Talent Management software provider Kenexa to develop and support an online tool to help councillors identify their skills and development needs.

Tool supports good practice guidelines for member development

Help LAs to achieve Charter and Charter Plus status Secure online system Requires no IT resources or capacity Training requirement is minimal

Purpose of the survey

To help identify the level of awareness of the Member Skills Portal

To inform the product/services/support across both regions

Some information…

Survey live from 13/02/12 to 27/02/12

19 out of 46 LA’s responded - of these, 12 completed the survey

The Benefits of the Survey (EMC)

To give a greater understanding of the level of awareness of the Member Skills Portal and the benefits to Councillors and the authority

To identify any additional support that Member Development Officers would find useful

Level of Awareness of the Skills Portal?

More information on the Portal?

Guest login to trial the Portal?

Benefits to the individual Councillor…

Benefits to the authority…

Portal costs…

The cost of the Portal to a District Council, to allow an unlimited number of their councillors to assess themselves an unlimited number of times ,is £995 per year. As an example, 35 councillors accessing the Portal an unlimited number of times would equate to £28 per councillor per year.

The cost of the Portal to an Upper Tier Authority, to allow an unlimited number of their councillors to assess themselves an unlimited number of times, is £ 2000 per year. As an example, 55 councillors accessing the Portal an unlimited number of times would equate to £36 per councillor per year.

Is the Portal a good investment in member development?

Would you sign up to the Portal and for how long?

Reasons for not signing up…

Positive Steps… There are a number of positive outcomes EMC can take from the survey:

11 authorities said they wanted more info on the Portal 10 authorities said they would like a guest login to trial the

Portal 19 authorities gave their email address - will allow EMC

to follow up and create user accounts, where relevant, and offer more information

A number of ideas have been raised as to what information we need to highlight

Respondents did think the Portal was a good investment in member development

5 authorities said they would consider signing up for 1 year

Follow up will include…..

Comparing results with South East Employers

Responding to all requests for user accounts for the demo site

A wider approach to the marketing strategy