London Borough of Bromley training programme

'It is a powerful process for making decisions and has been very useful to us... I have learned a lot from the training programme especially about working with groups to get shared solutions.'

John Hazeldine
Chief Executive's Policy Manager and Facilitator

Introduction

At the same time as using International Computers Limited (ICL) decision conferencing to support the revenue budgeting process, the London Borough of Bromley also decided to embark upon a development programme to build this capability in-house.

Bromley had identified the potential of using decision conferencing in other areas of the authority and were keen to ensure that there was a pool of skilled resource available in-house.

ICL consultants put together a package for training five analysts and six facilitators which would equip the trainees with skills necessary to run a decision workshop.

Service delivery

In total, ten days of training was given to the facilitators and eight days to the analysts during May and June 1994.

The facilitators were trained with a mix of theory and practical exercises allowing them to try out different facilitation techniques.

The analysts were taught how to use the modelling tool software.

As part of the revenue budgeting process, ICL ran a series of departmental workshops which culminated in a final consolidation workshop for members and senior officers.

The trainees took responsibility for organising the departmental workshop and then shadowing ICL consultants to gain experience. The trainees were given the opportunity to deliver decision conferencing in a live environment at some of the later workshops, supported by ICL.

Results

London Borough of Bromley now has a core capability in-house for delivering decision conferencing elsewhere in the authority. Areas have already been identified where this process can be beneficially employed.

Benefits

Many benefits have been identified by the London Borough of Bromley in skilling themselves in decision conferencing:

• It provides a much better way of assessing priorities than traditional methods
  
  
• It helps to assess financial priorities so that resource allocation more closely matches business needs
  
  
• We can use decision conferencing techniques in-house at a reduced cost
  
  
• It provides access to expertise in analysing problems and building models, which will in turn help to create a sense of common purpose and shared ownership of solutions

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