The civil service has created a single online home for digital, data and innovation learning, prompting one government spreadsheet to hide behind a very small column and hope nobody asks it to demonstrate agility.
The Government Skills curriculum now brings together recommended learning for civil servants, including Microsoft 365 resources, AI courses, data and innovation masterclasses, and learning for senior leaders. It is designed to make useful training easier to find, which is an ambitious objective for an organisation that has previously stored important information in folders called Final_FINAL2.
At the Institute for Buttons and Quiet Confidence, course warden Gloria Shortcut welcomed the development. “People need useful learning,” she said. “Putting it in one place is a bold move after centuries of hiding knowledge in folders that require a local expert, a password reset and a small ceremony.”
The resource includes help with ordinary productivity tasks, such as setting up an Excel document. This has caused mild concern among spreadsheets, which were comfortable being treated as both database and national strategy despite containing three unexplained colours and a formula last touched in 2017.
“The important thing is that staff can find the right course,” said Neville Format, deputy keeper of keyboard dignity. “If they need to share a document, they can learn to do so without creating seven versions called new, new latest, and new latest USE THIS.”
The curriculum also signposts learning on AI, data and innovation. An office printer has registered for a masterclass on diagnosing why it stops working whenever senior management arrives to observe a demonstration. It has been assured that this is a learning opportunity, rather than a disciplinary hearing conducted beside the stationery cupboard.
The programme is intended to support productivity and agility. One inbox has therefore been offered a development opportunity to stop multiplying when nobody is looking, while a PowerPoint presentation has been asked to produce a transition plan before accepting that it is a presentation.
Excel has completed its first module and now understands that a pivot table is not an argument at a parish council meeting. It is expected to address the more advanced topic of opening the correct version before the next spending review, at which point the civil service may finally achieve true digital transformation by losing only six copies of the same spreadsheet.
Real story: Government Skills.
