The Water Skills Strategic Group held its inaugural meeting on 13 November. It immediately proved that the water sector has secured its most renewable resource: another meeting about getting organised. Defra convened the group with Energy and Utility Skills to consider workforce needs linked to investment and reform. It has already found a serious shortage of people available to discuss who should identify the shortage.
Water Skills Strategic Group prepares to coordinate
The new group arrives at a useful moment for anyone who believes a national challenge can improve when someone puts it in a room with a flip chart.
Its purpose is clear enough. The members will consider the skills needed by the water sector as investment and reform proceed. The first practical question is whether a meeting about practical questions needs another meeting to establish its terms of reference.
Fictional coordinator Celia Countdown welcomed the emphasis on collaboration. “No single organisation can solve the workforce question alone,” she said. “That is why we have brought several organisations together to form one organisation that can invite everyone back.”
The co chairing arrangement ensures that coordination has received careful coordination before it begins. A laminated diagram shows investment pointing towards reform. Reform points towards skills. Skills points towards a smaller diagram explaining why the first diagram needs a sub group.
Strategic action waits for paperwork
The Water Skills Strategic Group is considering what the sector will need from its workforce. It has not claimed to have solved anything. Members have praised this as an encouraging demonstration of measurable restraint.
The group has also achieved a rare administrative victory. It completed a meeting without allowing the meeting to become responsible for delivery.
Fictional minutes secretary Marcus Minute said the inaugural meeting had produced a strong appetite for action. “The appetite is excellent,” he said. “We are now checking whether action prefers a roadmap, a framework, a pathway or a vision document with a photograph of a roadmap.”
The group will continue considering workforce needs linked to investment and reform. Its members have agreed that the next meeting should focus on practical delivery. Practical delivery, however, has submitted its apologies in advance.
The future now sits in a folder marked urgent. The folder has been invited to a meeting about where it belongs. It is expected to arrive shortly after the terms of reference for that meeting have been approved by the meeting that approves terms of reference.
