Introduction: Imagining the Future Public Service Workforce

Abstract

We are currently at a time when we are seeing significant changes in terms of what governments do and how they go about doing this work. Governments are being asked to work in more efficient ways, adopting innovative and more agile approaches to the co-production of solutions with a multiplicity of partners. If it is true that governments will need to operate in different ways to those that we see at present and public services will be asked to deliver different things, then it is highly likely that we will need different sorts of skills and capabilities within the workforce to deliver on this agenda. Yet, for all the calls for government to change within the broad literature, there is rather less consideration given to what these changes might look like and what the implications are for the public service workforce. This book builds on research conducted in the UK and Australia that explored the range of roles that will be required in the future public service workforce, the skills and competencies necessary to achieve these roles and the support and training needed to fill these requirements. This chapter provides background to the major themes of this work and sets out an overview of the structure of the book and the contribution that it seeks to make.