Training Update

One of the team’s initiatives in the first three months has been to provide digital training to local authorities.

The subjects were chosen following initial conversations with digital and technology staff and Chief Executives from across Welsh local government; colleagues in the Centre for Digital Public Services; and insights from people in NHS Wales, Data Cymru and the Welsh Government. We also conducted desk research to gather insight from previous consultations, training, and existing data.

In a recent suite of surveys from the Welsh local government team, our survey found that skills the biggest challenge in the digital arena, our training work has focused on developing skills in these areas.

Between March and June 2021, we coordinated and delivered the following training:

• 7 courses covering UX Basics, UX Agile and Lean, Service Design (two cohorts), Content Design (two cohorts), and Content Accessibility.
• Over 100 people from across local authorities, Data Cymru, WLGA and Welsh Government completed the courses.
• 50% of attendees have provided feedback.
• 73% rated it as 5* and 22% as 4*.

In addition to this, for the sole use of the LAs, we have purchased 30 Pluralsight training licenses and 40 Content Design memberships, all of which are being used.

Example feedback (verbatim):

What parts of the course did you find useful to your work? Pa rannau o’r cwrs yn eich barn chi oedd yn ddefnyddiol i’ch gwaith?

• All of it – by far the best course I’ve attended.
• The linking back to services that we have worked on before was really useful. It helped to highlight areas that we haven’t thought about because of the theory given by Lou (course trainer) and through other participants pointing out things that they haven’t done.
• All of it – some of the course is what I/we already do, but it was good to know we’re on the right path.
• All of it. Definitely something councils should be investing in.

Will you change anything following this course? A fyddwch chi’n newid unrhyw beth ar ôl y cwrs yma?

• We were already trying to apply some of this, and it has helped to push this forward and have a more formalised approach to how we deliver projects and how to embed UX into any service redesign.
• I think I will look at things differently around the user experience… Think we need to reinforce and review some of our websites now.
• Yes, need to have a de-brief with the team to decide how we can use this in our team going forward and which parts are most important for each service area.

Anything else you would like to tell us about the course? A hoffech chi ddweud unrhyw beth arall wrthym am y cwrs?

• No, thanks for putting these on, much appreciated and great to see this direction for LAs.
• It’s one of the best courses I’ve been on in a while- it was informative without being patronising and extremely useful and relevant- it gave me a lot to consider.
• […] it was very useful for me and opened up some new options for me to investigate.

If you’re interested in more training, or you’ve got specific needs you’re not sure how to address, contact us at digitalteam@wlga.gov.uk.