POL00039737 - Memo from Kathryn Cook to Bruce McNiven (cc John Main and Mike Granville re: Horizon training

Evidence on official site

POL00039737
POL00039737

To: Bruce McNiven . Copy: John Main

Mike Granville
From: Kathryn Cook - 8 January 1999
Horizon training

We spoke on Wednesday about the concerns that there are about the level of
pre-entry knowledge of those about to be trained to use the Horizon system.

As promised I’ve now had the chance to look at the outline specification for

the work that you think now needs doing. I’ve also had the chance to talk to
John Main. n has, I think also new had the chance to speak to Andy Radkas
andiqlthough I’m not sure of the outcome of their meeting,have managed to
speak to Clare Dryhurst about the work that she’s done in this area. Clare has
produce a paper and we need urgently to see where the rigs you have
specified fits in with this : I’ve a call in with Clare to do this'On the : -
zesumption that these pieces of work are complimentary (: tes ke”
duplications!) there appears to me to be an immediate need to establish three
things: ae

e is the gap between current performance and the necessary
levels of performance consistent (i.e. are gaps in
knowledge/ performance/ understanding etc. common across
the population - or at least capable of being clustered - if they
are then we stand a chance of filling them, if not then without
having individually designed trairiing interventions its
difficult to see how we can do something nationally);

¢ are these gaps ‘trainable’ (in any sense of the word) .

¢ what would meet this training need

If the answer to the first two is ‘no’ then the third bullet won't apply. If the dy Count
answer to the first two is ‘yes’ then we can go on to specify the business.

impacts of trying to fill these gaps (I suspect it won't be cheap!) and/Of not

filling them. (I need a better understanding of the Service Management team’s

concerns about us not addressing these compliance issues and hope to cover

off this point with Clare next week).

POL00039737
POL00039737

I think therefore that I’m agreeing that we need to do an urgent bit of detailed _

scoping work on this one to understand both what the issue is better and how
it fits with the wider picture (e.g. service management) and the business’
ability to fund any remedial work. To that end I think the next steps (which I
am happy to lead on give my role as sponsor of operational training for the
retail line) is: :

Activity: Issues:
Establishment of business Will involve both Horizon
requirements for competence and requirements, those of service
conformance . management and other vision

: activities
Gap analysis is there a consistent, trainable gap
Financial analysis . what's the cost of complying(what

options do we have)/not complying;
what can we afford to do/not afford
to do as a business. (NB This analysis
would need to take into account
issues such as availability of resource
to deploy, NFSP issues etc.)

. 6 coated .

Some of the work needed to d,this has been done already so I think we can
probably move reasonably fast on it (assuming you have some funds for the
gap analysis work which needs to be done by Research Services).

As I mentioned yesterday I’m less concerned about the specification issues
than I'am about any deployment issues. Obviously we can use existing
mechanisms(e.g. TK; agency/classroom trainers etc.) if these would close the
gap but if it is felt that we need a specific programme then we wouldn’t be in
a position to manage the deployment of this and alternative resource would
need to be found. Perhaps we could speak about this bit?

If we're now thinking along common lines (do hope so!) could you let me
know so that I can get some of the detail (e.g. Research Services) going on this
one?

KF Cook