The UK government has formally launched its new National School of Government and Public Services, opening a residential campus in Yorkshire as part of plans to strengthen civil service capability, improve public sector productivity and reduce reliance on external training providers
Cabinet Office minister Mark Ferguson opened the UK’s National School of Government and Public Services this week, with training available in areas including artificial intelligence, digital skills, leadership and management.
The school will have a dedicated residential campus at The Hawkhills in Easingwold, North Yorkshire, which is also home to the UK Resilience Academy. Further regional hubs are planned across the UK, alongside online learning.
The government said the school would bring civil service learning and development together in one place, with more training designed and delivered in-house.
Ferguson said: “The opening of the new school is a unique opportunity to upskill civil servants in the areas that matter most – with AI being among the top priorities.”
He added: “This launch is part of a drive to boost public sector productivity and accelerate the pace of progress towards delivering the digitally enabled public services to be expected from a modern state.”
The school is being established almost 15 years after the previous National School of Government was closed in 2012, when its Sunningdale Park campus in Berkshire was subsequently sold.
The new institution will be developed over three years, with a curriculum organised around six areas of universal skills: leadership and management; working in government; digital, data, innovation and AI; personal effectiveness; communication and collaboration; and strategy and critical thinking.
Training will also cover devolution and national security, and the school will deliver an enhanced induction programme for senior civil servants and oversee talent schemes including apprenticeships and the Civil Service Fast Stream.
The government said that bringing more learning and development in-house would help reduce spending on external training providers over time. The move forms part of wider plans to halve spending on external consultants and cut departmental administration costs by 16% over five years, with the government targeting savings of more than £2bn (US$2.7bn) annually by 2030.
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AI skills at the forefront
AI will be a major focus of the school’s curriculum, with training ranging from practical applications to reduce administrative workloads to specialist cloud engineering courses.
The school will also work with the annual One Big Thing civil service learning initiative, which this year has the theme AI in Action.
The government’s emphasis on AI skills comes as civil service leaders consider how to move beyond individual productivity gains and use the technology to achieve more fundamental changes to government operations and public services.
A recent Global Government Forum study, based on interviews with 13 UK permanent secretaries and AI leaders and led by former UK cabinet secretary Lord Gus O’Donnell, found that the next phase of government AI adoption will require changes to the way departments operate, alongside investment in workforce capability.
The research, The new AI operating model for government, identified four priorities: setting a clear ambition for AI and demonstrating impact; developing a more joined-up approach to scaling successful applications; preparing the workforce for the future; and establishing the right conditions to balance trust and pace.
It also highlighted the need to look beyond AI training alone to consider how the technology will change tasks, roles, professions and career paths, and what this means for recruitment and workforce planning.
Learning from international approaches
In a previous article for Global Government Forum, professor Nada Kakabadse of Henley Business School examined lessons for the UK from civil service performance systems in Australia, Canada, Singapore and South Korea.
She argued that the new school’s success would depend on more than providing training, recommending that it serve as an anchor institution for strengthening leadership, management and performance culture across government.
Drawing on international examples, Kakabadse highlighted the importance of developing managers’ skills, linking performance assessment to both behaviours and outcomes, strengthening digital capability and creating a shared culture across departments. She also recommended that the school become a hub for research, evaluation and international best practice.
The government has said the school’s activities will be evidence-led and evaluated for their real-world impact through a dedicated National School Evidence Centre.
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