The Ministry of Defence

Under the strap line of ‘giving students a start’ the Ministry of Defence’s unique ‘Education Outreach’ Programme has for eight years assisted students in Further Education Colleges across London and other parts of the UK with curriculum, personal development and employability skills support.
Every year over 2000 students in colleges improve their chances of finding employment through mentoring, classroom support and ‘taster’ visits to the MOD Headquarters. This gives students an insight into the workings, facilities and skills needed by a large employer. Courses are supported across the curriculum including Business, IT, Accountancy and Public Services, but there is a particular thrust to supporting students on entry-level courses who are frequently designated as ‘at risk’. College statistics show that when MOD supports a course, both the examination pass rate and the students’ retention rate increase.

Impact:

• The Programme operates in Colleges where diversity is typically about 70%, ESOL is over 50% and over 100 nationalities and languages are present.
• Evidence received from one of the Colleges last year stated that the retention rate improved from below 70%, to well above the 80% mark when a course was mentored by the MOD

"Developing Leaders"

The MOD has two tailored development schemes (B and B Development Scheme and Leaders UnLtd) for high potential Band B staff with Senior Civil Service (SCS) potential. Both schemes are championed by the MOD’s Permanent Under Secretary who is the Civil Service-wide Diversity Champion and the MOD has the largest representation of any Department on the Leaders UnLtd programme.

Leaders UnLtd forms part of a basket of initiatives to increase Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) representation across the MOD workforce. It is the result of a partnership between the Cabinet Office and the National School of Government and MOD played a major part in the design of the Programme.

The overall aim of the scheme is to build the future leadership capacity and diversity of the SCS.  To achieve this, the scheme provides a variety of learning opportunities including the development of a Learning Compact, which is a leadership development agreement between a participant of the scheme, their line manager and the sponsoring Department; a host of interrelated activities comprising large and small groups and 1:1 interventions, such as coaching and mentoring, to stretch and support participants; the creation and implementation of a personalised Leadership Development Plan; and a bursary to support the individual’s learning needs.