£Millions of training resources being thrown away

Social Irresponsibility: Essential Resources Being Disposed Of

Total madness and irresponsibility by our local and national public sector managers. In the UK and many other countries, as each week passes we hear of organisations being closed down. These are organisations that have been set up and run with public money – our taxes. Now for those employed in those roles its not a good situation to be in – job insecurity at a time when employment is difficult to find, tough economic times. For those individuals we empathise. Unfortunately like many other countries we have been living beyond our means.

As national budgets get cut so many organisations and departments are being “removed” altogether – and importantly these organisations have resources which are being disposed of rather than being re-invested back into our society. Don’t get me wrong this happens in the private sector too.

A couple of years ago when working for a multi-national organisation I was told to go and “clear a room, and see if there was anything of value”. That room was the library of a former training school close 2 years before). There were 100s of videos, 1000’s of books, dozens of commercial training activities etc – and that was just the easily tangible materials. I would estimate at least £50,000 (very conservative) worth of product/ resources was bound for the skip! And this from just one company.

When a whole organisation is closed/ downsized, re-located etc, often it will have many of the following:

• Books
• Training resources
• Knowledge in the form of intranet data
• e-learning licenses

What happens with this? Is it just thrown in the skip? Why? laziness?

In this difficult time of austerity, we need to ensure that we recycle all resources that MIGHT be of value and did cost the organisation (us the tax payer) to buy in the first place.

A few weeks ago I was leading a workshop in the training centre of a local public sector organisation, they were closing due to spending cuts. A shame as they actually made an operating profit – work that one out! Talking to the centre manager I discovered that:

1. They would be paying over £500 a month just to mothball the furniture – and they had no plans what to do with it
2. They were to pay someone to come in and chain saw up several NEW leather sofas, as they did not want the future liability if something went wrong in the hands of the new owner
3.  Would be throwing in a skip 20+ PC’s that were less than 3 yrs old… I’ll stop there its all too sad!

This function was cut to save costs… but it was actually returning a profit to the organisation. Bringing in income. The senior manager did not seem to be looking at this – just the out going costs”.

This is one of the worst cases of management miss judgments in the public sector I have heard of recently.

Now this is a total waste of public funds. the resources could have been given to a local charity, or other not for profit. Lets encourage everyone, managers, HR, learning professionals etc, to recognise the value of what is there, and rather than go into individuals attics and cellars (or skips), it be donated to appropriate organisations that can use the material.

As for intranet data, policies, and e-learning materials – lets make them available nationally where we can to help those that need to develop their skills for a changing work environment.

In the “information age” we need to start recognising the value of data – not just personal data but “knowledge” and find a way of warehousing this for other to use beyond the initiating organisation. For example some years ago the Business Link organisation (the gov backed consulting supplier for SMEs) built a “university” and commissioned a lot of training and online resources. When that function closed that data was lost. We are now in an age when data online can last for a long time providing people have access – is it time for a national archive of this public sector generated/ funded knowledge?

We need to do a number of things:

1. Train managers making these decisions in commercial skills
2. Educate people to recycle resources FIRST
3. Get out of the “they will sue us” mentality the public sector seems to have on disposal of assets
4. Learn how to distribute electronic knowledge so we do not lose it
5. Set up a central, national archive for data – in fact we have it – it’s called the British Library!
6. Bring in commercial managers from the private sector to start making informed decisions on how public funds can be spent effectively for the future of our pensions and our children!