Role Definition using SFIA

The Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) provides a framework for skills and competences for professionals working in ICT. SFIA enables employers of IT professionals to carry out a range of HR activities against a common framework. These activities include audit of existing skills and planning future skill requirements, staff development programmes, standardisation of job titles and functions, and resource acquisition and allocation.

As one of six councils selected to pilot ASPIRE, a browser-based software package to manage skills information, the need to develop new role profiles based on SFIA became urgent and Socitm Consulting was engaged to provide expert advice and facilitate the role profiling.  

The ITU management team understood the benefits of better skills management and decided that the initial element would be to gain a more structured understanding of the skills and competences needed to deliver the service, and those already available within ITU. As with many councils, moves to improve the IT service were competing for resources and the demands from customers for delivery of IT services. The internal changes were constantly taking second place, even though they were seen to be crucial to the longer-term development of high quality IT services for the Borough.

Socitm Consulting was able to provide expertise in the use of SFIA and the ASPIRE product. Over a period of six months and responding to a timetable set by the senior management in ITU, a fully inclusive process developed role profiles for 70 employees in 43 roles. The role profiles included SFIA skills and more generic skills developed locally. These role profiles were entered into the ASPIRE product and formed the basis for personal assessments and development planning. The ASPIRE system will also be used to support the council’s annual appraisal process and the six-weekly cycle of supervision meetings (one-to-ones) in operation in ITU.   

This process provides the basis for internal management of personal development and more focussed training and development across the whole of IT. The information available from the role profiles, self-assessments and evidence in ASPIRE allows for better management of training budgets, addresses issues of staff retention and reduces the cost of recruitment. In addition, the use of skills based role profiling and ASPIRE addresses important issues of staff morale and provides objective assessment in career development, increasing the credibility of corporate appraisal schemes.

Tom Lloyd, ITU Operations Manager at LBB, commented,  “Brent is starting to go through a massive business transformation programme. ICT plays a vital enabling role in the business change process. The technical infrastructure is being developed as part of Brent‘s ambitious and wide-ranging programme of foundation projects covering building and commissioning 2 new resilient data centres, rolling out IP telephony, virtualising our server estate, implementing numerous new applications including OCS and Outlook and many other initiatives.

"There is a longer term challenge that has to be met. It is essential that Brent ICT staff have the correct support matrix in place in respect of processes and skills. This is where implementing IT Service Management best principles and SFIA come in. They are key components in enabling us to work more efficiently.

"We have made excellent progress in completing the role profiling exercise thanks in no small part to Socitm Consulting’s knowledge, skills and persistence. I am looking forward to working with their Consultant, Mary Wintershausen, in progressing this project further.”

Project Identification
Client Organisation:  London Borough of Brent
Client Contact: Tom Lloyd, ITU Operations Manager, 020 8937 6010, tom.lloyd@brent.gov.uk
Lead Consultant: Mary Wintershausen
Project No: 6745