Kirklees Council spends £3,000 helping staff map their minds

Nov 20 2010 Huddersfield Daily Examiner

KIRKLEES Council has spent more than £3,000 sending staff on a creative thinking course.

Twenty-six workers have attended the one-day sessions, which help them ‘use specific tools to instigate change in the strategic cultural nature’ of their departments.

The council staff have also learned about mind-mapping, left and right brain thinking and ‘sustaining a breakthrough culture’ at the course, which costs £117 per person.

This week Kirklees emailed employees to invite them to this year’s creative thinking session, which takes place at the Deighton Centre on December 14.

The email was leaked to the Examiner by an anonymous source.

The person pointed out that the course was being run at the same time as Kirklees is reducing its workforce by 1,700.

The source said: “I don’t think a creative thinking course is needed when the council is losing jobs.

“I think there are better ways of spending the money.”

The email, which was sent on Wednesday, invites council staff to courses in Microsoft Excel, time management and creative thinking.

The email is entitled ‘Become more Innovative & Efficient!’– a reference to the council’s cost-cutting Innovation and Efficiency Programme.

Kirklees is reducing its budget to cope with the public spending squeeze. The non-school workforce is expected to fall from 11,200 to 9,500 as part of the Innovation and Efficiency Programme.

The email explains that people who take the creative training course will be able to:

Understand creativity and innovation

Use specific tools to instigate change in the strategic cultural nature of your Service

Understand Kaizer and Horshin theories

Use the skill of mind mapping

The email goes on to explain the course content:

Left and right brain thinking

Idea generation – techniques to release your creativity

Using team creativity tools

Introducing Kaizer and Horshin ideas

Sustaining a breakthrough culture