National Skills Shortage Strategy for Local Government - Careers
To aid implementation of the National Strategy Skills Shortage Strategy for Local Government, a platform of initiatives has been created around the four strategic objectives of the strategy. The platform demonstrates the activities, partnerships and collaborations currently being undertaken by local governments, state and national local government associations and peak professional bodies.
Strategic Objective 1 – Local Government Career Pathways
To educate, raise awareness and establish pathways to diverse career opportunities available in Local Government.
The challenge includes addressing the lack of supply of appropriately skilled workers – by attracting young people to the sector, re-skilling and up-skilling the current workforce, and engaging under-utilised local workforces to ensure continued contribution to local economies.
Strategies for the Future
1. Seek start-up infrastructure funding to establish Regional Group Training Enterprises across a number of regional local governments that support apprenticeships and traineeships.
2. Develop a strategies for local government to benefit from a range of Skills for the Future programs, including the development of demonstration projects for up-skilling current local government employees to take on para-professional roles.
3. Advocate to DEWR so that regional local government is recongised as a designated industry that requires funding for recruitment and retention initiatives
4. Present a united voice to the commonwealth government regarding the skills shortage needs of local government for skilled migration programs, for example:
- Propose the steering committee as the designated national body that DIMA industry outreach officers work with, in order to assist local governments access skilled migrants
- Advocate that Migration Occupations in Demand listings include the occupations experiencing skills shortage across local government
- Development of regional skilled migration programs with local government as the lead agency collaborating with local chambers of commerce and industry.
5. Develop proposals for funding under the Mature Aged Employment Opportunities in Regional Local Government initiative for the provision of training to retain workers who are over 45 years of age. Proposals should include collaborations with education institutions, detail selected work areas and outline capacity for staff to retrain into new areas of work.
6. Establish a program to coordinate and monitor secondments and exchange programs for local government staff between local governments in Australia and overseas and with private sector organisations.
7. Seek funding for local government regional careers advisors based in state local government associations. The careers advisors to develop and distribute careers promotion kits to schools and training bodies across the state.
8. Seek funding for research and development projects to assist local governments and peak professional bodies to develop career pathways with appropriate training and professional development courses for skilled assistants and para-professional.
