Training for personnel management in local government

The personnel function in local government has tended to develop more slowly than in private industry and commerce. It has, however, received a new impetus over the last year or so with the advent of the reorganisation of local government and the publication of an influential report ‘The New Local Authorities: management and structure’. This report, which is commonly known as the Bains' Report, explicitly encourages a corporate approach to management, a concept at variance with the traditional departmentalism of many local authorities. More significantly in this context, the report also devotes a whole chapter to recommendations about the development of the personnel function in the new authorities, the only function to be discussed in this depth.