Curriculum


The Local Government Chief Executives’ Development Framework has been developed to clearly define the standard foundation knowledge and skills required for the profession.

The seven themes form the basis of a curriculum that will underpin a training and development programme for local government chief executives. The seven themes have been identified as the essential, core requirements of the role, and each theme is accompanied by:

  • a definition
  • a set of professional leadership standards for excellence outlining the requirements for acquiring knowledge, gaining experience and sharpening judgement.
     

The seven core themes of the curriculum have been presented as a wheel diagram to indicate that no single theme is more important than another. The seven core themes are as follows: the core chief executive role, politics and the political interface, good governance, managerial leadership, resource management, public ethics, and continuous improvement.

 

Through developing the framework, we have identified a gap in that there are no specialist courses or provision in place for local government chief executives on the foundational building blocks of the role and its essential responsibilities, and the likely governance and managerial challenges they may face. We recognise that, in some key responsibility areas, some specialised courses and resources do already exist – for example in emergency / contingency management and returning officer responsibilities. We do not intend to duplicate those. We also recognise that the chief executive role is much broader than the seven core themes we have defined; however, our current remit is to focus on the core responsibilities.