Professional Development at Times of Cuts

Public services are in a period of reduction and reprioritisation. Teams are being asked to deliver core outcomes with fewer people, tighter budgets and greater scrutiny. Leaders can’t change that reality, but how they support their teams through it determines whether the planned savings take hold or quietly evaporate in the months that follow.

Employer investment in professional development has been in steady decline for more than a decade. The Employer Skills Survey 2024 reports a £6bn drop in training investment between 2022 and 2024, with per employee investment in public sector organisations down 38% since 2011. Many organisations now anchor decisions to the Growth and Skills Levy, shrinking what used to be 3-5% of payroll for learning and development to the levy’s 0.5%.

Put together, these realities create a dangerous dynamic: just as teams are being asked to absorb more change, the investment that helps them adapt has been shrinking for years. When workforce reductions are managed without strengthening the people and teams that remain, the unintended consequences can quickly outweigh the savings. Uncertainty drags on, morale weakens, and high performers start looking elsewhere. Knowledge is lost, collaboration suffers, and the efficiencies driving the cuts never fully materialise.

But there is another way. The organisations that emerge stronger are those that choose to invest in team-based professional development during periods of reduction, not just after them. It’s counterintuitive but proven: when teams have shared language, consistent tools and space to practise new ways of working, they absorb change faster and with less friction. Managers lead with more confidence, staff can see a clear career pathway, and retention holds steady in the roles where continuity matters most.

The impact of good professional development isn’t always easy to pin down in metrics or dashboards, but its effects are unmistakable. It’s in the remembered breakthroughs: that’s where the ROI lives, long after spreadsheets forget them.

As a provider, I read every piece of delegate feedback for quality control, but if I’m honest I also do so because I’m a sucker for the gushy ones, the notes that say the programme changed how someone thinks, leads or even lives. It’s a reminder that the real return on team-based professional development isn’t in neat KPIs, it’s in what happens when people take time away from the day-to-day, reflect together and return with sharper insight, renewed confidence and the momentum to do things differently.

If you are delivering savings, treat team-based development as part of the savings plan, not a discretionary extra. Invest in your people now and you’ll not only keep your best talent but turn planned efficiencies into lasting improvements. If you need to do that within tight time and budget constraints, that is the work we do every day.