The Legal Services Commission (LSC) is a government agency that runs legal aid in England and Wales. Its work is fundamental to social and legal justice and enables people to protect their rights and deals with their problems providing timely advice. Over two million people are helped by legal aid funding every year and the LSC accounts for £2billion of the legal services market.

The LSC is currently undergoing a major transformation and as part of this, identified a need to transform the quality and style of its leadership. It started with work on creating a new competency model to clarify what the new form of leadership looked like in behavioural terms. This targeted a range of key elements, notably supporting performance and development throughout the organisation, and shifting the focus of the organisation from legal professionals to the customer. To achieve development, the client decided to implement a wide-ranging Leadership Development Programme, beginning with 360° feedback. Talent Focus 360, PreVisor’s innovative web-based multi-rater 360° system enabled a tailored and flexible solution to be managed on-line. LSC wanted to use its own leadership framework embedded in the tailored questionnaire, and had full support throughout the process. It was also committed to achieving measurable improvements in organisational and individual performance.

The 360° questionnaire and bespoke reports were carefully designed in collaboration with the client. An in-depth trial was undertaken to ensure that the web-based tool delivered the desired results. Training courses were carried out for the key stakeholders to ensure that the communication process was clear and that all parties were engaged. Specialist feedback was provided by consultants at first and within the first year, after training in “how to get the best out of your 360°”, a team of internal coaches took over the coaching sessions.

People across the organisation have achieved genuine insight into their own personal approaches and development priorities. They have been coached in a range of methods to suit the needs of each individual. Participants also attended a development centre proceeding thereafter to the next stage of the Leadership Development Programme, which included ongoing coaching and mentoring. Over an 18-month period, organisational measures were also tracked, relating to the performance of the organisation and patterns in jobholders’ quality of working life. The talent focus system was also used as a strategic evaluation tool to measure the impact of the programme on those being managed by the recipients of the leadership development process. The results provided measurable improvements across many areas including an increase in leadership performance across the board by 40%.