Developing Skills for Government: Political Mentoring

Silvester, Jo (2025). Developing Skills for Government: Political Mentoring. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-851831

Robert Louis Stephenson (1882) commented that politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is deemed necessary. Yet, in terms of its national and international importance, the work undertaken by democratically elected politicians arguably equals (if not exceeds) that of business leaders. It is therefore surprising that so little attention has been paid to understanding how politicians develop skills for government.
This project focuses on peer mentoring and has two broad aims:
To review the use of mentoring for politicians in local government to identify what is working, why, and to produce evidence-based guidelines for best practice across the sector.
To contribute to academic understanding of how learning and development takes place in political environments.
In order to examine factors contributing to successful political mentoring and learn from past experience, structured critical incident interviews will be conducted with 40 local councillors who have received mentoring and 40 who have acted as mentors for other politicians. In addition an on-line survey of members and officers will be undertaken to capture a broad overview of current practice and activities across the sector.

Data description (abstract)

Focusing on the introduction of a national programme of political mentoring for local government this research investigated why formal development is rare in politics and how politician learning can be supported. Structured critical incident interviews lasting 30-40 minutes were conducted by telephone with 60 politicians who had been involved in political mentoring (N=35 mentors and N=25 mentees). Interviewees were all local councillors and were from local authorities across England and Wales. The interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed using template analysis to identify common processes and perceived causes of mentoring outcomes. Also an electronic survey of 215 politicians and officers investigated core mentor functions and general attitudes towards politician development.

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