Centre for Performance at Work

Political Mentoring Toolkit

I wish I had something like this when I started out mentoring

-Cllr Isobel McCall

Download the toolkit

The Political Mentoring Toolkit is available for download here.

Information about the toolkit

Political roles have become increasingly complex and demanding. Over the past decade this has led to many efforts to support elected members in their efforts to acquire the knowledge and skills they need to perform their roles. One of the most successful of these initiatives is the national Political Mentoring Programme. This was launched in 2006 and is hosted by the Local Government Group (LG Group). To date it has brokered more than 400 mentoring arrangements between elected members in local authorities across England and Wales. 

This Political Mentoring Toolkit has been produced from the findings of a project, co-sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the LG Group. Undertaken by Professor Jo Silvester and Dr Christine Menges at City University London the aims of the project were to:

The project involved interviews with 62 politicians who were mentors or mentees, and a survey of 215 elected members and officers. We asked them about how mentoring is structured, what works and doesn't work, different types of mentoring arrangements, and the impact mentoring has had, both on those involved and council functioning more widely. The information gathered has been used to create this Political Mentoring Toolkit, which is freely available to anyone interested in getting involved in political mentoring - either as a mentor or a mentee - or for those looking to establish or support political mentoring arrangements.

Further information

For more information contact Professor Jo Silvester: jo.silvester.1@city.ac.uk