Originally developed for Croydon Council, INVEST is a 10-module leadership development programme delivered in partnership with Passe-Partout that has played a key role in rebuilding confidence, strengthening leadership culture and enhancing organisational performance. As part of the Council's ambitious Future Croydon Transformation Plan, launched in response to significant financial and organisational challenges, the programme was designed to develop consistent leadership capability across more than 400 frontline and middle managers.

You can find out about the Invest programme in this short video:

Strategic partnership

Reed Learning was appointed as a strategic partner to London Borough of Croydon to support its ambitious five-year transformation plan. Croydon needed more than a training provider. They needed a partner that could design, deliver and evidence the impact of a large-scale leadership development programme aligned to their transformation goals. The first stage was to work with human-centred leadership experts Passe-Partout to roll out an intensive management development programme to all middle managers, with the aim of strengthening leadership capability and ultimately delivering better services for residents.

The challenge

Croydon is undertaking a major transformation programme to become a more cost effective and cost-efficient council that puts its residents first. The election of Croydon’s first Mayor, Jason Perry, led to the Future Croydon Transformation Plan, a five-year programme which builds on the foundations of improvements already carried out, and aims to radically change the way the council works and delivers services.

While the borough is moving forward and improvements have been made, challenges remain for the current administration, including a mandate to make savings of just under £100m. To change the way that services are provided, the council must change culturally as well as financially.

The transformation plan has a heavy emphasis on improving leadership and management throughout the organisation in a more systematic way.

The solution

Our brief was to deliver an intensive management development programme to train the 430 middle managers across the Council, a group who are feeling over-faced by their responsibilities for delivering ‘business as usual’ alongside service transformation.

For this work Reed Learning chose to partner with Passe-Partout, a learning business of 26 years’ standing and specialists in helping organisations build high engagement and performance through human-centred leadership and culture development. Working with the Chief People Officer, Dean Shoesmith, and with input from the Local Government Association, Reed Learning and Passe-Partout created a programme called Invest that combined:

• Ten tailored leadership and management modules

• Personality and behavioural assessments

• A collaborative digital learning platform providing access to on-demand learning

• Expert facilitator-led workshops

• Ongoing learner support and engagement, with over 220 workshops delivered in seven months and an average session score of 8.3

• A robust evaluation framework aligned to organisational KPIs, with weekly reporting sent directly to the Chief People Officer

Rather than delivering off-the-shelf training, Reed Learning embedded itself within the organisation, ensuring every element of the programme supported Croydon's wider transformation objectives, including leadership confidence, cultural change, performance improvement and employee wellbeing.

The impact

The programme has delivered measurable results and created a strong foundation for long-term organisational improvement:

• Increased confidence in people management, including performance, wellbeing and inclusion

• Stronger cross-directorate collaboration and peer networks

• Leadership consistency through shared management standards

• Evidence-based insights to inform future leadership and talent strategie.

• 434 managers engaged in the programme

• 240+ learning sessions delivered

• 8.8/10 average facilitator score

• 8.3/10 average session value score

An independent programme review in 2026 found that Invest had successfully re-established management development as an organisational priority and helped build a stronger leadership community across the council. The review also provided Croydon with the data to make informed decisions about future workforce and leadership investment.

Croydon's Chief People Officer commented:

"We were particularly taken with Reed Learning because of your values and the way you wanted to work with us strategically to drive improvement… prepared to come into the fabric of the building and work with us cheek by jowl to drive those improvements through."

We were particularly taken with Reed Learning because of your values and the way you wanted to work with us strategically to drive improvement… prepared to come into the fabric of the building and work with us cheek by jowl to drive those improvements through.

You can find out more about this project in the full case study.