People & Skills ยท PPL-07
Bringing in and keeping expertise
The organisation recruits and keeps the AI expertise it needs and uses external experts in a way that transfers knowledge, so that capability stays when contracts end.
Why it matters
Demand for AI expertise is high and organisations often rely on contractors and suppliers. Without deliberate knowledge transfer, each engagement leaves the organisation no more capable than before and dependent on the next one.
Levels
| 0 Absent | Confirmed absent: the evidence shows nothing is in place. Not known is recorded as insufficient evidence, not 0. |
|---|---|
| 1 Initial | Expertise is hired or contracted as needs arise, with no plan for keeping knowledge. |
| 2 Developing | Recruitment for AI roles happens, but retention is not managed and external engagements rarely include knowledge transfer. |
| 3 Defined | A plan covers recruiting, retaining and diversifying AI expertise, and every external engagement transfers knowledge to named internal staff. |
| 4 Managed | Time to hire, retention and reliance on external expertise are measured, and knowledge transfer is checked at the end of each engagement. |
| 5 Optimising | The balance of internal and external expertise is set deliberately from evidence and adjusted as needs change. |
Level 3 criteria
Level 3 is met when every applicable criterion is met. Criteria marked with an overlay apply only to organisations with that characteristic (overlays).
- PPL-07.1 A plan for recruiting and retaining AI expertise is in place.
- PPL-07.2 The plan addresses the diversity of AI teams.
- PPL-07.3 Each external engagement for AI expertise includes defined knowledge transfer to named internal staff.
Assessment questions
- How do you attract and keep people with AI expertise?
- When you use contractors or suppliers for AI, how is their knowledge passed to your own staff?
- Which AI capabilities would be lost if a key contract or person left tomorrow?
- Recruitment and retention plan or data for AI roles
- Knowledge transfer clauses or records from external engagements
How to reach Level 3
- Write a short plan for recruiting and retaining AI expertise, covering where to find candidates, what keeps them, and how you will build diversity in AI teams.
- Add a standard knowledge transfer clause to contracts with AI suppliers and contractors that names what must be handed over and how.
- Name the internal staff who will receive the knowledge in each external engagement before it starts.
- Keep a list of engagements with their named recipients so gaps can be seen.
Common pitfalls
- Naming no internal recipient, so knowledge transfer becomes a document nobody reads.
- Treating diversity as a recruitment statistic only, with no action in the plan.
- Renewing the same contractor year after year without asking why the skill was never built inside.
Starter artefacts
- AI recruitment and retention plan
- Knowledge transfer contract clause
- Engagement register with named internal recipients
Ownership and sequence
- Accountable
- people lead
- Contributors
- delivery lead, executive sponsor
- Depends on
- PPL-04
- Roadmap step
- 2
- Lifecycle
- strategy, acquire_build, operate
Cross-references
| GDS AI Playbook | P9 partial |
|---|---|
| JSP 936 Part 1 | para 186 direct |
| MITRE AI Maturity Model | P3.3 direct |
| NIST AI RMF 1.0 | GOVERN 3.1 partial; MAP 1.2 partial |
| UK Data and AI Ethics Framework | Fairness 5 partial; SAT 1.12 partial |
| UNESCO AI Maturity Framework | 2.1 partial; 4.4 partial |
direct: this control at Level 3 meets the item. partial: it covers part of it.