Courses organised by the National School of Government aimed at explaining what EU membership involves, how EU policy is developed. In organising the courses, the NSG had as its objective: ensure that participants could outline the decision making process of the EU, explain how EU institutions, committees and working groups operate, know how to influence the making of EU legislation.
The National School of Government evolved from the Civil Service College, established in 1970 as part of the Cabinet Office to provide training programmes for UK civil servants; the Civil Service College was then incorporated into the Centre for Management and Policy Studies within the Cabinet Office in 1999. The National School of Government became a separate non-ministerial UK Government department in 2007 and was eventually closed in 2012. More civil servants were trained by the National School of Government over four decades than by any other provider in Europe; there were some 75 full-time consultancy and academic staff and over 500 associates working there.
The programme of the School of European Studies was designed to meet the needs of participants at all levels. There were courses and workshops both for those officials who were seeking to build on some knowledge or experience of working in the EU and for those who were seeking to develop a more general understanding of EU institutions. The focus was on supplying practical, action-oriented training to those who wished to understand the structure of the European Union, the relationships between its major institutions and how to influence them.