It’s been an interesting week watching the Democratic party conference as they nominate Mr. Obama for Presidential candidate for their party in the American elections. I don’t recall anything quite so elaborate or expensive when I was nominated for PPMA President…..ah well, delusions of grandeur aside, another week of presidential stuff comes to an end, comments as follows:

- Great response from willing volunteers to join the PPMA Policy Board as Lead Officers - so you do exist and want to contribute more - fantastic!  Expect announcements on appointments to be made following the Policy Board meeting on 11th/12th September. Thank you to all of you who expressed an interest.

- Good article in the LGC this week on Total Reward and profiling some of the work that my authority, Buckinghamshire CC and Hertfordshire CC are doing in partnership on a pilot basis. A similar article on reward appeared in Personnel Today last week. Watch out for further PPMA profile stuff in People Management next week.

- Arrangements are developing well for the PPMA Conference in Manchester next year - I can’t wait to see the details from Gill Hibberd and her planning team, but suspect I’ll be bowled over like the rest of you.

Finally, just in case you thought I’d have a week without mentioning it, I’m London bound today to meet the IDeA about the national jobs portal for Local Government and the ‘Best Councils’ initiative. Following which I’m delighted to say I’m catching up with Yvonne Skingle (now working with Tribal). Yvonne is already working on a range of assignments, including the Tribal/PPMA interface - you might also want to have a look at some of the jobs she is involved in the search activities for, including the HR and OD Director for the new Wiltshire Council.

Best wishes

Stephen

You might be interested to know that the last Leadership & OD Network meeting marked the first of a series of debates that we’re likely to hold on the topical issues of leadership and OD within the public sector.

Our first debate was on Changing The Way We Work (download a pdf of the notes from the meeting here) when we were joined by David Robinson from Herts County Council, Lucille Thirlby from Unison and John Atkinson from the Leadership Centre for Local Government. The work that Herts CC is undertaking on change is impressive and the debate allowed us to really get underneath the process being followed there and the people issues that surround it. There will be more on this topic in due course!

Watch this space and the PPMA website, for the next debate is likely to be on the thorny subject of the leadership and OD implications of LGR. We also want to link this to the experiences of other sectors, including the private sector in terms of acquisitions, mergers, divestments, joint ventures etc.

Richard Crouch - PPMA Lead Officer for OD & Leadership and Head of HR & OD, Somerset County Council

Well as I end the final bank holiday weekend of the year, my thoughts turn to the impending PPMA September Board meeting in Cambridge, which promises to be a busy one.

However, last week flew past and included yet another London trip on Wednesday. This time to join a CIPD/People Management lunchtime discussion on the state of employee relations in the UK. A really interesting discussion involving a cross section of people and organisations, including Stephen Kelly, Director of BBC People, Linda Holbeche, CIPD’s policy and research director, James Dalgleish, Head of HR for the London Fire Service and Sarah Veale from the TUC.

The debate was both topical and relevant with increasing IR/ER tensions all over the country and the looming spectre of an economic downturn beginning to “colour” employee relations at both a local and national level.

Needless to say the debate will feature in a future edition of People Management, but more importantly will contribute towards one of CIPD’s new “Futures” Reports, which is a real step in the right direction for the Institute.

Anyway, enjoy what’s left for your bank holiday - traffic jams and all.

Stephen

It’s a later blog post than normal, but with a number of key PPMA update points to note: -

I held a meeting last week with Kelly Sandiford from the IDeA to discuss a range of issues including the National OD Programme, Raising the Standard launch arrangements and the national People Management Forum - all of which involve or have had PPMA leadership in some shape or form.

This week, I had the chance to catch up on Monday with John Tonks, our Executive Officer to discuss plans for the September PPMA Board meeting in Cambridge. John and I have also had an interesting meeting today (more later).

On Wednesday, a really positive meeting with Gill Hibberd and Alan Warner as well as colleagues from Communications Management (our PR agency supporters). This was a great chance to review our progress and contract with Communications Management - needless to say progress has been great and we’re keen to continue to work with them going forward - subject to Policy Board debate/decision in September.

Today was a wonderful homeland meeting for me, with John Tonks.  We both met with the Executive Committee and Office Bearers from SPDS - our Scottish sister organisation. In a very wide ranging discussion we re-emphasised our shared commitment to partnership working and collaboration to the benefit of both organisations and their members. We’ve all left Edinburgh with some actions to progress, which I’ll pick up with the Policy Board and Lead Officers particularly. I’m hopeful we’ll have more news on this issue later in the year - perhaps to coincide with the SPDS conference later this year…watch this space!

Finally, taking the opportunity provided I’m spending the weekend in Scotland with family - but the life of PPMA President doesn’t end at that. Over the weekend I’ve got a People Management column piece to write and an opener for the HR and Training Journal.

Best wishes

Stephen

PS - if you’ve not already cast your vote by e-mail for the Personnel Today 40 Power Players of 2008, get to work folks - this is another PPMA profile opportunity and we need to feature in the listings and show the private sector that our people compare with the very best that they can offer.

The summer has certainly been with us in force this week (at least in Cambridgeshire) and other than melting, I’ve had a week of relatively low key PPMA commitments. 

Yesterday, Jan Parkinson from the LGE kindly visited Cambridgeshire and we were able to talk about both PPMA/LGE business and a range of specific issues facing Cambridgeshire County Council - I can’t afford to forget my employer after all!  In particular, we were able to share intelligence about the concept of the public sector worker and some interest in this that appears to have been expressed by the Cabinet Office - something that from both a PPMA and Cambridgeshire perspective, I’ll be following up.  We also, of course, discussed the status of the local government pay award and the proposed “nothing ruled in, nothing ruled out” discussions with the trade unions, like you I await with interest the outcomes from the next round of discussions, which will involve Jim Savege, our lead officer on Pay and Reward.

Today I received an e-mail from the Director of HR at Communities and Local Government (CLG), Clive Norris. CLG’s Permanent Secretary, Peter Housden, has asked Clive if he could explore opportunities for the Communities Department to develop a more shared agenda across the public service - but specifically between the Department and local authorities, such as on matters of joint interest related to public service improvement or diversity for example. This sounds like a very positive opportunity to forge stronger links for the PPMA directly with CLG and is something I’ll be following up on in weeks to come.

Finally, I’m delighted to say that the ‘Edinburgh Summit’ with SPDS colleagues - previously mentioned in the blog has been agreed for 15th August. Both I and John Tonks, PPMA’s Executive Officer, will be heading to Edinburgh to discuss closer collaboration with our friends north of the border.

I hope this update finds everyone well - and if you haven’t already done so, get writing those applications PPMA Lead Officers in waiting!

Best wishes

Stephen