Hello everyone, I hope you have been enjoying the beautiful sunshine over the past few days. As I settle into the role of President and find time to plan ahead I Would like to share with you more detail on my manifesto for the next 12 months. There are five key areas I will be focusing on during my year as President which hopefully will touch a nerve or two in your roles:

1. Driving efficiencies out of our organisations, both in HR services and in other services. Shared services will be top of the agenda for most organisations. More and more innovative solutions to cross organisational partnerships functions will be sought as we all try to squeeze every drop of inefficiency out of back office processes in order to protect front line services.
2. Pay in the public sector. We have seen the public outcry in the media over ‘gold plated’ public sector pensions and ‘fat cat’ bonuses in the private sector.  The time has come to radically review reward in the public sector. The pension scheme is not sustainable in its current format, there are too many barriers in place for people to transfer seamlessly between the various public sector bodies and the national pay process doesn’t take sufficient account of local variations.
3. Shaping radical change to the structure and function of public services. Whether we like it or not our organisations need to change dramatically to meet the challenges that lie ahead. No longer will we be the only providers of public services in our areas. The shift to commissioning based organisations will continue, new delivery vehicles will develop as we look to drive public value and stronger partnership working will need to be top of our agendas as we try to join up even more of our services for the benefit of the customer. All this requires radical re-shaping of our organisations and radical re-training of our people.
4. Social Worker Recruitment – a very specific issue but well deserving of our attention. We have a duty to provide the highest levels of care and protection to our most vulnerable people. We have to find new solutions to the image of social work along with sustainable solutions to the attraction and retention of candidates.
5. Leadership development. There has never been a greater need for strong leadership in the public sector. The task ahead is significant and the only way that people will follow is by having a clear sense of what they are trying to achieve, a sense of excitement and confidence in the journey ahead of them and strong and confident role models at a senior level.

Finally, a very long blog post I know but can I also draw your attention to two new publications from PPMA. The first is on the Organisational Development Implications of the Shared Services Agenda, produced by Richard Crouch and Rita Sammons from Solace Enterprises. The second is a thought leadership paper on The Future Size and Shape of our Organisations written by Deloitte in conjunction with PPMA. Both are available to PPMA members for download from the PPMA website.

In the meantime watch out for a special focus on outsourcing in this weeks Sunday Times with contributions from PPMA and for editorial coverage in the LGC this week on pay.

Bye for now

Gill

I can’t let this week pass without saying a few words about the shocking revelations about MP’s expenses that have monopolised media coverage this week.

I’m sure everyone across the world of public service feels equally sad at the impact that these stories have had, and will continue to have, on the reputation of the wider public sector.

Unfortunately, members of the public will inevitably assume that practices such as those in the Palace of Westminster are rife amongst the sector. The damage that these stories will cause to the reputation and credibility of the sector will be felt for some time to come.

But what can we learn from these sad events? One thing we can contribute, as people management professionals, is to be absolutely clear that the value of integrity is fundamental to public service. This means modelling that value ourselves in our behaviour and practice. It means ensuring that our policies and procedures are crystal clear and that the expectations of our employees are communicated across all corners of our organisations. Most of all it means that we have a duty to speak out when we see behaviours at any level in our organisations that don’t meet the high standards of integrity that are expected by the public.

On a more positive note, I know that the vast majority of public servants uphold the very high standards of integrity expected of them. We should all be proud to be public servants and continue to champion the values we that we collectively share.

PPMA work I have been involved in this week includes replying to the many emails and letters I have received complimenting this years conference. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to write and please remember to complete your conference feedback form which was circulated earlier this week. These should be returned to admin@ppma.org.uk. I’ve also given a number of media interviews most of which have focused on the issue of job cuts in the public sector – watch out for a Sunday Times Special on this topic at the end of May.

Have a great weekend.

Gill

The Public Sector HR Podcast team have just released their latest episode…a special show recorded at our recent conference in Manchester, featuring interviews with all the keynote speakers including David Ulrich, Jackie Orme and David Fairhurst.

 It gives a really good flavour of the three days - you can listen to it here.

 Gill

Well the time finally came last week for me to take over the reigns as President of PPMA from Stephen Moir. In my acceptance at the AGM I said how surreal the moment was as I had sat in the audience at PPMA Conferences more times than I care to remember never thinking that one day I would be wearing the chain of office!

It’s going to be a very hard act to follow the outstanding year that Stephen has had but we have a great team at PPMA and we will all work hard to make sure that this year is equally successful as last.

I took a bit of a gamble in moving our flagship conference to Manchester but I have to say I think it paid off. The theme for the conference was Purpose, Passion and Performance. All the speakers focussed on what that meant and were able to bring invaluable thoughts, ideas and debate to the bumper size audience. For those of you who were not able to attend, the speakers slides will be available for download form the PPMA website later this week. On the front page of the conference section you will also see a downloadable version of my opening address at the conference.

Copies of pictures from a very entertaining Thursday night can also be downloaded from www.prazzi.com/ppma2009  

I also set out my manifesto for the year at the AGM and this is something that I will be focussing hard on over the next twelve months. The five key areas of focus are:

• The efficiency agenda
• The changing size and shape of our organisations (see the PPMA/Deloitte thought leadership booklet on this topic that was distributed at the conference)
• The future of public sector reward and pensions
• The crisis in social worker recruitment
• Leadership of our organisations  

Watch out for more news on these issues throughout the year.

Finally, I also had the pleasure of meeting some wonderful people from PPMA, our sponsor organisations and partner organisations from across the globe during conference week. I was a pleasure to meet you all and thank you for your support at the conference. It is certainly a week I will remember for a long, long time to come.

Gill