Last week saw a flurry of activity following the Chancellor’s pre-budget speech containing a number of controversial measures to control public sector spending. I was quite literally inundated with calls from the media asking for a PPMA view on the proposals. It is very satisfying that we are now demonstrating our objective of being the ‘voice of public sector people management professionals.’ I think the degree to which our view on such issues are sought is testimony to our success with this objective.

I feel that the tone that the government is trying to set around public sector pay transparency is entirely the right direction of travel. However, the focus on senior pay and overburdening control by the Treasury is difficult to justify. I’ve posted most of my comments on the blog so you can follow my view and let me know if you agree or not!

On Thursday this week I had the pleasure of speaking at the first of our regional launches of the tHRu portal. The product has been supported by a number of ‘experts’ and in particular EurekaStep, KPMG and IES have been involved. I also want to thank Martin Reddington for his support. Above all I want to thank and congratulate Martin Rayson for bringing this product to fruition. It really is a superb addition to our product portfolio for members. I would highly recommend attendance at the regional events if you haven’t already booked!

Finally, can I wish everyone a very happy Christmas and a successful New Year. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the privilege of being your President over the past 8 months and I hope 2010 proves to be the most successful ever for PPMA.

Best wishes

Gill

It was the PPMA Policy Board meeting last Friday and we had a very large agenda to get through. It was a fast paced meeting with lots of important decisions made that will in time affect PPMA members.

The first item of interest was an update on the PPMA Business plan. This is an important document, which will determine the future direction of PPMA. The draft was posted on our website for comments so thank you to those who took the time to respond. Your comments were reported to the Policy Board and were debated at length.

The next, and hopefully final, iteration of the document will be presented to the Policy Board in February next year. Topical issues such as membership development, commercial planning and our future membership offering will all be addressed in the document.

The Board also agreed the next steps on an important piece of work on the future of reward in the public sector. I’m very excited about what we are trying to do as an organisation on reward. Rather than sitting on the sidelines and commenting on existing reward models we are looking to develop a picture of what we think the new model should be for the future. Watch this space for further developments.

The Board also agreed to go ahead with a proposal to set up its own Facebook page so any fellow active ‘Facebookers’ out there be sure to sign up when we go live.

Other items included a report on Membership Development, which we will now take forward as part of the business planning work and an update on the exciting conference that Dean is planning for next year. Finally we had updates from the regions and lead officers.

The Personnel Today Awards were held on the evening preceding the Board. PPMA hosted a table and were delighted to have as our guest important friends and partner organisations such as Julie Towers from the Tribal Group, Jan Parkinson from the LGE and Chris Johnson from Mercers. It was a good night for the public sector with Birmingham City Council winning yet another award for their fantastic work on employee engagement through the Birmingham Best programme. Also shortlisted were Lancashire County Council, the Metropolitan Police and our very own Past President, Stephen Moir in the category of HR Director of the Year. Thank you to everyone for attending and I hope you enjoyed the evening as much as I did.

Bye for now

Gill

There are a few things going on that I thought you would be interested to hear about. Firstly, Communications Management our PR and communications partners have recently carried out some interesting research focusing on HR and online social networking. This is a very topical area and the report they produced called Senior, Savvy and Social, can be downloaded here.

Coming up in September:

The PPMA Policy Board will be meeting for their third annual E day event and top of our agenda is a debate about the future pay model for the public sector, which will be facilitated by Mercers and attended by the LGE. We will also be doing work on the future PPMA business model. More details of the outcomes will be posted on the PPMA website in due course.

NEREO and PPMA (NE) are holding their third equal pay conference on 22nd September in Gateshead. The ‘What’s Happening and Where are we Going Conference?’ is an opportunity for delegates to take stock and consider the best approach to resolving the ever more complex and difficult issue of equal pay. Speakers include Barrister Seamus Sweeny, GMB’s National Secretary for Public Services, Brian Strutton and Ways HR Consulting Managing Director, Paul Robertson. The cost is £125.00 + VAT and more information and booking details can be found at www.nereo.gov.uk

Working Families are holding a Conference - The Future of Work. Preparing for Tomorrow, on the 30th September in London. The conference will explore what the future might hold for workplaces, families and communities in these challenging economic times - and in the longer term. There is a great line up of speakers from a range of organisations including BP, Talk Talk and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and if you’d like to attend, we have negotiated a special rate of £299.00 + VAT (usual rate £375.00 + VAT) for PPMA members. (please quote PPMA Member when booking). If you’d like to find out more or book a place call Rebecca Christie on 020 7017 0066 or email events@workingfamilies.org.uk

Gill

Hi all,

Well I know I’m a Dean Martin fan (oops, other musical confession made), but I didn’t really expect the weather to change so significantly over last weekend. As a Scotsman I’ve usually looked on with a degree of bemusement to the reaction to snow the further south I’ve lived. On this occasion, my degree of bemusement came back to bite me and I’ve spent the start and the end of this week working from home with a car that was unable to get me onto a main road due to the weather! It also meant that I spent time working remotely and ensuring that the Adverse Weather Policy provisions were applied for Cambridgeshire’s operation, we seem to have coped really well and our gritting teams especially have worked really hard. I hope your own organisations are coping well and that you have all been safe and warm.

PPMA wise, I’m really excited about next Friday - which sees the formal launch of Raising the Standard, a major product that PPMA has been working to implement with our colleagues at the IDeA and the IES. The brain child of our one and only Alan Warner, this is something quite special that was trailed at our conference in Brighton last year.

Talking of Mr. Warner, many of you will by now be aware that he is moving onto pastures new (not put out to graze) after some 22 years as a Director at Hertfordshire CC. Without wanting to make Alan blush with embarrassment (which I’ve never seen happen anyway), he is quite simply one of the most outstanding HR professionals in the public sector and has been at the pinnacle of his profession of years. Under his leadership, Herts CC HR has become an exemplar of best practice to many of us and is still innovating - I seem to remember Alan and the team being the first in the public sector to win a Personnel Today Award, but that’s a few years ago now and just says how long I’ve been around! Seriously, Alan’s gain is Hertfordshire’s loss….but I’m confident we can find a way to ensure his continued contribution to PPMA in the future. Whilst on the subject of ‘movers and shakers’ Brendon Hills from Shropshire CC and Chair of the West Midlands PPMA region / lead officer on LGR is also moving on - Brendon’s decided to break with tradition and move out of the HR profession into a front line job as Corporate Director (Community and Environment) at the London Borough of Harrow - you see, HR people can go onwards and upwards! I wouldn’t be surprised if Brendon wasn’t a Chief Executive in the future.

Finally, I know that you’ll probably have other things on your mind, but the relentless march of time towards our conference in Manchester continues - and so will my reminders to book a place if you haven’t already. Also as a reminder, have you nominated your ‘Most Influential’ for HR Magazine this year? The clock is ticking on this as well - points make prizes, or in this case votes create profile for the public sector - get e-mailing and if you need the details of where to drop your votes, please see my previous blog entry on this subject.

Right, that’s about enough for this “Winter’s Tale” (l promise no more sad musical references).

Best wishes

Stephen

Not a lot to say this week or last week really (makes a change I know!) Lots of energy and attention still going on behind the scenes to prepare for the PPMA conference - have you booked your place yet?

On the PPMA front, I’ve been fairly low key in the last couple of weeks, simply due to the needs of Cambridgeshire County Council. However, yesterday I attended the IDeA Board meeting (via PPMA I get a seat on the Board as a non-executive director). Whilst performing this role on behalf of the IDeA, I still ensure that issues relating to HR/people management are kept in the minds of the Board. With the current situation at the LGA and Lucy De Groot due to leave the IDeA at the end of March, HR issues featured heavily on the Board agenda - watch the local government trade press to find out more in the coming weeks.

Other than this, today has seen me do some ‘hands-on’ HR work within my authority, dealing with a particular issue - it’s nice to know that I can still actually do operational things and I still get a bit of a buzz from this….note to my team, no don’t worry I won’t make a habit of this!

Anyway, have a good weekend - sure to have some more news for you next week.

Best wishes

Stephen

Well it’s the second of January 2009 and I’m sat in Shire Hall in Cambridge. It’s lovely and quiet and I’m taking the chance to catch up on the bit of my job that I never enjoy - admin and weeding out some old e-mails.

Anyway, all things back to normal from next week and I hope you enjoyed a great festive period.

Best wishes

Stephen

For once, I’m writing a blog update whilst sat working from home - what a pleasant novelty! 

Even more surprising is that this week there isn’t a huge amount to report on the PPMA front. Last week’s attendance at the Personnel Today Awards was hugely successful and the PPMA guests appeared to have enjoyed themselves, as did the PPMA members in attendance. I was delighted to see that there were a number of public sector finalists, including my former colleagues in South Tyneside - well done to all the public sector entrants who made it to the final stages and especially to those who won!

Other than updating on the tail end of last week, from a personal perspective PPMA business appears to be winding down towards the Christmas break - but I’m pretty sure that it will quickly ramp up again in the New Year. The one bit of business to highlight was a discussion I held this morning with our lead on Pay and Reward, Jim Savege, and Andy Cook from Marshall-James HR consulting. Our discussion was about employee relations training for HR teams and we agreed an outline proposal that I’ll be writing to PPMA Regional Chairs about to consider further.

Before closing for this week, I would like to make a personal comment about the national press and what appears to be an increasing anti-public sector line.  Newspaper articles have covered all sorts of issues from public sector pay and pensions to job titles - if I didn’t know better, I’d say that a general election was impending (you can call me a cynic at this point). When messages such as these start to appear in the broadsheets, it’s pretty clear that lobby groups and political parties are starting to flex their campaigning muscles.

Compound this with the additional public sector efficiency targets and increases in employer national insurance contributions, etc. then public servants and public sector employers are very much under the spotlight, especially our colleagues working in children’s services across the country.  With the backdrop of the credit crunch and interest rates at a 57 year low, this is not only going to be a tough time for HR teams supporting employers and employees alike, it’s unlikely to get any easier in the meantime. So, rather than crumble or hide away, HR really has to step up the pace and help the public sector as a whole weather the gathering storm.

Best wishes

Stephen

Well, following up on my post from last week, I thought you’d all be pleased to hear that Gill Hibberd and I attended an event organised by the CIPD to launch their new programme “Shaping the Future”. This programme is intended to be a cornerstone of the CIPD’s policy and research agenda and will focus on the future of people management and the implications for H R as a consequence. Perhaps CIPD will draw upon PPMA’s Evolution or Extinction Theme for this year? This new research programme, unlike others, will be heavily influenced by HR practitioners like ourselves (Andy Albon and colleagues at Birmingham City Council have already signed up to be a case study I believe).

During the launch we heard an interesting presentation from Dr. Tim Miller, Director of People, Property and Assurance from Standard Chartered Bank. Tim made a lot of sense with what he said and the approach of his organisation to employee engagement was fascinating. As a side note I should add that in a room full of predominantly private sector HR people that Gill and I were both “winners” at the event during one of the exercises and were gifted with pens from the CIPD for our efforts to identify the most important factor in engaging and motivating employees. You guessed it, we both (independent of each other) identified Leadership and A Sense of Purpose as the key factor. What was really strange was the fact that we both also talked about the need for authentic leadership. Talk about continuity for the future of PPMA!

Anyway, what else to report? Well in People Management this week I’ve got another opinion piece - this time on employee relations. The purpose of the piece is to stimulate some debate (as always) and I’d be interested in your comments having read this.

It’s also worth saying that next week sees me head north to Scotland for the SPDS conference in St. Andrews. I’m delighted to have the opportunity to speak at the conference again this year and watch next week’s blog for some more news on this front.

Also, just a pointer towards the PPMA website to say that our intrepid adventurer, Dean Shoesmith, returned safely from America. Dean has produced a series of updates and information items to share his american conference experience with all of us and this will be appearing on the PPMA website - I recommend his report. However PPMA Board members have also been active in travelling the length and breadth of the UK - many thanks to Gill Hibberd and John Tonks for visiting the South West Regional Group. I understand that there was good engagement and attendance at the session - it’s great to hear that we have some flourishing regions out there! This also counts as another region visited by either the President or Vice President this year. A few more to go and we’ll be close to a full house.

Lastly some personal congratulations to HR colleagues from Castle Morpeth for being an award winning HR place to work - I’d say I was surprised, but I’m not - Paul Moody, the Council’s H R and Performance Manager, is someone I studied at college with. If anyone can create a fun working environment, it’s Paul or maybe that’s just my ‘alcohol fuelled’ memories of college?

Best wishes

Stephen

P.S. I’d love to get your feedback on any of the topics discussed in this post - it’s very easy to join in the conversation and get your views heard, just click on ‘Leave a comment’ underneath the headline of this post and type away.   

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Well, I’m finally back from holiday and I’d like to thank both Gillian and Dean for their contributions to the blog whilst I’ve been away. I’d particularly like to thank Gill for her extremely kind comments, even if they did make me feel very humble and slightly embarrassed!

Being on holiday made me realise just how much effort being PPMA President requires - I was pretty frazzled before having 2 weeks of sitting on a tropical beach not doing much. It isn’t for the faint hearted and means a “ruthless” focus on priorities at all times - both PPMA and the day job. The Association has been fortunate to have the services of some exceptional Presidents in the past and my level of respect for them has only increased as my own term of Office continues.

However, lots to update and lots going on (as always). Some key highlights as follows:

- PPMA has joined forces with Personnel Today to support the “Ditch the Default” campaign. This means that we are equally supporting the campaign to get Government to remove the default retirement age from law. For the ageing public sector workforce profile, it is a real no brainer to apply a default retirement age….people can make valued contributions to public services at any age and we should support this. I’d urge PPMA members to sign the PT petition on the Number 10 website, which can be found here.

- I promised to announce our new Lead Officers for PPMA. It was a hard set of decisions to make, but I’m delighted to confirm that Jack Markiewicz, Director of H R and Change at Swindon Borough Council, is our new Lead for Talent Management. Martin Rayson, Director of Resources from Boston Borough Council has been confirmed as our H R Transformation lead (I met with him and other colleagues last Friday, they are doing some great work). And last, but by no means least I’m really pleased to welcome Janice Joannou, Head of Organisational Development at the London Borough of Croydon, as our new Lead for Diversity. All talented, skilled and committed people - they’ll make immediate contributions to our work. The knock on effect however is that with Jack moving to take over Talent Management, we will need a new Lead Officer for Pensions - applications welcome folks for this critical role!

- You might have noticed that PPMA members did really well in the Personnel Today Power Players List for 2008 - I’m delighted we have 3 people in the top 10. Yours truly was gob smacked to be number 7, until a cheeky colleague suggested that only a Director of H R from Scotland could be 007…..don’t worry no bad Sean Connery impressions will follow!  I did however want to say thanks to all those who chose to vote for me and other PPMA colleagues - it’s a privilege to represent you and public sector H R generally.

- Anyway talking of foreign travel earlier in the Blog, I thought you be interested to know that our very own Dean Shoesmith is currently undertaking an American sojourn - to Las Vegas of all places. Dean kindly agreed to represent the PPMA at our American cousins annual conference. We’ll all get a chance to share in Dean’s letter from America upon his return via the PPMA website (Letter from America is a good song by the way - but not as good as 500 miles for all you Proclaimers fans out there….Anne Gibson, you have been named and shamed!).

And that’s it for now folks - more to update later this week, including CIPD related contributions by PPMA.

Best wishes as always.

Stephen

Stephen has now returned refreshed and ready for work, following his two weeks in the sun.

Before departing on his trip, he wrote a post updating you all on the events that happened during the previous two weeks, including the outcomes of the Policy Board meeting in Cambridge. The post can be found here.