Earlier this week the IDeA and PPMA ran a conference on the topical issue of organisational design, at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Birmingham. At the conference delegates heard from a number of organisations on the approaches they had taken to redesigning their organisations in a bid to create sustainable structure and efficiency savings.

The conference topic was obviously contemporary, as the event was sold out. Further events are now planned across the region and a follow-up online conference is being held. Further details can be found on the IDeA website.

Interviews with some of the key speakers were recorded at the event and in this first clip, Gillian Hibberd, describes the approach taken in Buckinghamshire County Council as part of their wider transformation programme.

Here are the other video interviews from the event.

Hello bloggers

Have you read the press headlines recently about public sector services? If you haven’t they go something like this…’Public sector bad, private sector good’ or ‘Town Hall fat cats overpaid and clueless’ or ‘Public sector needs a bonfire under it’.

This type of crude reporting, quite frankly, gets my goat.

Gillian Hibberd and I met Jackie Orme, CIPD Chief Executive, last week to discuss mutual agendas and how we can work in successful collaboration. Fortunately, we see balanced reporting concerning public sector management from the CIPD through People Management magazine. However, we discussed the current plethora of anti-public sector reporting that appears to plague the more sensationalist elements of the media.

The damage crude and melodramatic reporting may cause is of considerable concern both now and for the future. Jackie, to her great credit, was quick to identify the problem. The problem being that we need to recruit and retain talented people if we are to be successful in the challenge of transforming public sector services. Bashing the public sector as a ‘basket case’ puts at risk our ability to recruit and retain those talented people who will be tasked with making fundamental change to public services. If employee engagement takes a hit, so will our ability to provide good quality services at an affordable cost - empirical evidence from Investors in People, MORI, the Work Foundation, to name a few well-respected research organisations, demonstrates a casual relationship between employees engagement and organisational performance.

If the UK is to emerge in reasonable shape from the recession, we need the nation to get behind the public sector to reduce the country’s level of debt and bashing us isn’t going to help one little bit. If top talent leaves the public sector, how will we deliver the fundamental change that’s needed?

Jackie agreed that we need to promote the successful changes already being implemented across the public sector, share the learning and spread the success.  If only others were as enlightened - but then I suppose good news seldom sells newspapers, unless it’s ‘England wins the World Cup’?

Have a good week.

Dean

The following article features PPMA President Gill Hibberd:

1. Public Sector leaders back calls for pay transparency published 17th March 2010 on personneltoday.com

I had the pleasure of attending a CIPD Dinner with Jackie Orme this week on the issue of next generation HR leaders. A fascinating discussion took place about where the next leaders will be coming from and what role the CIPD will play in attracting and developing such talent. As well as our very own Stephen Moir, other people attending included Alex Wilson from BT, Stephen Dando from Thomson Reuters and Lucy Adams from the BBC.

Stephen and I were both supportive of the CIPD targeting fast track development at people entering the profession and in developing a high quality programme aimed at developing future leaders. The report from the CIPD on ‘Next Generation HR’ is certainly worth a read.

This week also saw the release of the long awaited Audit Commission report on CEO severance – ‘By Mutual Agreement’. The document is downloadable from the Audit Commission website and is a very interesting read. The trade press picked it up very quickly and I’ve been making comments that the recommendations on transparency are to be welcomed.

Finally, I’m now busy planning my conference itinerary for next week. I send my very best wishes to Dean for a successful event and given the tremendous energy and effort he has put into it I’m sure it will be a fantastic event.

For anyone out there who has been reading my blog please do come over and say hello if you are at the conference – I would love to meet you.

Gill

I’ve had a hectic week covering both Bucks CC work and PPMA work, so I’m relieved that the week is now over and I can go home to relax (with a glass of wine!).

On Tuesday, I attended a Solace/Alace seminar on the proposed changes to senior officers’ pensions taxation. The consultation paper on the changes makes radical proposals that will impact heavily on senior officers.

My suggestions for those who haven’t yet picked this up are to bring it to the attention of your senior team, suggest that anyone concerned obtains actuarial valuations of their pensions, arrange a seminar on the changes via your pensions administrator and if possible enable senior officers to get access to independent financial advice.

Last night I was lucky enough to attend the annual Association of County Chief Executives (ACCE) dinner in my capacity as President of PPMA. The dinner was held at The Grove (infamous for the leaked England Football Team tapes last week) which also happens to be a couple of miles from my home in Hertfordshire so also very convenient for me. It was a great networking event and I was able to speak to Rob Whiteman the incoming Chief Executive of the IDeA.

I have arranged to set up a meeting with him before he starts his new role in May to talk through PPMA priorities and how we work with the IDeA. I also saw Mike Burton from The MJ who tells me that the PPMA Focus is just about to go to the printers for the conference edition.

So, only 2 weeks to go before I hand over the reigns to Dean and counting down from here!

Have a great weekend.

Gill

The following article features PPMA President Gill Hibberd:

1. Brown Announces Senior Public-Sector Pay Freeze published 10th March 2010 on peoplemanagement.co.uk

The following article features PPMA President Gill Hibberd:

1. Wanted: Fast-Trackers published 25th February 2010 on peoplemanagement.co.uk

Last Friday, on the day of the PPMA Policy Board, there were headlines in The Independent newspaper about the loss of at least 20,000 jobs in local government up and down the country. As we lead up to a general election all parties are talking about cut backs in the public sector and we know that because of the nature of our business that means less people employed so the numbers could be higher than those reported.

The board discussed this very serious issue and agreed that we should send out a note asking members what they would like to see from the PPMA by way of professional support. The topics could range from the technical, e.g. how do you downsize? through to planning for the future. The range of issues could potentially be quite wide, so feedback as to what people are seeing as pressing needs will be helpful.

Responses will be circulated to the board, which includes the regional chairs, and we will have to decide on how best we can add value at this difficult and stressful time.

Best wishes

Gill

The following article features PPMA President Gill Hibberd:

1. HR wary on plans for public-sector co-ops published 22nd February 2010 on peoplemanagement.co.uk

I’ve just chaired my last Board meeting as President of PPMA before I hand over the reigns to Dean Shoesmith at the AGM in March. The meeting on Friday was full of ‘meaty’ issues. It was also a meeting with a number of new faces some of whom have recently taken over Lead officers roles and some who were covering for Regional Chairs.

We had a couple of guest speakers at the meeting. The first was Anne Macdonald who runs the national Social Work Task Force Chaired by Moira Gibb from Camden. Anne updated us on the final report of the task force and the work that is now being done on implementation. The Task Force received vital evidence from PPMA and we had a full and frank discussion with Anne about our willingness to be a key contributor going forward into the implementation phase. We look forward to building a strong relationship with the Task Force team over the coming months. A big thank you to Andreas Ghosh for arranging the session.

Next we had a great presentation from Chris Johnson from Mercer. Chris has been working on the next phase of the PPMA’s vision for the future of reward in the public sector. He has developed a set of data that shows trends and facts about public and private sector reward. PPMA will be using this information to start ‘A Big Discussion’ across the regions over the coming weeks about what the data tells you and what you would like to see in the future reward model. This will be an exciting piece of engagement with Members across the Country and an opportunity for you to shape our policy direction for the future. Watch this space!

Finally, the Board also agreed to appoint a new Managing Director for PPMA on an interim basis initially. The post will be responsible for developing the future commercial strategy for PPMA, setting up a national PPMA office and delivering a new Member offering. This is an opportunity for PPMA to really up its game and become a leading commercial and sustainable member association for the future. If you have any views on what we are trying to do please let me know through the blog. I look forward to hearing your comments.

Finally, for all those Facebook addicts out there, PPMA now has its very own Facebook page. Sign up as a fan to link up with other PPMA members and find out the latest on what’s going on in PPMA.

Best wishes

Gill