It was PPMA Board meeting last week and we had a great turnout on a very hot and sticky day in London. I changed the format of the Board meetings slightly to incorporate a debate about the future of pay and reward in the public sector. We were joined by Jan Parkinson from the LGE and had an interesting discussion about what the future holds and how reward can be positioned to help drive organisations in the right direction.

Notes of the meetings are being written up and will appear on the website shortly. A follow up debate on the future shape of the public sector, our workforce needs and the reward system will be held in advance of the next Board meeting in September. It is hoped that this will then help shape and inform the national picture.

A number of our colleagues were lucky to be the HR Excellence Awards earlier this week. Although I wasn’t there it was a GREAT night for the public sector. he winners of these prestigious awards were:

• H R Excellence Gold Award – Winner: Birmingham City Council’s BEST Programme.
• Most Effective Use of Internal Communications – Highly commended: Cambridgeshire CC for Engaging Employees with Investors in People.
• Outstanding Employee Engagement Strategy – Winner: Birmingham City Council – BEST programme.
• Health and Wellbeing – Winner: Metropolitan Police Service for work to address Stress Management. Highly commended: East Sussex County Council.
• Best Public Sector H R Strategy or Initiative – Winner: Cambridgeshire CC for Engaging People with Investors in People. Highly Commended – National Offender Management Service.

Congratulations to everyone!

I’m off for a well deserved break for a couple of weeks now but my colleagues will be positing blogs on any items of interest during my break. In the meantime I hope you have a cooler couple of weeks and I’ll be back to blog at the end of July.

Gill

I’m just about to go off to the annual MJ Awards in London tonight at which PPMA and the LGE are jointly sponsoring the category of People and Workforce Achievement of the Year.

Shortlisted organisations in this category are Birmingham City Council (2 shortlisted entries), Fenland District Council, Hertfordshire County Council, Lancashire County Council and Winchester City Council. Good luck to everyone and well done for getting to the shortlist stage! I’m also hosting a PPMA table at the awards tonight which is an opportunity for PPMA to say thank you to our key sponsors and regional chairs/Lead Officers who put so much time into the work they do for PPMA. I’m looking forward to a great evening!

Last week saw the publication of my first opinion piece in People Management Magazine. I challenged colleagues to think more radically about the bureaucracy we often create around HR processes. My answer was to go back to basics and think about the real purpose underlying many of the procedures we have created. If you missed the article you can follow this link to an online version.

It’s PPMA Board meeting this Friday. It’s my first Board event and I’m taking a slightly different approach by holding a debate on one of my key manifesto issues. This week sees a debate on the future of reward in the sector and I’m delighted that our friend and colleague, Jan Parkinson, will be joining us form the LGE. Watch out for future blog posts on the outcome of the debate!

Have a great weekend everyone.

Gill

Well, it’s been a busy week (again) and I must confess to feeling a bit out of steam as I write this on the way down to London (for the 3rd time this week) to chair my penultimate PPMA Policy Board meeting as President…yes it’s actually gone that quickly! One more Board and then it’s the AGM and Annual Conference in Manchester.

This week a number of Board members met with LGE colleagues and facilitators Andy Cook, from Marshall-James HR, and Chris Johnson from Mercer (formerly at the Cabinet Office and a PPMA conference speaker in May). The session was a great opportunity for us to look at the PPMA/LGE working relationship and future arrangements. We all committed to taking a number of actions forward following this ‘Think Tank’.

Yesterday morning I had the pleasure of speaking at the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) annual H R conference. PPMA member Martin Tiplady, the Met’s Director of HR, asked me to talk about my views on HR, the good, the bad and the future. Not being your shy and retiring type, I leapt at the chance to express some opinions - and had great fun at the Q and A session, where my workplace nickname of P.O.D. was ‘outed’. Yes, it’s true - I am the Prince of Darkness - or at least some colleagues think so! I’m pretty sure other HR colleagues will have equally interesting nicknames - some of which will no doubt be unprintable…

Following the Policy Board, I’ll do an update on issues/decisions made early next week.

Hope this post finds you well, have a great weekend.

Stephen

PS - Book your place for PPMA’s annual conference now on-line!

PPS - VP (Elect) Dean Shoesmith can be seen and read about in glorious technicolour in the current edition of People Management…two HR Heads in one VP (Elect) - good value I’d say!

Well, I’ve just attended one of the most sociable, informative and enjoyable conferences I’ve ever been at! The content was good, including: Prof. Cary Cooper; Grieg Aitkin (RBS Group and PPMA speaker this year) and Cllr. Pat Waters (President of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities - COSLA) amongst others. If Cllr. Waters and COSLA (LGA equivalent) didn’t give it away…I’ve been attending the SPDS (Society of Personnel Directors in Scotland) annual conference in St. Andrews.

Along with Dean Shoesmith, Anne Gibson and John Tonks, PPMA was well represented (including both Dean and I providing input as speakers on the programme - Dean provided an informative and challenging issue around the ’skills timebomb’). The details are due to emerge later this week, but I’m delighted to confirm that SDPS and PPMA have concluded a formal partnership agreement to bring the two organisations closer together - many thanks to SPDS President Murray MacFarlane and Past President Iris Wylie for their leadership and support to achieve this (I’m proud of being involved as a Scot as well!).

Scotland apart, this week sees a number of key activities, including a PPMA/LGE workshop session on pay and reward and the PPMA Policy Board on 14th November.

Final post - is that the much-awaited 2009 PPMA conference has arrived and what a conference it is! Apart from the great venue of Manchester, Gill Hibberd has put together a stellar programme, including no less a person the David Ulrich. This is a not to be missed opportunity, so economic climate in perspective folks this is a conference second to none, with the chance to select a range of masterclasses, skills workshops and to learn, share and network in a great location! A range of delegate packages means that this offers real value for money. Get booking your places now - I know that I am!

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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Jim Savege, PPMA Lead Officer for Pay & Reward has taken part in the first of a series of audio and video podcasts produced for the LGE. The podcasts are designed to inform the Local Government HR Community about the work being done to help resolve the difficult matter of Equal Pay.

Jim says “PPMA continues to work at a National and European level with LGE and other colleagues in seeking to address issues across equal pay and single status - and that whilst we are also wanting to make firm progress on a modern pay and reward agenda, for example on total reward, we are also continuing to support members in recognising that implementation of equal pay proof pay arrangements remains a priority across local government and the sector”.

To view the video, click in the middle of the screen below.

To hear more advice from Jim on the best ways to deal with Equal Pay, click the grey arrow on the media player below.

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