The following articles feature PPMA President Gill Hibberd:

1. BBC defends its dominance over HR Directors pay published 2nd February 2010 on hrmagazine.co.uk
2. Fit-notes will cause arguments about ’suitable work’ definition published 2nd February 2010 on personneltoday.com
3. Councils search for ways to cut costs without compulsory redundencies published 8th February on personneltoday.com

The following articles feature PPMA President Gill Hibberd:

1. Minimum wage freeze proposal could disengage younger workers published 7th January 2010 on personneltoday.com
2. NHS Workforce Bulletin (Issue 195) published 21st December 2009

The following articles feature PPMA President Gill Hibberd:

1. Government must reform public sector pay systems not implement a cap, experts warn - published 10th December 2009 on personneltoday.com
2. Pre-Budget Report 2009: Public Sector Pay and Pensions - published 9th December 2009 on xperthr.co.uk

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

PPMA officers regularly contribute to articles in the HR trade press and we thought it would be a great idea to share those articles with you. 

So we’ve decided that whenever an article is published, we’ll give you an easy to follow link to it via this blog…just look out for the tag ‘PPMA In The Media’ to keep up to date with all the latest press articles…and if you seen any we haven’t mentioned, please do let us know.

First up is an article from Personnel Today (featuring Gill Hibberd) published on 29th October 2009 - Local government workers’ union submits 2.5% pay claim for 2010.

Hi all

I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who took the time to vote in this year’s Personnel Today Top 40 Power Players.

The results were announced last week and I was delighted and shocked to see that I have been nominated by my peers as a top 10 Power Player in the Personnel Today poll. I’m in very elite company and feel very humble and honoured to be there.

This is even more so knowing that it’s my colleagues from across the public and private sector who have voted for me to be there. These are very important polls for raising the profile of people who represent the public sector. It’s important that we have impact and influence and being included in such prestigious lists of influencers does help.

Also in the top ten are Angela O’Connor from the NPIA and Martin Tiplady from the Metropolitan Police. A number of other public sector faces appear in the top 40 including our own Stephen Moir from Cambridgeshire CC, Graham White from Westminster City Council and David Amos from the Cabinet Office, who incidentally I’m meeting with soon to discuss how we can collaborate on the skills agenda.

Well done everyone and thanks to everyone who voted for your support.

Gill

Personnel Today have just launched their Most Influential List. Now in it’s ninth year, the list aims to recognise HR’s most influential; the people who have played a part in bringing people issues to the top of the business agenda and been a shining light for the HR profession.

This year they are focusing exclusively on practitioners - rather than policymakers or opinion formers - who demonstrate strong business acumen and are strong advocates for the HR profession, both internally and externally. Take a look at who made the 2008 Top 40 Power Players List.

Please spare a few moments to email your suggestions as to who should be in the top 40 list with as many public sector nominations as possible to helen.williams@rbi.co.uk  It really does help to keep the PPMA profile high if we have a number of colleagues in the list.

Many thanks

Gill

I’m back from a very restful break – to a mound of emails and papers! Hope that you are all enjoying the summer and are managing to find time to take a break yourselves at some point. With this in mind I am reminded of the wise words of Dave Ulrich at our conference earlier this year when he talked about us looking after our health and being responsible for our own well-being!

I’ve been catching up on news that I missed whilst away and see that the debate on public sector pay still rumbles on. The reality of the current economic climate has to hit home at some point and the need for pay restraint must surely apply as equally to the public sector as it does in the private sector. BA have taken the interesting stance of asking its workforce to volunteer to work for nothing for periods of a week to a month. Can you imagine the response that would be received in the public sector to similar suggestions? Personally I think it’s an innovative response to difficult times and we will all be challenged over the coming months to be more and more creative in the solutions we need to find to keep out organisations afloat.

My first opnion piece in People Management magazine on the issue of the bureaucracy we create in HR seems to have caused a stir! The week after it appeared a flurry of letters were received by People Management on the subject from various commentators – exactly the response I was hoping for. I know that not everyone will agree with my views but it’s always healthy to have a debate and to take on board the views of others.

My next piece will be on the issue of organisational design and should appear in the August edition of People Management.

One of the great jobs I get to do as PPMA President is to judge the overall winner of the Personnel Today Awards, which will be announced later in the year. The rather large judging file has just landed on my desk – watch out for more news on this later in the year!

I’m also putting together a plan for the next PPMA Board meeting which I hope will cover the big issues of the future of reward in the public sector as well as looking at the future world of work and what the challenges might be.

I will be back with more blogs soon, In the meantime enjoy what little sun we seem to be getting!

Gill

Hi All

Well this week has really been interesting! I decided to “go for it” in responding to some comments published in Personnel Today (PT) last week about my views on not freezing public sector pay and challenging my own remuneration package.

The published piece wasn’t quite the nuclear option I originally drafted and deleted, but I think anyone reading my opinion piece would get the point. Locally this attracted some press interest because I chose to publish my salary. Which brings me to a point - why should actual public sector pay be hidden behind a fog of FOI exemptions and pay bands? It shouldn’t.

We all pay taxes and the public should expect openness from their public servants about their pay. However, openness about pay levels doesn’t justify uninformed criticism - pay has to be set in the context of the role concerned. Additionally, if people think that some public servants are paid too highly, then I respect the fact that they have an opinion. However, people also need to respect the fact that if public sector pay is frozen and higher earners have their pay regulated by Whitehall (I refer you to John Healey’s recent comments), then public services will once again become less able to draw in talented people and retain them at all levels. Time for a healthy debate with the public, politicians and others I think.

We’ll see what the reaction is in PT next week. Thanks for the messages from far and wide I’ve already received in support of my opinion piece. I’m sorry if some PPMA members think I’ve been too controversial, but being in a leadership role occasionally means putting yourself up to be shot at…and I made that choice consciously. PPMA has to, in my view, say things sometimes that others can’t and won’t. Public sector bashing is THE story in the media and I, for one, won’t sit quietly and be bludgeoned to death.

On other PPMA matters, I had the pleasure of representing us at the Association of County Chief Executives last night and in another guise as their Honorary Secretary for the day, standing in for my boss. It was very useful to be in this august company and to be part of discussions about issues of the day, include Lord Laming’s Report and all things CAA.

To prove that there is life outside work, I’m now heading off for a long weekend, in advance of my final PPMA Policy Board meeting as President next Friday.

Best wishes

Stephen

Hi All

Sorry for the lengthy delay in providing you with another post, so here goes!

Friday the 13th saw the launch of Raising the Standard - all very successful I hear (but due to snow I was again stuck at home - grrr!).

Until last week my external media stuff had been quiet, with good reason…I was at risk of redundancy as a result of a senior management reorganisation within my authority. However, I’m pleased to say that I’ve come through the other side of this unscathed and will emerge in April in my new incarnation as Corporate Director (People, Policy and Law) for Cambridgeshire CC. A larger and more challenging role, which I’m looking forward to taking on - who says us “senior” types have ’safe’ jobs in the public sector?

Oh and before you ask, yes I had to apply and survive a really testing interview process. Thanks to friends and colleagues for all their support and kind words pre and post interview, it’s always good to know you’ve got some supporters at times like this!

With my personal position clarified, normal service will now be resumed and you may have seen I’ve written another piece for People Management (particular thanks to Janice Joannou for her contribution to this) - comments welcomed in response on the Blog.

And finally - I’ve been my usual opinionated self in Personnel Today (PT) last week. Rather than roll over and accept the public sector media bashing on pay, pensions and performance issues, I thought I’d round off my Presidency with a bit of a defence of public services and public servants especially (backed up with a bit of economic reality). I have another piece scheduled for PT next week, I hope it hits the mark!

Best wishes

Stephen