I chaired the last meeting of the PPMA Policy Board for 2008 on Friday, 14th November - many thanks to Local Government Employers’ for providing us with such excellent meeting facilities in the LGA Offices in Smith Square. The meeting had a reasonable attendance level, particularly from Regional Chairs, although the number of Lead Officers in attendance was slightly disappointing - in part a recognition of the busy day jobs that people have, but also an issue I intend to review further. On the plus side, I was delighted to see each of our recently appointed Lead Officers for Diversity, Talent Management and HR Transformation in attendance, all of whom have ambitious plans to move these areas forward for the Association.

Agenda wise, we had some healthy debate and discussion on a range of key issues - including hearing about the 2009 conference from Gillian Hibberd. Progress reports for Regions and Policy Lead areas were received and scrutinised by the Board and our financial health was also considered as an Association. Having completed a full series of agenda items, we also considered nominations for the post of Vice President (Elect) for 2009/10 and PPMA Treasurer. Subject to the views of our members via the AGM next year, I’m delighted to advise you that Jim Savege, currently our Lead Officer for Pay and Reward, has been nominated as Vice President (Elect).

The role of Treasurer will also see a change next year. Steve Traynor, our well known and well regarded Treasurer, has decided to stand down from the role after a number of years serving in this capacity. As many of you may know, Steve has a highly successful private business that is taking up more of his time and given our constitutional position, regarding the Treasurer being a serving public sector HR professional, it means that we do need to nominate another person to take these responsibilities forward. In the meantime, Steve will serve as Treasurer of PPMA until the AGM next year and will continue to provide his sage advice, wisdom and support to the Board and especially to the Principal Officers. At the November Board meeting, a nomination for the role of Treasurer was also received….I have been nominated to fulfil this role for the Association. This might be surprising to some, but I’m delighted to accept nomination to undertake this role in the future and also recognise that I want to provide active participation and support for PPMA going forward.

Finally a brief trailer for this week: This week sees the formal launch of “Raising the Standard” - the specification for HR Directors in Local Government on 27th November. I’m delighted to see this excellent piece of work come to fruition - congratulations to Alan Warner for his vision and drive to see this through. Also on the 27th, I’m pleased to advise you that, on behalf of PPMA, I’ll be hosting a table at the Personnel Today Awards for 2008. This will be great chance to further raise our profile, thank some of our key contributors and supporters and generally celebrate what’s best in people management - hopefully including a range of Public Sector winners!

Hope you all have a good week.

Stephen

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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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.

Stephen is now off on a very well deserved break, so its over to me and other colleagues to fill the blog spots.

In this blog post, I’d like to take the opportunity to say a few words about Stephen and the rest of the PPMA policy board. Under Stephen’s leadership we have seen our organisation go from strength to strength. Our media profile is as high as it’s ever been and our credibility as an organisation is also strong. The organisation has been through incredible change over the past three years but it is now on very firm foundations from which we can continue to grow. The development of the organisation is a team effort and all Members play a role but Stephens influence, leadership and steer have been exceptional. So a very big thank you to him and the rest of the board for all their contributions. 

Stephen and I met with Jackie Orme (Chief Executive, CIPD) last week as he mentions in his recent blog post. I felt it was a very productive meeting and I’ve agreed to continue to meet with Jackie throughout next year with the aim of bringing the CIPD and PPMA closer together. I’m delighted that Jackie has agreed to come along to the PPMA Conference next year and will be one of our keynote speakers on the Friday. You should start to see marketing material for the conference in October and watch out for the early bird discount if you book before the end of the year.

The Personnel Today Top 40 Power Players were announced this week. The public sector was better represented than ever with a number of PPMA colleagues featuring in the list including: 

• Martin Tiplady, HR Director at the Met Police at No2
• Stephen Moir, PPMA President and Director of People and Policy at Cambridgeshire CC at No7
• Angela O’Connor, Immediate Past president of PPMA and Chief People Officer at the NPIA at No8
• Jim Savage, PPMA lead on pay and Director of HR and OD at Cumbria CC at No14
• Myself, Gillian Hibberd!, Vice President of PPMA and Director of People and Policy at Buckinghamshire CC at No18
• Alan Warner, PPMA Lead on Talent and Director of People and Property at Hertfordshire CC at No24

Well done to everyone in the top 40!

To all blog readers out there, it’s important for the visibility of PPMA that we have members featured in the list, so please vote when you get similar events opportunities in the future.

Have a great weekend.

Gill

Hi, sorry I’ve not updated the blog for the last couple of weeks, it has simply been a bit manic. However, manic has been good in terms of ground covered, issues progressed and then some rest and relaxation.

Within the last few weeks, the following has all taken place:

1) PPMA Policy Board meeting in Cambridge. A resounding success in which decisions were made to appoint 3 new Lead Officers to the Policy Board - these will be announced via the PPMA website and via an all member e-mail, but I’m delighted we have been able to make these great new appointments. The Board also covered a lot of additional business, including updates from out regional chairs and lead officers - some great work going on across the country and regional chairs have now been provided with a digest of lead officer reports to share with PPMA members. Discussions also took place about our future association development activities and we agreed to commission a major new programme of HR Transformation work. Finally, this was also a chance to let the policy board see a bit more of the splendours of Cambridge and to thank them for their hard work and support this year - you’ll be pleased to hear that there was no drowning involved whilst punting.

2) Harrogate and back twice in the last 2 weeks to speak at the CIPD conference on performance management and then latterly to chair the first day of the Northern HR Briefing - organised by our PPMA North East, North West and Yorkshire and Humber regions, ably supported by the three regional employers’ organisations. This was a great conference with good speakers and allowed me to meet more PPMA members face to face, including 2 friends that I used to be at college with and another chum that I worked with in Lancashire Police in years gone by - they know who they are!

3) I’ve also had the pleasure of addressing the Eastern, Essex and Hertfordshire PPMA regional meeting on my theme of “Evolution or Extinction”. A real matter of pride for me since this was the region that nominated me to become PPMA President. Thanks to Anne Gibson and the team for the invitation. Other regions take note - that’s technically 4 regional visits in 2 weeks if I take the combined benefit of the Northern HR briefing and this visit together…presidential terms only last so long - book yours now to avoid disappointment!

4) Finally a visit to the capital with Gill Hibberd to meet the new CIPD Chief Executive, Jackie Orme. A good meeting to discuss matters of mutual interest and opportunities to strengthen our working together in the future. We’ll follow this up with the CIPD in 6 months or so to see what’s happened.

So other than the usual round of media and articles, you can see PPMA and I haven’t been up to much! In need of a well deserved rest, I’m handing the blog over to the capable hands of our VP, Gill Hibberd, for the next 2 weeks.Speak to you all when I get back with a suntan!

Best wishes 

Stephen

It’s been an interesting week watching the Democratic party conference as they nominate Mr. Obama for Presidential candidate for their party in the American elections. I don’t recall anything quite so elaborate or expensive when I was nominated for PPMA President…..ah well, delusions of grandeur aside, another week of presidential stuff comes to an end, comments as follows:

- Great response from willing volunteers to join the PPMA Policy Board as Lead Officers - so you do exist and want to contribute more - fantastic!  Expect announcements on appointments to be made following the Policy Board meeting on 11th/12th September. Thank you to all of you who expressed an interest.

- Good article in the LGC this week on Total Reward and profiling some of the work that my authority, Buckinghamshire CC and Hertfordshire CC are doing in partnership on a pilot basis. A similar article on reward appeared in Personnel Today last week. Watch out for further PPMA profile stuff in People Management next week.

- Arrangements are developing well for the PPMA Conference in Manchester next year - I can’t wait to see the details from Gill Hibberd and her planning team, but suspect I’ll be bowled over like the rest of you.

Finally, just in case you thought I’d have a week without mentioning it, I’m London bound today to meet the IDeA about the national jobs portal for Local Government and the ‘Best Councils’ initiative. Following which I’m delighted to say I’m catching up with Yvonne Skingle (now working with Tribal). Yvonne is already working on a range of assignments, including the Tribal/PPMA interface - you might also want to have a look at some of the jobs she is involved in the search activities for, including the HR and OD Director for the new Wiltshire Council.

Best wishes

Stephen

It’s a later blog post than normal, but with a number of key PPMA update points to note: -

I held a meeting last week with Kelly Sandiford from the IDeA to discuss a range of issues including the National OD Programme, Raising the Standard launch arrangements and the national People Management Forum - all of which involve or have had PPMA leadership in some shape or form.

This week, I had the chance to catch up on Monday with John Tonks, our Executive Officer to discuss plans for the September PPMA Board meeting in Cambridge. John and I have also had an interesting meeting today (more later).

On Wednesday, a really positive meeting with Gill Hibberd and Alan Warner as well as colleagues from Communications Management (our PR agency supporters). This was a great chance to review our progress and contract with Communications Management - needless to say progress has been great and we’re keen to continue to work with them going forward - subject to Policy Board debate/decision in September.

Today was a wonderful homeland meeting for me, with John Tonks.  We both met with the Executive Committee and Office Bearers from SPDS - our Scottish sister organisation. In a very wide ranging discussion we re-emphasised our shared commitment to partnership working and collaboration to the benefit of both organisations and their members. We’ve all left Edinburgh with some actions to progress, which I’ll pick up with the Policy Board and Lead Officers particularly. I’m hopeful we’ll have more news on this issue later in the year - perhaps to coincide with the SPDS conference later this year…watch this space!

Finally, taking the opportunity provided I’m spending the weekend in Scotland with family - but the life of PPMA President doesn’t end at that. Over the weekend I’ve got a People Management column piece to write and an opener for the HR and Training Journal.

Best wishes

Stephen

PS - if you’ve not already cast your vote by e-mail for the Personnel Today 40 Power Players of 2008, get to work folks - this is another PPMA profile opportunity and we need to feature in the listings and show the private sector that our people compare with the very best that they can offer.

Well it’s been a funny couple of weeks, we’ve had the 2 day local government strike and depending upon which part of the country you sit in, this seems to have been managed within relatively minimal disruption and at least the employers and the unions appear to be willing to talk with “nothing ruled in, nothing ruled out”. I’m seeing Jan Parkinson from the LGE next week and will see what further insights I can glean from her.

On the local front, I’ve been personally tied up with recruiting two Heads of Service for my Directorate - one for Corporate Development (including Corporate Policy, Partnerships and OD & Learning) and a new Head of Communications. I’m delighted that I’ve got great appointments for both positions - who says local government hasn’t got talent! Talking of talent, we’ve finally advertised for our vacant PPMA Lead Officer positions… I’m waiting for the flood of calls to come through (I hope the expectations didn’t frighten everyone away).

As seems to have become the norm, it’s also been another round of media enquiries on behalf of PPMA - I have to say that our Board Members are really doing a great job to raise our profile at present, with Gill Hibberd, Dean Shoesmith, Alan Warner, Jim Savege, Richard Crouch, Sue Steen and Martin Rayson all being quoted, pictured and opinionated all over the place and in different sorts of media - well done to them all (I’m continuing my modest efforts in this respect on your behalf as well).

On the congratulations point, I’d also like to publicly congratulate our Pensions lead officer, Jack Markiewicz, currently Service Director for HR at Nottinghamshire County Council for his new appointment as Director of HR & Change at Swindon Borough Council - which for the good memories amongst you, was actually advertised at the PPMA Annual Conference by our Colleagues from SOLACE resourcing.

And finally, I’ve completed a site visit to the venue selected for the PPMA Policy Board overnight meeting in September. This is an annual occurrence for the Board Members to get together and look at key business planning issues for the Association, as well as conducting our normal quarterly meeting. Needless to say the venue is always on the ‘Presidential Patch’ which this year will be in Cambridge. I’m intending that if the weather is nice enough, we’ll do a bit of team-building involving the river Cam and punting……stand by for a September blog entry along the lines of raise the Titanic!

I hope everyone has a great summer and I and other Board Members will continue blogging away - keep reading and comment away!

Best wishes

Stephen

Not a rainy evening this time, but a train journey from London to Cambridge and I’m back from my week long holiday in sunny Suffolk - thanks to VP Gill Hibberd for being last week’s blogger for PPMA, she put me to shame in terms of content!

Anyway, to business - today has been a highly successful and busy day with a meeting of the PPMA policy board in London. As always, we managed to get through a mountain of business and dealt with some key decisions on issues of PPMA policy, including discussions about pay and reward, as well as Jan Parkinson’s concept of the public sector worker, which gets my support. We also discussed issues relating to business development for the Association and a potential drive to increase membership levels.

The evaluation of the 2008 PPMA Conference made for a good discussion and you’ll be pleased to hear that many of the suggested improvements have already been factored into Gill Hibberd’s plans for the 2009 Conference (which is already shaping up to be a world class event - in a world class venue - Manchester).

The work being led by Alan Warner on “Raising the Standard in HR”, which was mentioned at 2008 Conference, has been moved further forward and is shaping up to be something quite special - watch this space as they say. Modest chap that Alan is, I’ll let you in on a secret…this work was his original idea and has huge potential. A member of the “Past President’s Club”, Mr. W is still very much alive and innovating!

Finally, we’ll be advertising opportunities for our members to get involved in PPMA work before the end of this month, when we openly select new Lead Officers to take forward the PPMA policy leads for Diversity, Talent Management and HR Transformation. And just in case you didn’t think that was enough, after the board meeting finished, Alan Warner and I met with Karen Day, Editor of the Local Government Chronicle, to discuss issues of mutual interest and opportunities for PPMA to contribute to forthcoming LGC features and conferences.

Now, how’s that for timely communication and feedback…post a comment to let me know what you think.

Best wishes

Stephen