Dear PPMA colleagues and friends

As we approach conference, our President Karen Grave shares her hopes and expectations for this year’s annual conference.

“Hi everyone, I’m so looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible in Birmingham. As ever in the run up to conference the team is both excited and anxious to make sure that we haven’t forgotten anything critical! Putting on annual conference is a huge undertaking and before I share my thoughts, I want to say an enormous thank you to Leatham, Kim, Grace and everyone else who makes it possible for us to put this event on. Our focus will be on making sure you have a fantastic conference experience!

I try to take stock of the progress we have made before each of our events. Last year in Newcastle was a real thrill and it was a very personal opportunity for me to return to the place I studied at Uni. This year, I’m looking forward to conference with the same enthusiasm but for a number of reasons:

• We’ve got a great theme ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ ,that always makes me smile just when I think about it. But there is a lot more to this than a happy slogan. We have a real opportunity to increase our learning about the impact of leadership, employee engagement, wellbeing and productivity on our workforce colleagues. I’m fascinated about this link because I think it we can collectively crack this with our colleagues, it will really help us harness all of the potential of our people. It’s good for them but more importantly it’s critical for the citizens we serve. Each year we see more and more external pressure on our ability to deliver services. Finances are a constant challenge. However in my view, there is an increasing and potentially more divisive threat. Our politics are increasingly fragile and it’s harder to see policy proposals being developed that help those of us in public services really address our most pressing challenges. So to overcome this, we need to take our destiny in our own hands – enabling and empowering our people isn’t just a nice to consider – it’s an imperative for all of us. I can’t wait to hear from John, Maria, Beverley, Jamil and Shonette and of course, all of our amazing fringe session speakers. We’re going to learn a lot.
• We’ll be welcoming existing and new members to conference. It’s fantastic to meet old friends again and find out what’s happened since we last met in Newcastle. But it’s always really brilliant to welcome new members to the PPMA family. We’ll be saying a big hello to all of them – but in particular, I’m really chuffed to welcome HR & OD colleagues from all Greater Manchester Local Authorities. They are going to add a fascinating dimension to our community and I hope we will learn a lot from their DevoManc experiences in particular.
• This is also our first national event since our restructure last year. We’ve come a long way since then and we now have appointments to all of our key posts. Our first Extended Board meeting at the end of March was so exciting. Our new Theme Leads and our Regional Chairs brought energy, new ideas and a commitment to our collective future that left me feeling really hopeful.  You will have the opportunity to meet Board colleagues over the 3 days, so please make sure you take the time to meet them. Every single Board member undertakes their role on a voluntary basis – that is a huge commitment but they do it because of a collective belief in the value of PPMA. If you are interested in getting involved in the running of the association please come and talk to one of us. Board members will have a different colour lanyard to conference attendees, so we will all be easy to spot!
• We’ll have plenty of exciting things to say about our membership offering too. I am very proud of the breadth and depth of our offering – it compares very well to other professional associations. Our ability to offering a compelling value proposition depends on the great support from our existing and new sponsors, the commitment of our Board members and all of your ongoing support. You should never underestimate the amount of work that goes into volunteering for Board roles, so I encourage all of you to take advantage of what we offer.
• And last but not least, we will be announcing the winners of our PPMA Excellence in People Management Awards programme. I love this part of Gala Dinner – it’s always brilliant to recognise the efforts of our winners and everyone who takes part. With the pressures of work, it’s sometimes easy to forget that there is a huge amount of innovative, creative and inspiring work being done day in and day out across public service HR & OD. Gala Dinner is our opportunity to reflect on that, enjoy good food and great company and kick back and have fun.

And talking about fun, we’re really looking forward to our Rock the Kasbah theme…….

I can’t wait to see you soon!”

Hello PPMA colleagues and friends,

I love this time of year – we’re entering into what we villagers called turning times, heralding a new season. Early morning walks with Ellie and Jenny (my two amazing chocolate Labs) over the last week have had me thinking about a few things. Firstly it’s apparently Labrador fruit foraging (and farting – sigh) time again; secondly, foraging may be the reason why the girls have developed yet another bout of selective deadness and thirdly, how on earth are we hurtling towards the end of yet another year?!

I’m not sure that I have a meaningful answer to any of the those three questions. However, crisp and peaceful early morning walks (well apart from the woofers) have me reflecting on what a year it has been. Policy wise it feels like the national debate about public services funding and the future of health and social care is really coming to a head. We’ve seen a shift in the pay cap which had seemed immovable for such a long time. Whilst that is welcome we still have a way to go in my view – both in terms of delivering fair increases across public sector, but also in thinking about how we can afford higher pay without further cutting into service delivery.

In health and social care, there certainly seems to be a collective strategic understanding and urgency at policy maker level. LG and NHS employer, provider and other organisations have gained traction both in terms of highlighting the urgency, but also making the case for an integrated and inclusive response. We’ve not quite had that level of integrated action and thought reflected in Government’s response. but there’s no question in my mind that the LGA #futureofasc green paper, together with the recognition that a longer term funding plan is critical take us substantial steps forward. There is a substantial way to go, but we at least seem to be heading in the same direction, which is a blessed relief.

We’ve also seen various Government committees publish reports on age discrimination, the ongoing challenges experienced by women in their careers and the status of gig economy workers. It’s clear that workforce related issues are on everyone’s agenda – and arguably that is a very good thing, provided of course well thought through policy and legislation follows. We all have the war stories on IR35 and it’s by no means clear that the legislation will be rolled out across the private sector yet. It will be interesting to see, particularly in advance of Brexit next year, what additional spotlight will be focused on workforce related matters. From a PPMA perspective we are committed to ensuring that we proactively and reactively respond on policy matters as they arise.

As well as taking a national position on policy, we’re also ensuring that we are in a position to influence policy and the development of our HR & OD colleagues over a much longer timeframe.  You’ll be hearing from us very shortly about our preferred proposals for restructuring PPMA. I’m very excited about these and hope that you will take time to consider the efforts that have gone into that work on your behalf.

I always fondly remember the dog days of summer (no pun intended) as the prelude to going back to school/college and university. The rhythm of public services is often the same for some of us – a relatively quiet summer which allows us to draw breath and then the mad hurtle towards the end of the year. This cycle is becoming very familiar to us too – Northern Summit is becoming a real milestone during the year and we’re really looking forward to that.

We’re also looking forward to publishing our new Let’s Talk Themes. I’ve talked about these before – but I’m really delighted to share with you that we’re making great progress. We’re using the work we are doing here to both update our website content – so each of our themes will have a dedicated page – and downloadable descriptions of each themes that you can use to share with colleagues. They are essentially scoping statements that will help us define future thought leadership and content and research topics. You’ll see these soon and you will see in our new structure how we plan to move these forward. You will be a key part of that too – so please look out for them and let us know what you think.

Before we get into that mad end of year rush, I want to thank every single one of you for your ongoing support of PPMA and our broader public service workforce. I’ve said it time and time again before, but the work that all of you do is absolutely fundamental. Your contributions will often be invisible but I have no doubt that without them public services would be in a much more challenging place.

Until next time, keep well.

Best