SOLACE – PPMA

PPMA – A Workforce for the Future

PPMA — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 06:41:34 +0000

Hello PPMA members and friends

Earlier this month, our President Pam Parkes shared her thoughts on the impact for HR and local government following the election. In this new post we hear from Terry McDougall, Group Director at Solace about the work they are undertaking, particularly around workforce issues.

As Elections teams up and down the country have a short respite from the pressures of running and delivering elections, they and other colleagues are already responding and gearing up to whatever the new government can offer and expect of Local Government.

The King’s Speech and early government announcements have given the local government sector a renewed hope that it may feature more on the government’s forward agenda. Early indications are positive. A recent LGA meeting saw Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government Angela Rayner MP in attendance, where she said “You have from me an absolute commitment to reset the relationship between central and local government.”

A promising start. Whatever materialises in terms of additional resources and/or freedoms and powers that may be bestowed on councils in the future, it is clear that we will need a skilled workforce to deliver effectively for our communities.

At Solace, we have been actively engaging with our membership for some time to understand and articulate the sector’s concerns about the Local Government workforce of today and tomorrow. Our ‘Voice Surveys’ have played a key part of our engagement strategy, with the findings featured in a series of three reports published as part of Solace’s 50^th Anniversary celebrations – Rewind, Play and Fast Forward (the latter to be published in Autumn 2024).

The latest report – Play – takes a snapshot at the here and now and has some clear findings on the current local government workforce picture, including:

An aging workforce where 11% of respondents see themselves retiring in the next 2 years.
Public sector pay not competitive with the private sector, with 76% of respondents telling us that this is problem when recruiting, while 36% say it’s also an issue with retaining staff.
Shortages of skilled candidates in key technical professions such as social care, finance, legal, housing, planning, environment, and technology.
Lack of support for training and development of local government staff.
Low profile of the local government sector as an employer of choice.

You can read the full report, along with our recommendations to Government here.

So, what can be done?

Solace have been delivering a number of leadership programs for many years now, whether as standalone or in partnership with the LGA and Collaborate. We are proud and excited to share that the most recent development has been that of a new Chief Executive program (in partnership with LGA). But we’re not stopping there. We must ensure that the talent pipeline into a number of other roles and professions is also a priority. From apprentices, Heads of Service and beyond, developing and retaining good people is the heart of how local government delivers its services to our communities. More attention and investments also needs to be had around developing a more diverse workforce . Solaces Amplify programmes aimed at staff form diverse backgrounds is only one of many needed initiatives .

HR colleagues throughout local Government have developed workforce strategies, aiming at addressing ‘pipeline and talent management’ gaps. Creative recruitment initiatives and good employee benefits can only go so far. The importance of identifying in-house talent, nurturing it and growing an in-house talent pipeline has never been more important. To achieve this, there is clearly a need for more resources for effective and impactful training and development akin to that of other Public Sector workers. As part of our recommendations to Government, we are proposing that both Central and Local Government work together to co-produce a national Workforce Strategy, including career frameworks for key professional disciplines.

As the workforce crisis for Local Government risks getting worse, a proactive set of measures that seek to provide well resourced, joined up and impactful interventions will be critical if we are to ensure we attract and retain the best talent. Our communities deserve nothing less.

Terry McDougall, Group Director, Solace in Business

Don’t Worry, Be Happy. Rock the Kasbah…and Much More from Karen Grave

PPMA — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 09:55:23 +0000

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!”

Highlights from the Public Sector Show.

PPMA — Thu, 05 Jul 2018 17:34:38 +0000

Dear PPMA colleagues and friends.

I hope you are enjoying this wonderful weather. Last week the team was at the first of the two Public Sector Show conferences this year. And, we had help from our friends at JobsGoPublic and The Guardian.

I had the pleasure of opening this year’s Workforce and Leadership workstream and invited all the days delagtes to attend as many sessions as they could – the attendance for all of the workstream sessions throughout the day was great. And this workstream is proving to be incredibly popular for our PSS colleagues overall.

Our second sessions were on Recruitment and Retention challenges caused by Brexit and the other very much focusing on Multigenerational Workforces. We had a couple of special guests in that session. Matt Burrows, our One to Watch 2018 joined us and Liv Harris, from Jobsgopublic joined us to walk participants through the research we jointly did and published at Annual Conference. We had some really interesting questions from the audience, particularly around the research. We’ll be looking at scoping the next part of that research over the summer, so if you have any comments you would like to make please let us know.

In the afternoon, I attended a panel chaired by Peter Cheese, CEO of CIPD. I was was joined by our good friend Graeme McDonald, MD of SOLACE, the wonderful Deb McKenzie, People Director at Public Health England and Jessica Studdert from NLGN who brought a fascinating dimension to the discussion. I have had the pleasure of speaking on PSS panels with Graeme and Deb before, and I always enjoy the discussion with them and talking about the changes that have happened since our previous sessions.

One of the aims of our 4 way MOU is to find ways to help HR & OD colleagues gain experience across public sector as a whole. We already have some fantastic role models who have already demonstrated their capacity to do this. Deb is one of them and we’ll be hearing more from her in an upcoming article in People Management.

Grace also joined us for the day and manned our stand. We were chuffed with the number of people who came to visit and over 30 people signed up for our newsletter and we hope to see some more new members. Matt chipped in during the day and we also had support from the wonderful Stuart McKeown from The Guardian. We’re very grateful for our sponsors and their help in events like this.

It’s on to Manchester now for our next PSS. It’s being held on 20^th November at Manchester Central so keep your diary free! Leatham and I will be with the PSS team over the next couple of weeks to work on our contribution to the day. So more to come in the next months.

PPMA at The Public Sector Show

PPMA — Fri, 18 May 2018 17:41:53 +0000

Dear PPMA colleagues and friends.

It’s that time of the year again when we start our run up to the first of the 2 annual Public Sector Shows and Leatham and I along with other guests, will be contributing to a number of PPMA specific sessions and broader panels.

The Public Sector Show is running four key themes this year, Digital and Technology, Finance & Corporate, Workforce & Leadership, and Estates & Infrastructure. The breadth of that offering is a good opportunity for PPMA as we often get people coming to our sessions who aren’t HR & OD professionals. So it’s a good way of raising awareness of PPMA, but more broadly ensuring that we do our bit to explain why workforce issues matter to everyone in public service organisations.

We are running 2 panels – one on ‘Recruitment, retention and workforce in the context of Brexit’ and the other on ‘Delivering effective multigenerational working’. There will be a session on ‘Delivering organisational transformation’ with colleagues from SOLACE, Public Health England and NLGN.

The show is free for PPMA for people who work in the public sector and you can register to attend here and find out more about the panels and sessions we’re involved with on our website. Also keep an eye on our social media channels and www.psshow.co.uk for more updates. We really hope to see you there!