Strategic Workforce Planning

1
Strategic Workforce Planning

• June Bull (OPSR) / Jennifer Hutton (CDG) / Fiona
  Ross (HMT)

2
Context - Cross Cutting Review of the Public
Sector Labour Market (CCR)

• How well prepared is the public sector workforce
  for the new delivery agenda?
• 47 recommendations six themes
• Extending competitive pay and local flexibility
• Expanding the workforce base
• Promoting an overall package (non-pay benefits
  image)
• Enhancing career development opportunities
• Promoting best practice
• Improving data, research and analysis

3
Implementing CCR via pay and workforce strategies

• Successful strategies demonstrate actions to
  support the delivery of key service priorities
  (PSA targets).
• Identify future capacity (numbers, skills sets
  etc)
• Specify working practices to deliver this
  capacity
• Identify key assumptions, risks and risk
  management
• Identify key milestones, targets and measures
  (gap closing)

4
Why is this important to your Department?

• Service delivery improvements not just about
  financial resources
• increases in funding to go hand in hand with
  reforms
• helping ensure you have the right people with the
  right skills to deliver service
  improvements/better customer focus (4Ps)
• pay and rewards a powerful lever to secure
  reforms, increased productivity and greater
  flexibilities.
• So, a coherent forward looking pay and
  workforce strategy should be an integral part of
  your business and delivery plans - This is not
  the case _at_ moment limited ref to capacity.

5
Why is this important to us?

• building a comprehensive picture of the pay and
  workforce landscape
• understanding the strategic needs and challenges
  faced by departments in delivering PSAs
• identification of hotspots and good practice.
• So that workforce contribution to public
  sector reform is maximised.

6
What has happened?

• All departments asked to prepare strategies and
  first round of strategies now complete
• Large front-line service delivery departments
  strategies being monitored by Pay and Workforce
  Coordination Group Health, Education, IR, CE,
  MOD, HO, ODPM, DfT, DWP
• Other departments strategies monitored through
  the delivery reporting process
• HMT and Cabinet Office (OPSR/CDG) have support
  and overview role

7
Common issues identified so far

• Strategic planning capacity required for HR to
  support strategic business and delivery
  objectives
• Lack of workforce data
• Recruitment, retention return to work issues
  especially for the wider public service, rather
  than the Civil Service
• Training challenges across public sector, but
  some generic delivery skills required
  leadership, ICT and HR/Learning.
• Awareness and use of broader labour market
  intelligence and legislative landscape.

8
Common issues contd

• Integration between business, delivery, HR and
  workforce planning
• Impact of ICT on service delivery and radical
  change to front and back office processes
  workforce re-skilling, re-modelling
• Use of pay and non pay rewards to support
  organisational goals
• Stakeholder engagement frontline
  leaders/manager and trade unions

9
Next steps role for departments

• Departments to consider
• strengthening strategic workforce planning
  capacity and critically linking HR to business
  performance/delivery
• Improving workforce information for planning and
  management
• Sharing good practice with other departments
• Strengthening performance management systems
• Involving trade unions, Public Services Forum and
  employees in workforce and public services reform
• Exploiting full potential of ICT in workforce and
  public service reform

10
Next steps role for the centre

• Cabinet Office(OPSR/CDG) and HMT
• Sharing good practice data collection, ICT,
  performance management etc
• Collaborating with depts/public services who are
  utilising workforce planning to achieve increased
  delivery and turnaround
• Further round of workshops being delivered to
  incorp. PSEF/TUC and other stakeholders
• Improving workforce data capture/analysis and use
• Supporting departments/public services in
  developing their workforce planning capacity

11
Related policy initiatives

• Regional/local pay
• Relocation
• Skills strategies
• Efficiency review
• Customer Focus
• Maximising performance partnerships