Corporate report

Business, Innovation and Skills Improvement Plan: March 2014

Published 27 March 2014

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

Foreword

Foreword by the Permanent Secretary

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is at the heart of the government’s commitment to sustainable and balanced growth. Our purpose is to connect people to opportunity and prosperity across the country. We do this by helping people to develop their skills, supporting entrepreneurs and enabling firms to grow, delivering the Industrial Strategy in partnership with business, ensuring regulation is reduced and fit for purpose, maintaining open and competitive markets and investing in the UK’s world class research and innovation capability. This is a challenging agenda that requires us to continually improve and find new ways of delivering.

We are proud of our track record for driving improvements to the way we work while delivering significant savings. We have led an extensive programme of change over recent years. BIS was 1 of the first departments in Whitehall to overhaul our structures to increase our flexibility and enhance capability with significantly reduced budgets. By 2015, we will have reduced our administrative spend by 50% in 5 years and plan to go further in the next Parliament.

Over the last year, BIS and our partner organisations (POs) have helped deliver increased growth across the economy. Our achievements include:

• launching 11 sector strategies setting the strategic direction for the government’s Industrial Strategy in industries ranging from Offshore Wind to Agri-tech
• bringing 7 catapult centres into operation, increasing the UK’s capability for innovation and turning new ideas into commercial businesses
• delivering a sale of shares in Royal Mail, allowing Royal Mail to access private capital and protecting the universal postal service
• establishing the Business Bank and setting up the new Competition Markets Authority in shadow form, paving the way for improved financial support for SMEs and markets that work well for consumers, businesses and the economy
• ensuring nearly 870,000 people are on an apprenticeship, with higher and advanced level apprenticeships attracting record numbers of young people

We have achieved these successes by working in partnership with our customers, our POs and our Ministers. One of our great strengths is the wide range of talent and expertise at our disposal in BIS; our internal teams, our network of POs, and our contacts across business, education and research. These enable us to connect across the economy from large enterprises to start-ups, from higher education to research, from central to local government and with UKTI to support firms in global markets.

Our transformation agenda has been ambitious and wide-ranging. We have built a strong and cohesive senior team that works closely with our experienced and committed non-executive board members to deliver maximum benefit for BIS. We have transformed our Board and Committee structures to enable more effective decision-making across BIS and free up the Board to work on key strategic issues. We have focused on leadership and building engagement at all levels. And we have delivered impressive savings on a sustainable basis. Many of these changes are reflected positively in our People Survey results which showed encouraging progress. There is more we want to do to continue this improvement.

Our Departmental Improvement Plan reflects our ambition to be an organisation that continually learns and improves. It sets out the improvements we have made so far, our plans for further improvement and explains how we will measure delivery and realise benefits. We will focus on the 3 priority areas that we consider will make the biggest difference to BIS - intensifying our focus on people management, efficiency and having a clear narrative about what we do - our ‘BIS Story’.

I would like to personally thank all of our staff for their commitment, ideas and energy, driving forward our policies while making lasting improvements to the way we work.

Martin Donnelly

Foreword by Professor Wendy Purcell, BIS Non-Executive Board Member

BIS is determined to make a real and lasting difference to the lives of people across the country by catalysing, unlocking and sustaining growth. As such, it was a real privilege to join the Board in July 2013 and, given BIS’ wide policy remit, there has been a lot to learn. What I have been pleased to see is the level of ambition to deliver. The way in which the BIS team invest in peer challenge and management accountability is creating a high performance culture.

My role on the Board is to use my experience to provide advice, support and challenge and this has been my approach in the development of the Departmental Improvement Plan. The team has taken on board my feedback and suggestions for improvement throughout the process. Preparing the plan has provided an important opportunity for reflection, learning and taking stock and I was pleased to see the BIS team embrace the task whole-heartedly.

My objective in supporting the development of this plan has been to focus on what we believe matters the most. By harnessing more of our talent to deliver against our strategy we will be more impactful and deliver on the government’s growth agenda. I wanted us to be more explicit about our improvement measures so that we can better measure our progress and intervene early in accord with risk indicators.

I now look forward to supporting BIS to transform this improvement plan for the Department into actions across the team.

Professor Wendy Purcell

Assessment

Introduction

Since 2012, we have taken forward an ambitious programme of transformation for BIS. We have prioritised the building of a strong and cohesive senior team, transforming our governance arrangements, improving our project delivery, building effective working with our POs and improving leadership and engagement. These improvements have been made while continuing the delivery of substantial savings.

Building a strong and cohesive senior team

Our Executive team recognised that to realise their ambitions for BIS, they would need to excel as a high-performing team. Working on key challenges such as prioritisation, leadership engagement and governance, they agreed ground rules to embed highly corporate team dynamics. By focusing on induction for new DGs, these high standards have been retained notwithstanding changes to membership. Board members are all agreed that this work succeeded in delivering high-performance and genuine commitment to each other’s success. This year’s People Survey scores for Leadership and Managing Change have seen statistically significant improvements in every question. For example, we have seen a +6 increase in the belief that BIS is managed well and a +7 increase in the belief that the Executive Board has a clear vision.

Our Senior Civil Service (SCS) leaders meet every month for policy and leadership briefing, including hearing directly from the Secretary of State about his priorities. On a quarterly basis, there is an extended SCS Leadership Programme event to enable the SCS to shape our transformation programme, understand Civil Service Reform and explore key policy challenges. Our Director cadre play a key role in our new governance structures, acting as members for the People Committee, Operations Committee and Performance, Finance and Risk Committee. This provides invaluable Board experience for our Directors and their input is highly regarded by the Committee Chairs. People Survey results demonstrate a +5 increase for confidence in the decisions of managers, a +6 increase for being kept informed about developments and statistically significant improvements for 7 of the ‘My Manager’ scores.

We have prioritised a leadership development offer for all leaders, particularly new promotees and talent cohorts. We are beginning to see the impact of this investment. The most recent People Survey results show a +5% point increase for the Leadership and Managing Change theme.

Transforming our governance structures and processes

BIS established a new governance structure in March 2012. The purpose of the new arrangements was to:

• enable senior staff to be closer to decision making and have greater opportunity to drive the direction of BIS
• free up the Board’s time to focus on key strategic issues and have more face to face engagement with staff across BIS
• increase visibility of decision making and transparency on decision making in the Department

Visibility of decision making has significantly improved, with an observer programme which allows all staff to observe meetings. Meeting outcomes and upcoming agenda items are reported to all staff.

The Department has increasingly utilised Non-Executive Board Members (NEBMs) to provide independent input into particular topics. We have made use of their expertise in particular areas to provide intensive support to developing strategic themes of work. For example, Dalton Philips worked with the Department on how we can be most efficient with our spending and Dale Murray reviewed the efficiency of our small business programmes.

These reviews have led to ambitious plans for development, ensuring the Department is continuously improving the way it delivers.

Sir Andrew Witty praised the way the Department engaged its NEBMs in his 2012 to 2013 Annual statement, saying:

“I commend the Executive led by the Permanent Secretary for their positive engagement with the NEDs and their genuine commitment to find mechanisms to improve the Department’s capabilities”

BIS has made real progress in improving our performance on answering correspondence and PQs on time, and to a high standard of quality.

This has been achieved through closely monitoring consistent management information; introducing dedicated resources in private offices; enhancing learning and development to staff to improve the quality of responses, and Ministers and senior officials emphasising the importance of these channels of communication. More recently the Department has rolled out a new correspondence handling system, ‘eCase’. The new system is web-based, using the cloud, and is expected to make the process of handling correspondence quicker and more effective, providing greater functionality. Over the coming 3 to 6 months the Department is also moving management of PQs and FOIs onto the same system which should bring further efficiencies and synergies.

These improvements have led to a significant +29 increase in the number of PQs answered on time (now 98%) and a +11 increase in the response rate to letters from MPs and Peers in the past 2 years (now 93%).

BIS has been steadily improving its approach to business planning in recent years. The Department is now leading across Whitehall in the achievement of structural reform actions set out in the cross-Whitehall business plan. We have also made a number of improvements to both internal and PO planning and performance framework in 2013. This provides an oversight of delivery that helps ensure BIS firmly delivers on its objectives while managing risk and living within an increasingly tight financial settlement.

BIS is increasingly seen as leading the way in Whitehall on our ambitions around Management Information (MI), as recognised by the recently published financial management review. We are driving implementation of our MI Strategy across BIS and

POs to remove manual processes, realise efficiency savings and enable management to challenge and take effective decisions at all levels. We are establishing the Business Insight Centre, a shared capability and centre of expertise on MI centred on a professional ‘data warehouse’ for all BIS MI. The system is delivering high quality and standardised MI reports providing 1 version of the truth for routine information across BIS and POs.

Building effective working with our Partner Organisations (POs)

We have introduced the Sponsorship Improvement Project with the aim of improving and strengthening BIS’s sponsorship of POs. We have focused on ensuring that sponsors are highly skilled and resources focused on priority areas.

Measures include:

• working with other government departments to develop a skills development offer for sponsors
• integrating the assessment of the risk posed to BIS by its POs into business-as-usual arrangements as part of the performance and risk framework
• introducing internal peer challenge to drive up constructive challenge of POs, knowledge transfer on PO matters and accountability of sponsors through cross department ‘challenge clusters’
• creating a group to provide clarity around the expectations of sponsors (‘the offer and ask’)

The BIS Triennial Reviews examine whether a PO’s functions are still required in their current format or indeed at all and, if so whether they remain the optimal form for delivery. These have led to a number of positive improvements to the way we interact with and govern our partners including an updated Framework Agreement between BIS and ACAS and clarifying the role of Ministers’ involvement in TSB operational decisions.

Saving money

We have been ambitious and proactive about delivering savings. Further details are provided below, but the headline position is that we have since 2010:

• reduced the number of staff in the Department by 20%
• reduced administrative spending by £400 million
• implemented an estates strategy that will deliver £85 million in savings by March 2015
• implemented an ICT strategy that will reduce costs by 40% to 50%
• reduced procurement costs by £80 million
• introduced a shared services strategy that will reduce costs by 10% by 2015 to 2016

BIS has made real progress in the transformation of our Shared Services. We have already transferred some activity to UK Shared Business Services Ltd (UK SBS), which aligns with the Cabinet Office’s Next Generation Shared Services strategy. The benefits to BIS and POs include reduced costs and delivering savings, compliance with Civil Service Reform, a platform for continuous improvement and more transparency and openness.

Our commitment to Shared Services means that we are seeing an overall reduction in resources committed to ‘support’ functions and delivering an increase in the ratio of resources focussed on ‘delivery’ functions.

We have delivered efficiencies through increased co-location of teams and improving how we manage our estates. We have developed and implemented a robust accommodation strategy which by March 2015 will reduce the BIS Office estate from 192 to 75 leasehold interests, saving £85 million. Following the 2013 NAO report on Sustainability in BIS, the Department is strengthening the measures it has in place to ensure that our estate, procurement and policy making embed sustainability. We have established a ‘Sustainability Champion’ and a Sustainability Committee linked into senior management and have started to undertake an assessment of our objectives and policies to identify priorities for embedding sustainable development.

BIS is the first government department to establish a Total Facilities Management contract which will save £16 million over the duration the contract. We are also planning to be the first government department to utilise a Leasehold Liability Transfer model to dispose of surplus leasehold estate, which we expect to realise a further £20 million.

Better project delivery

In response to the Laidlaw Report, BIS undertook a comprehensive review of how we deliver across 3 work streams: professional standards, project governance and accountability, and culture. It was recognised that we have a good track record in delivering complex projects but identified a number of areas where we can improve. In response, we:

• are focusing more strongly on our delivery and project activities (in addition to our policy agenda) through enhanced corporate reporting and risk management
• have created the BIS Portfolio of major projects featuring our top 50 programmes, creating an ‘SRO Charter’ which sets out our expectations of each Senior Responsible Owner, and the empowerment we offer in return
• have established an Investment Gateway to ensure effective prioritisation of value for money and deliverability in the assessment of spend proposals and increased consistency of business case standards

Improving leadership capability and building engagement

Effective leaders and managers are key to developing capability at all levels in BIS. Leaders and managers have worked with their teams to understand the 5 year Capability Plan and the priority skill needs. Heads of Profession and HR are working closely with leaders and managers to provide the appropriate support for the development needs identified.

Talent management is a priority for the Executive Board. BIS rolled out a new talent management assessment process at the grade 6 and 7 level in 2012, where line managers use a simple 9 box grid assessment tool. This is reviewed by management teams every 6 months, as a minimum. Subsequently, in 2013, we developed a comprehensive talent pathway for every grade with a view to building a strong cohort of high-potential individuals and future leaders. An evaluation will be conducted in 2014 to test the effectiveness of these processes and to identify any areas for improvement within BIS but our talent management approach has already enabled us to realise a gender balance at Executive Board and Director levels.

BIS’ approach to developing talent has included the Prince’s Trust TEAM programme for talented Senior Executive Officers (SEOs), participating fully in the new corporate fast stream scheme and the fast track apprentice scheme. We are also investing in other high potential development scheme programmes, including Development Centres for grade 6s and 7s aspiring to reach the SCS in the near future.

A new Performance Management and Development approach was introduced this year with a focus on both facilitating line managers and job-holders to have better, richer conversations and on continuous development for all staff. The approach makes clear that equal weighting is given to both the achievement of objectives and how they have been achieved. Job holders and managers have received significant support through learning and development designed to improve objective setting and to build capability in holding constructive developmental conversations. Fully embedding the new approach will take more time, but an initial review has found that managers were investing more deliberately in preparing for the conversations and that there was an increased focus on behaviours as well as outcomes.

The 2013 People Survey shows ‘My Manager’ theme improving by 1 percentage point up to 67%, in line with the Civil Service average. However our ambition is to be among the Civil Service High Performers and so building management capability remains a key focus for the Department over the next few years.

We have revamped our internal communications approach drawing on the McLeod research on engagement . The 2012 Karian and Box communications channel audit, and supported by the People Survey and pulse surveys, suggested that staff felt that our communications lacked a clear overall story and were too cluttered. Our new approach -

• supports senior leaders to communicate a clear vision for the department
• helps managers to improve employee engagement
• takes a more strategic approach to delivering communication messages
• develops consistent metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of communications

We are delivering this content through a comprehensive but streamlined set of communication channels. These include a structured cascade mechanism, a core narrative (the so-called BIS Story) and regular opportunities for staff to feed in their views. The 2013 People Survey results suggest that the strategy is starting to make a significant difference with a +7 increase in the number of people who believe that leaders have a clear vision, a +6 increase in those that consider they are kept informed on matters that affect them and an overall +2 increase to our Engagement Index.

BIS leaders have been working to create a clear and inspiring narrative to help us better articulate BIS overall purpose and thus engage and motivate staff, influence our stakeholders and manage our reputation. The BIS Story was created in workshops and launched in July 2013. Its purpose is to build pride and to help us articulate how we connect across business, innovation and skills to build opportunity and prosperity.

The BIS Story has been rolled out throughout the organisation with directorates developing their own case studies showing how they connect with the BIS Story. The Story is being represented visually across the building and on our intranet. The BIS Story film features a cross section of BIS people, including the Secretary of State, the Permanent Secretary, senior civil servants and junior staff, along with stakeholders from industry, research and education telling the BIS story in their own words.

We have continued to develop our Board Engagement programme which prioritises face-to-face engagement with staff and increasing Permanent Secretary and Director General visibility across the breadth of BIS. A programme of activity has been developed for each member of the Executive Board, supported by Internal Communications. Responding to the 2012 People Survey results, there has been an increased focus on Grade 6 and 7 engagement and the Team Leader Conversations, hosted by the Permanent Secretary and DGs and supported by a newsletter. The 2013 People Survey demonstrated a +4 increase for senior leaders in BIS being sufficiently visible, building on a previous +4 increase in 2012.

Our Ways of Working programme has already started to make a difference in 3 of the 4 programme areas - shared space, processes and protocols. In Spring 2013 we started to transform our shared space in 1 Victoria Street, following design requirements defined by staff. The first new areas have a range of features to support flexible, creative and collaborative working, including white walls and chairs and flip tables on wheel. Usage is high and feedback overwhelmingly positive.

In Spring 2013 we also launched the first campaign to identify areas where we might improve our processes. People across BIS submitted over 800 ideas in 2 weeks, and over 1,200 then voted to identify the ‘top 5’. Over 130 people additionally volunteered to work on the top 5 task groups. We are seeing Ways of Working making a real difference to staff engagement with an overall +2 increase to our Engagement Index in the 2013 Staff Survey.

In Summer 2013 we consulted staff on areas where shared protocols would make life easier for all. Since then task groups have been developing protocols, the first reporting on meetings in November 2013. We are currently running pilots across the department to test the meeting protocols. During 2014, we will be introducing protocols covering IT, meetings, commissioning and use of space.

The BIS Values and behaviours were developed in-house following a major staff engagement exercise in 2011 – the BIS Conversations. Within context of BIS’ overall purpose, they capture the areas that BIS staff consider to be important and the areas in which we want to drive positive change.

Over the last year our aim has been to ‘put our values to work’. We held Values workshops with teams across the department, ran sessions on using the values and behaviours to set objectives and appraisals, and introduced ‘Constructive Conversations’ workshops to support managers to have effective discussions about ‘How’ as well as ‘What’ we deliver. The Values were launched in July 2012 and are now recognised by 82 % of our staff (a significant +26 increase in the past 12 months).

Evidence

We are an evidence-based organisation. In determining our transformation priorities we have commissioned work and evaluated a range of existing data to identify where we are performing well and where we need to be doing more. We have taken our evidence from:

• the Dalton Philips Review 2013 (Eating the Elephant) - an independent assessment on how our administrative efficiency plans are performing
• Office of the Future Project 2012
• Civil Service Reform Plan 2012
• our regular People surveys (including the 2012 annual staff survey) and pulse surveys
• our annual Stakeholder Survey
• Communications Audit 2012
• the Investors in People Review undertaken in 2013
• BIS Review in response to the Laidlaw Report – examining governance and culture

Dalton Philips report

In June 2013, Dalton Philips, BIS Non-Executive Board Member, provided an independent and objective assessment of our efficiency plans. The report concluded that we are on track with our ambitious programme of cost reductions and that generating further efficiencies would require us to think radically about our operating model. Therefore he advised that we focus on:

• planning and prioritisation
• driving up employee engagement and accelerating improvements in our management information over the medium term
• extending the role of shared services, creating Centres of Excellence and conducting a full review of the department over the longer term

Next Steps

We have now responded to Recommendation 8 of the Dalton Philips report. We have examined in a strategic review the way the Department and POs work together to deliver Ministers’ objectives, setting out the full range of services the core Department and our 46 POs deliver. Alongside much that is excellent, it identifies opportunities for further improving our efficiency and effectiveness into the next Parliament. This response was put to the BIS Executive Board in December 2013 and resulting actions are set out in the Improvement Plan section of this report

NAO Finance Management Report

The recent NAO Finance Management report of BIS recommended that the Department needs to build the capacity and capability within its sponsorship function and better prioritise the resources it devotes to this activity. This is being addressed through our Sponsorship Improvement project.

Office of the Future Project

In 2012 we participated in the Cabinet Office sponsored ‘office of the future’ project. Vodafone examined our ways of working and identified scope for working more effectively and efficiently. Some of the problems identified will be solved by the introduction of new ICT at the end of our fifteen year contract as our current provision is inefficient and unreliable. But they also found that our workspaces are heavily utilised with desk density above industry standards, a heavy reliance upon formal meeting rooms and uninspiring shared spaces. Our processes often reflect a layering of requirements and are consequently bureaucratic and poorly understood. Their recommendations formed the core of our Ways of Working project which has engaged thousands of people across BIS in improving the way we work.

People Surveys and pulse surveys

The 2012 survey showed an overall increase to our engagement index of +3, but identified a number of areas for further improvement around leadership, vision and engagement. The 2013 survey reported a further +2 increase overall. Our People Committee and Executive Board have examined the breakdown of data from the 2013 results and agreed that we should focus on improving people management and building employee pride.

Stakeholder Survey

The 2013 survey undertaken by Ipsos MORI indicated that 2 out of every 3 stakeholders are confident about our ability to make a difference to business, and 80% of those who know about BIS had a favourable impression of the Department. In terms of improving our services, stakeholders want to see an increasingly joined-up BIS, including working more closely with other Departments.

Our stakeholders have said:

“BIS has done a great job in encouraging and supporting universities to connect effectively with the business community, to innovate successfully, to build partnerships that help support the development of British business and make us more innovative and competitive”	“It is clear the passion that people in BIS have about striving to make change for the better. To make it a simpler and clearer environment for businesses to start, thrive and succeed”
Professor Don Nutbeam - Vice-Chancellor, University of Southampton	Rekha Mehr - Founder and Entrepreneur in Residence, Pistachio Rose London

Communication Audit

The Communications channel audit conducted by Karian & Box in 2012 revealed that while employees are well-versed in the top line priorities of the Department, 1 in 3 could not recall a specific BIS message or identify a BIS achievement of which they were proud. This audit informed our internal communications strategy and the development of the BIS Story.

Investors in People

The Investors in People Report June 2013 review identified the following areas where the department might improve further on existing sound practices; or areas where it might consider adopting processes and practices that will bring benefit to the organisation:

• evaluation
• prioritisation
• induction at Departmental level
• management effectiveness

Although out of scope of Investors in People, the review also commented on the department’s IT as being of major concern to BIS employees. The areas identified chime with areas that we are already working on BIS and supported the development of our Management Matters programme to improve people management in BIS.

Improvement plan

Building on this assessment and evidence, the Departmental Board has concluded that the Department needs to focus improvements in the areas below to drive further efficiencies, build our leadership and management capability and strengthen our governance;

Focusing our efforts on these priority areas will help BIS to continue to deliver on the Civil Service Reform Plan as well as realising our vision to be a high performing, efficient and effective department.

Response to Recommendation 8 of the Dalton Philips report

We are now taking forward our response to recommendation 8 of the Dalton Philips report. The focus is the next stage of improvement in the effectiveness and efficiency of BIS and its POs. Its vision is a BIS Group that is simpler and more efficient, with strengthened alignment between the core department and POs, greater sharing of systems and services and streamlined Group governance. The recommendations and actions, which have been endorsed by the Executive Board, fall into 3 groups. Implementation of these recommendations will form a programme of work into the next Parliament

• Landscape Reform: the heart of the BIS mission is making sure the UK’s micro-economic systems that are key to growth are both world-class and working well together. The review identified 15 key systems that BIS is responsible for overseeing. The review recommends a series of fundamental reviews to make sure that government’s role in these systems is as effective and efficient as it can be. This will involve challenging the basic approach to service delivery, including reviewing grant mechanisms, charging for services, alternative delivery models, and potentially consolidating delivery bodies to simplify the overall system.
• Sharing Services: building on, and widening, much that is already underway in corporate service reform within BIS and its POs. Major opportunities exist around ICT (including digitisation) and estates.
• Enablers: These recommendations are key to realising the full potential of the savings in the first 2 groups. They centre on putting customers firmly at the centre of BIS’s thinking to inform services and policy development, and on clarifying the relationship between BIS and its POs through a ‘new deal’ on governance, accountabilities and further improvements to sponsorship.

Management matters

We consider that developing our leadership and management capability is key to building capability and capacity overall across the organisation. New ways of working, including more mobile IT, offers great opportunities but also means managers must be confident in using agile working practices to deliver business need. Our People Survey scores suggest our staff want regular, honest feedback that supports continuous development. Staff also tell us they want to see good people management that builds the Department’s capability, recognised and rewarded. Over the next year and beyond we want to help managers develop their confidence and capability so that management in BIS is amongst the best.

We have already used the SCS leadership programme to identify the management expectations of the SCS. Next steps includes the co-creation of a Management Matters Charter which will articulate expectations of all managers in BIS, and clearly signal the priority the Department attaches to good people management.

People across BIS have been able to contribute to the Charter, and the SCS have led discussions with their teams about what good management means in BIS. The Charter will be embedded in objective-setting for 2014 to 2015 responding to feedback that staff want to see the Charter’s aspirations lived and breathed.

Staff have told us they would welcome more support when taking on the responsibility of management for the first time. We are therefore introducing a new development programme for new line managers, aimed at building confidence and capability. This will draw on Civil Service Learning resources as well as using our own effective managers as role models, and to mentor and support others.

Our core focus will continue to be embedding the new Performance and Development system. Next steps include streamlining and improving guidance in response to staff feedback so that the process is clear, consistently understood and staff feel that they are being assessed fairly. The quality and quantity of constructive feedback continues to be an area for improvement. We also want to ensure we deliver on the development focus of our new system, and so we will be offering support for managers in how to have effective development conversations.

Other action includes base lining management practice and tracking our progress through a Pulse survey, and refreshing the online support for managers so it is simpler and more intuitive.

Talent Management will continue to be a focus for improvement, ensuring that once identified, talent is actively managed and supported through appropriate learning and development opportunities. We will also be developing our approach to tracking our talented individuals, monitoring whether those identified through our talent approach are actually becoming our leaders in the future.

BIS Story

The BIS Story was agreed in July 2013 following workshops engaging staff from across the breadth of BIS. It has been rolled out throughout the Department with Directorates developing their own case studies showing how they connect with the Story. Since January 2014, the Story has been represented visually across the building and on our intranet. Our reception, seen by some 6000 stakeholders a month, is displaying stakeholder exhibitions supporting the Story.

During the rest of 2014, we will continue to invigorate staff engagement with the BIS Story through continued sharing of success stories on the intranet and in our visual communications. We will also ensure that the Story is embedded in our work more widely to help us all as leaders to maximise our impact and reputation to stakeholders and beyond. In particular, we will:

• feature the story of the month in core internal communications channels such as the intranet, the all staff weekly newsletter – ‘This Week in BIS’, our external website and will also be displayed visually on our new success wall in the public areas
• identify opportunities to weave the story into our work and align our external communications
• re-design ‘The Guide to BIS’ to incorporate the BIS Story and its key themes

We will evaluate the success and impact of the BIS Story engagement programme in the Internal Communications audit in April 2014. Through quantitative surveys and qualitative staff focus groups and interviews we will review the effectiveness of communications in BIS and the resonance of key messages delivered such as the BIS Story. We would also expect to see its impact reflected in our Staff Survey results for 2014.

Civil Service Reform

Civil Service Reform aligns with our own existing direction of travel and is reflected in activities that are already taking place and others that are planned. We chair The Way We Work Delivery Board, which brings together cross-government board level representatives in key departments to deliver ‘a modern flexible working environment for civil servants’ as set out in the Civil Service Reform Plan

We will continue to work with the Government Digital Service (GDS) and across POs to deliver the commitments in the BIS Digital Strategy in order to become ‘digital by default’. Key priorities include: ensuring all new and redesigned services meet the Digital by Default Service Standard from April 2014; completing the transition to GOV.UK for BIS agencies/arms length bodies by July 2014; building digital capability to ensure there is the skills and experience to improve both transactional services and policy making; and using the redesigned exemplar digital services in Land Registry, Insolvency Service, Skills Funding Agency (National Apprenticeship Service), Intellectual Property Office and Students Loan Company to drive wider digital transformation across the department.

We are leading the formation of a joint local growth policy team with DCLG and the Cabinet Office Cities Unit. The team will provide a single point of leadership in Whitehall, cement a more collaborative approach and eradicate duplication between Departments.

Our approach to portfolio management and SRO accountability for the BIS Projects Portfolio is leading to new approaches to reporting project progress. In addition we are working with Cabinet Office and Oxford University to create an ‘SRO Masterclass’ for BIS’s SROs, which will draw heavily on content from the MPA’s Major Programmes Leadership Academy. The first event took place in January 2014 and featured all BIS SROs, and had strong support from the BIS Board. Subsequent to this we expect to refine BIS’s approach to portfolio management and work closely with other departments on PPM best practice.

We continue to deliver a Modern Workplace. In May 2014 we will introduce a new ICT system, Evolve. We will move from fixed desk computers to laptops, supporting staff to work anywhere and anytime and further reducing paper usage, particularly at meetings. Our new software will transform our data management and collaboration capability and introduce a range of ways to keep in touch, reducing dependence upon email. We are one of the first Departments to operate the Government’s new ICT contracting process, enabling dynamic development of our ICT hardware and software. Shared space will be completed by April 2014, supported by a new way finding project to enable people to locate colleagues and to support teams to promote their achievements. We reported the outcome of our first process task groups in January 2014. Over 1,200 people contributed ideas and voted in the first round of process simplification. Our protocols task groups reported in February 2014, for the first time introducing new ways of working which support efficient, collaborative working.

Building on best practice across the Department, we are developing a BIS-wide model for Active Resource Management to ensure Groups have the tools they need to manage people resource effectively. The model will operate at a Group-level but provide an escalation route for those resource pressures that cannot be managed within Group. The model will be supported by a data capture tool that collects consistent and comparable resource data across Groups. It will deliver a more consistent approach to resource management across the Department so that when a new critical priority emerges in the future the Department is able to respond quickly and without any significant impact on other areas of BIS activity. We will be piloting this new approach in 1 Group in Winter/ Spring 2014 along with a focus on good corporate behaviours.

Continuous improvement and adding new functionality was always planned for our Shared Services and in February 2014, UK SBS added the ability to manage growth vouchers (the government initiative to help small businesses afford commercial or financial advice), scanning (to enable source documentation to be held on and accessed through the system) and an online procurement catalogue (essentially an ‘Amazon’ for business) to their current service.

Further improvement measures are planned as part of our Estates Strategy. We will be making more efficient use of our space to get to 10 square metres per person by December 2015. This is achieved by greater emphasis on flexible ways of working and increased co-location. In conjunction with the Dalton Philips review team, Cabinet Office and Treasury we are looking at radical estate solutions to drive out significant level of cost but support a radically re organised business model.

Metrics to measure improvement

Improvement being made	Metric used to measure progress	Date to review metric and details of who undertakes review	Trigger that will signal mitigating action needs to be taken
Our strategic review responding to recommendation 8 of the Dalton Philips report	A detailed delivery plan, with clear goals and milestones.	Progress to be reviewed by a programme board on a monthly basis, and by the Executive Board quarterly. The BIS Departmental Board will also review as appropriate.	Failure to deliver in line with agreed milestones.
Management Matters	The ‘My Manager’ theme in the People Survey improves to close the gap with Civil Service high performers from -3% points in 2013.	2014 People Survey	Pulse Survey questions on management priority, effectiveness and feedback.
			Feedback from critical friends network and newly promoted G7s/6s.
The BIS Story	Internal Communications audit.	April 2014.	Results below expectations.
	Through quantitative surveys and qualitative staff focus groups and interviews.	Monthly focus groups, Quarterly Pulse Surveys, People Survey 2014.	Progress below indicator and improvement not being achieved.
Continued delivery of Civil Service Reform Plan	Quarterly Reporting on implementation of actions in Civil Service Reform Plan.	Quarterly – BIS and CO assessment.	Red RAG ratings against individual actions.