Corporate report

UKHSA Advisory Board: People and Culture Committee minutes

Updated 9 May 2024

Date: 8 May 2024

Sponsor: Sir Gordon Messenger

1. Recommendation

The Advisory Board is asked to note the minutes of 8 February 2024 meeting of the People and Culture Committee. The minutes were agreed on 24 April 2024.

2. Minutes (confirmed), UKHSA People and Culture Committee, 5 February 2024

Present at the meeting were:

• Sir Gordon Messenger – Non-Executive Member of UKHSA Advisory Board (Chair)
• Mark Lloyd – Non-Executive Member of UKHSA Advisory Board
• Jac Gardner – Chief People Officer
• Dame Jenny Harries – Chief Executive
• Cindy Rampersaud – Non-Executive Member of UKHSA Advisory Board

In attendance were:

• Lee Bailey – Communications Director
• 7 attendees had their names and titles redacted

3. Welcome, apologies and declarations of interest

24/001 The Chair welcomed participants to the People and Culture Committee and noted no apologies and declarations of interest.

4. Minutes of the previous meeting and matters arising

24/002 The minutes from the previous meeting on 31 October 2023 (enclosure PACC-24-001) were agreed.

24/003 It was noted that the three actions were completed (enclosure PACC-24-002). Full explanations were provided.

24/004 The Committee considered the updated terms of reference and discussed whether further information should be included on the pay and incentives structure. It was explained that UKHSA did not have any control over the structure but could decide how it would act within it. There were checks and balances in place. The pay remit for delegated grades was applied and some of that funding could sometimes be targeted, subject to Executive Committee agreement. The process for SCS performance is defined by the Cabinet Office and its application overseen by the CEO and shared with the Chair of the Advisory Board and Chair of the People & Culture Committee.

24/005 The Committee endorsed the updated terms of reference as presented.

5. Chief People Officer Brief

24/006 The Chief People Officer provided an update on organisation-wide people-related activities (enclosure PACC-24-003).

24/007 The People and Culture Committee noted progress on activities discussed at previous meetings including:

• an upward trajectory in the recruitment of permanent staff, leading to a proportion of 81% permanent workforce. This was an increase of 5% since September (76%) and an increase of 50% over the course of the last year;
• the controls around contingent labour had been managed successfully within the 80 cap;
• some recruitment would continue to be outsourced to Reed until the end of March 2024. A transition plan was in place to bring it in house, but Reed could continue to be used if required, as additional capacity. Specialist external assistance would continue to be required for some difficult to resource roles. A recruitment improvement project was also taking place improve efficiency and effectiveness of our in-house service.

24/008 The People and Culture Committee noted the following key points:

• attrition was currently running at around 12%, however this varied between groups and was now reducing in some of the harder to recruit roles;
• there was a significant underspend in the Learning and Development budget. This was partly because of the number of vacancies/permanent staff in post. Our people survey reported that staff weren’t always aware of opportunities. There would be increased focus on performance discussions going forward to ensure training and development opportunities were identified and actioned;
• UKHSA’s implementation of its Oracle enterprise resource planning (MaPS), whilst having delivered finance and some core HR functionality, had not delivered the remaining HR modules given the need to stabilise our accounts and focus on matters in the National Audit Office action plan. A new phase of the programme, with ownership transferring to the Chief People Officer, to deliver the remaining HR functionality such as recruitment and performance management is proposed and a business case is being prepared for the end of February 2024.

24/009 The Committee discussed whether learnings from elsewhere in the civil service could be applied to UKHSA’s implementation of MaPS. It was explained that some areas do use Oracle, or Workday, and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency had implemented certain modules, so we were in touch with them so that learning would be applied. However no other Civil Service organisations had yet been identified that had implemented the recruitment module and this was one of critical needs.

24/010 The Committee discussed critical roles and whether there was a need for visibility of these at the Committee. It was noted that there is an action from the Advisory Board to look at critical skills and workforce development so this would be part of a future discussion. The Committee asked to include consideration of whether there was the same focus on critical roles in corporate services as there was in science.

24/011 The Committee recommended an approach to critical roles whereby high risk high skilled roles were managed and RAG rated monthly.

24/012 The Committee discussed the need to be more directional about Learning and Development given the level of underspend and the considerable Civil Service learning resources available. It was acknowledged that UKHSA’s approach to Talent needed to mature. (Action: Jac Gardner)

6. Civil Service People Survey Results

2/013 The Head of People Experience and Performance and Deputy Director, Culture, Learning and Development provided an update on UKHSA’s 2023 People Survey results and progress to date on identifying priorities for strategic action planning and actions (enclosure PACC-23-004).

24/014 The People and Culture Committee noted that an Executive Committee priority action planning session had taken place on 1 February 2024, the conversation being assisted by the new survey dashboard. It had been agreed that a Learning Culture would be prioritised as a key area of focus as it provided a framework against which we can address performance discussions, line manager capability, career development, behaviours and expectations. It was also noted that the grievance process would be strengthened through this year, helping to contribute to addressing concerns on bullying and harassment.

24/015 A dashboard showing net promoter scores had been developed, calculating the results by subtracting the number of detractors (‘disagree’ or ‘strongly disagree’) from the number of promoters (‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’). This provided a metric that helped in understanding how colleagues were feeling about different areas in UKHSA and how different groups were performing. The results could also be shown by function, profession, grades and locations.

24/016 There were 3000 open comments that had been broken down into themes and then into groups, departments and teams.

24/017 The Committee thanked the presenters for the improvements to the data over the previous year and underlined the importance of communicating the results to colleagues in a way that demonstrated their participation in the survey had an impact on insight. It was explained that the results had been communicated locally by survey representatives and business partners, and the Executive Committee input to organisation-wide actions would be communicated soon. Local ownership is of utmost importance and line managers would have an important part in creating action plans.

24/018 The bullying and harassment scores had remained unchanged from last year’s survey. Workshops had taken place over last year in some groups but there is further opportunity to roll these our further and implement other interventions. The Committee commented that organisations can have lower scores when people feel unsupported and alone in the workplace and higher when colleagues felt valued in small teams.

24/019 Understanding the mission and purpose of the organisation had improved significantly since the publication of the strategic plan and communications around this.

24/020 The Committee recommended that

• the data be extrapolated to reinforce the value of teams
• the data should be used to identify priority areas
• the reasons for the lower net promoter scores in certain groups should be understood
• ‘decision making at SCS level’ would benefit from a deep dive.
• improved Learning Culture should be a campaign for the next year.

(Action: Jac Gardner)

7. HR Casework and Freedom to Speak Up

24/021 Head of Casework and Employee Relations Support provided an update on the progress with the HR Case work team (enclosure PACC-24-005).

24/022 In response to the Civil Service People Survey (CSPS) 2022 scores, specifically about Bullying, Harassment and Discrimination, a series of ‘Working Together’ Workshops (18) had been developed and delivered internally to focus specifically on tackling poor behaviours. These began in June 2022 and have continued to roll out throughout the whole of 2023. There are plans to deliver further workshops into early 2024.

24/023 The analysis showed that in almost half of the teams the Bullying and Harassment scores had improved by between 2 and17 percentage points.

24/024 The Committee underlined the importance of raising awareness but cautioned that the number a grievances may grow as this improved. There was also a risk of an ‘accusatory culture’ developing, but responsive and less formal mechanisms would help offset this risk.

24/025 The Committee discussed the areas that had held workshops and asked how successful they had been at improving awareness. It was explained that teams attending the workshops had been tracked through the people survey and the responses were very variable. This may be because of increased recognition or that the position had changed. Areas with a disproportionate number of grievances would now be tracked going forward.

7.1 Whistleblowing

24/026 The Head of Casework and Employee Relations Support provided an update on the whistleblowing audit.

24/027 Since UKHSA’s creation, no whistleblowing concerns had been reported. The Freedom to Speak Up Guardian has undertaken much of the conflict resolution activity and this was consolidated into the HR Casework service.

24/028 The People and Culture Committee noted the key findings of the audit as set out in the paper.

24/029 The audit improvement recommendations were aligned with how UKHSA was planning to develop its service. These would be taken forward in partnership with trade unions colleagues. The Freedom to Speak Up policy would be reviewed in the first quarter of this year.

24/030 The Committee discussed communications of the policy and it was explained this would be mainly through line manager’s forums and corporate inductions. Whistleblowing needs to be regarded as an organisation wide compliance issue and broader than a training and policy matter.

8. People Strategy, Deliverables and Metrics

24/031 The Deputy Director, People Strategy presented a paper which proposed a framework within which to measure KPIs/metrics that spanned operational, organisational and strategic performance.

24/032 It was proposed there should be three layers of People metrics for tracking moving forward.

• Strategic – the measurement of people and culture priorities as detailed in the 3-year UKHSA plan;
• Organisational – a set number of KPIs that align to the six themes of the UKHSA People Strategy; and
• Operational – People Group / HR metrics to monitor performance.

24/033 The Committee asked whether there were any KPIs or metrics that would be useful to UKHSA but not possible because the data was not available to support them. It was explained that some of the suggestions put forward in the paper were not yet possible and required further work to create.

24/034 The Committee asked about data in relation to succession. It was explained we participate in the Department of Health and Social Care Director General talent reviews and also review SCS2 roles. There are some issues on SCS succession more broadly due to us moving from a position of many SCS roles filled by temporary promotions and fixed term contracts, but this should ease as we fill the roles permanently.

24/035 The Committee discussed the available metrics concerning the number of performance reviews being completed and number of grievances. There was currently no formal performance management system in place for UKHSA other than at SCS level. Statistics were available for completion and compliance for SCS. The roll out of the relevant MAPS performance management module would improve this situation and in preparation there is work being undertaken to introduce an agency wide performance approach in 2024/25. The Committee underlined the importance of having a performance management system at all levels.

24/036 The Committee discussed the Government People Plan. It was noted there remained a need understand which elements of the Government People Plan would be delivered for Civil Service departments and which elements were a framework under which we would create and deliver locally.

24/037 The Committee recommended that the Learning and Development measures should measure impact in addition to spend. (Action: Jac Gardner)

24/038 The Committee endorsed the proposed three tier model of metric tracking and requested that appraisals, performance management and talent management should be added when possible.

9. Forward look and topics for future meetings

24/039 The People and Culture Committee noted the Forward Look and suggested topics for future discussion (enclosure PACC-24-07)

24/040 It was clarified that the MaPS business case would be considered by the Executive Committee at the end of February 2024. It was agreed that the Chief People Office would circulate an executive summary to the People and Culture Committee, prior to consideration of this matter at its next meeting. (Action: Jac Gardner)

10. Any other business and close

24/041 Non at this time.