Chief Executive 1st six-monthly report 9 July 2018

Chief Executive's six-month report

to the States Assembly

Introduction

This is my first six-monthly report to States Members, on the main areas of my activity as Chief Executive of the States of Jersey and Head of the Public Service. This report, which is also being shared with States of Jersey employees, the media and islanders, via the gov.je website, is part of my commitment to greater transparency and accountability of the public service.

Although I took up my post formally on 8 January 2018, I had already spent some months familiarising myself with issues, attending meetings with Ministers, senior officials and stakeholders in Jersey, and overseeing the due diligence work of the Transition Team.

My activities during the first six months in post cover the following core areas:

1. Due diligence
2. Long-term vision
3. Visible leadership
4. Finance
5. Children
6. Governance
7. Structure
8. Capability and managerial competence
9. Culture and behaviour
10. Public sector estate
11. Improving community and voluntary sector partnerships
12. Channel Islands partnership
13. New States Assembly and Council of Ministers
14. Legacy issues

Due diligence

Before and during my first weeks in post, I oversaw a number of detailed reviews of the public service by the Transition Team, who were appointed to review a wide range of the States of Jersey's operations, finance, policy, management, governance and communications arrangements. They submitted several reports in November, December and January.

I shared their findings with the Chief Minister, other Ministers, States Members, including Scrutiny, and senior colleagues. The findings were used to inform my planning for the modernisation and restructuring programme of the States' public services. These reports have also led to:

• Changes to financial processes and the launch of the finance modernisation programme
• The early creation of a Chief Operating Office, bringing together HR, IT, commercial services, security and project and programme management
• The first States of Jersey Communications Strategy, Internal Communications Plan and One Government Communications structure
• The strengthening of resource to support organisational development, senior leadership assessment and development, recruitment and workforce planning.

Long-term vision

An early priority was to articulate a clear long-term vision for a modern public service. I set out the broad ambition in a speech I gave to the 150 most senior leaders and managers in the States of Jersey in November 2017, to which I also invited trade union representatives. This speech was published to all staff internally and released to the media.

On 21 February, I addressed the Jersey Chamber of Commerce, where I provided more detail on the challenges and risks that Jersey and our public services face, the priority areas for change, and the principles behind the modernisation and restructuring programme that I would shortly be launching. This speech was published internally, on gov.je and shared with the media and stakeholders.

On 6 March, I set out the detailed proposals for modernising and restructuring the public service in a series of announcements and briefings to the States Assembly, the most senior 200 leaders and managers, trades unions, staff, stakeholders and the media. My announcement was accompanied by a detailed report – Team Jersey: one island, one community, one government, one future – which explained the challenges and risks we face as an island; the five components of a long-term approach (economy, customers, people, services and place); the guiding principles behind the new organisation; the early wins and urgent priorities we need to take action on; and the detailed structure of the new One Government proposals (see below).

I have reiterated this vision in every communication I have issued and every visit I have made, both internally and externally. This repositioning' of the public services in Jersey is a long-term programme of changes that will take three to five years and beyond.

Visible leadership

From day one, I have engaged in an extensive programme of internal and external visits and events, in order to be a visible leader, championing reform and role modelling the leadership behaviours that I believe the senior leadership of the public service should be exhibiting.

My initial visits have had three purposes: to learn about how the States works and delivers services; to hear first-hand from frontline staff about the issues they face; and to start to change the culture of the organisation through my own personal conduct as a leader.

To date, I have visited the following internal teams:

One initiative worth highlighting is the first all-staff events to be held by the States of Jersey for more than a decade, where 1,500 staff attended three sessions over two days at Fort Regent. I used these sessions to talk to colleagues about the modernisation and restructuring programme and to answer questions from staff. We also had presentations on what it means to be a customer-focused organisation and our responsibility as the public service to the care and protection of children.

I have not undertaken any internal visits in June, as I have been involved in the induction process for new States Members, support for the briefings and early meetings of the new Council of Ministers, and in an extensive schedule of interviewing for senior appointments.

During my first six months, I also met a number of stakeholders, spoke to key individuals and started a programme of visits to the parishes and external organisations to engage and hear from them, as well as outline my vision for an improved public service in Jersey.

Finance

Supported by a finance expert in the Transition Team, I have reviewed the state of public finances, and the operations, processes and governance of the finance service in the States. This uncovered some systemic weaknesses, poor practices and a range of risks.

I have approved the launch of a finance transformation programme to address the findings of the review, build professional capability and commercial expertise, and improve the rigour and timeliness of financial reporting. I have also ended the longstanding practice of carrying forward unspent budget into the following year as a claim on contingencies – and have, indeed, eliminated contingencies entirely.

As part of the review, I have been clear that we also need to modernise the IT infrastructure that supports our Treasury department and Taxes Office, as well as bringing forward the closure of the 2018 annual accounts by four months. In addition, I have asked that the transformation programme also looks at a range of back office functions that impact on our finance activities.

Children

One of the reasons that I was appointed to this role, and was attracted to Jersey, was the opportunity to reform the care, protection and development of the island's children, following the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry Report and recommendations of July 2017.

Building on my previous experience of turning around poor children's services, as well as overseeing outstanding services for children, I see this as essential in remedying the reputational damage that the island has suffered. Early on, I participated in the selection and interview process to appoint Jersey's first Children's Commissioner, and have engaged closely with her on the priorities and actions that are needed to improve the care of children in the island. This includes, but is not limited to, the work of the Children's Services team.

From my own observations from visits to Children's Services, information I reviewed or was given (often in confidence) by families, children's social workers, and from sharing information with the Children's Commissioner, it was quickly clear to both of us that children might still be unsafe in Jersey, and that more direct oversight of Children's Services was needed. The Chief Minister agreed, and that oversight was passed from Health and Social Services to me, prior to a full restructure of the children, family, young people, education and skills portfolio. Since then, I have been reviewing how best to deliver a step change in Children's Services.

Preliminary feedback from an Ofsted review of Children's Services in June, while clarifying that children are no longer at immediate risk of harm, confirmed my early assessment that the public service, and the island, are still failing children and that these systemic failures must be addressed with a commitment and an urgency that has been lacking until now. Ofsted has sent its findings to the Jersey Care Commission, which is due to publish its final report with recommendations in September.

But we do not need to wait for the findings and recommendations from the Jersey Care Commission to know that we need to take decisive action and put the full weight of the public service machine behind this priority.

Accordingly, I was pleased to announce the appointment in June of an interim Director General for Children, Young People, Education and Skills who not only has experience as a teacher, head teacher and director of children's services, but has joined a large local authority with children's services in special measures and has made an immediate and sustained impact in recovering them. I have tasked him with delivering a revised improvement plan by mid-July, and delivering quickly on both the remaining recommendations of the Care Inquiry and the actions arising from the Jersey Care Commission report in September.

This root-and-branch review of the way we support children on the island will take time, but I am confident that we now have in place the right strategic and operational measures to start to make rapid progress in improving our service for children.

Governance

It was immediately clear to me on taking on this role that the system of managerial governance in the States of Jersey was broken. The Chief Executive was nominally accountable for the public service, but had no actual authority over the departmental Chief Officers, as a result of the then corporate sole arrangements. Departments were fiefdoms in law, with a siloed mentality, which meant that there was no shared ambition, no shared accountability, no collective responsibility and little cross-cutting activity.

This was not only a barrier to effective planning and decision-making for the public service, but it led to wasteful duplication, inconsistency and competition between departments.

Running alongside my review of the structure of the public service and the modernisation of services, I therefore worked closely with Ministers and senior officials to develop proposals to strengthen accountability in the public service, which the States Assembly approved in March. This makes the Chief Executive legally and financially accountable for the decisions and budgets of the public service, with appropriate delegation of accountability to the Director Generals for departments.

I have also restructured the senior management decision-making forums in the States. I chair a fortnightly Corporate Strategy Board (CSB), which is broadly equivalent to the former Corporate Management Board, attended by all Chief Officers and a number of senior Directors. CSB provides strategic oversight of the public service and develops proposals to Ministers.

I also chair a fortnightly Executive Management Team (EMT) which comprises the Chief Officers of the main service departments, and which is responsible for reviewing operational business and performance matters, including finance and workforce issues. CSB and EMT meet on alternating Tuesdays.

In addition, I attend the Council of Ministers meetings. As part of the refresh of the managerial governance arrangements, there has been better co-ordination of the business management and support for the Government with the aim of improving the time available for Ministers and the Council of Ministers to consider key policy and law- making decisions.

Structure

The findings of the review of operations, finance, HR, capability, communications and governance informed my proposals to modernise and restructure the public service that I announced on 6 March. We consulted formally with everyone in the States on the proposed structure for 90 days, and following consultation feedback I made several changes to the proposals when I confirmed the final structure on 14 June.

The final top-level structure includes the:

• Office of the Chief Executive
• Department for the States Treasury and Exchequer
• Department for Customer and Local Services
• Department for Children, Young People, Education and Skills
• Department for Health and Community Services
• Department for Justice and Home Affairs
• Department for Growth, Housing and Environment
• Department for Strategic Policy, Performance and Population
• Chief Operating Office.

As part of this process, I have reduced the top two tiers of senior leadership from 66 posts to 40.

The process for migrating from the old public service departments to the new departments began on 18 June. The initial lift and shift' restructuring will be complete by the end of 2018, and the review of roles at every level will be completed by March 2019. The new structure will support Ministers in whatever portfolios they hold.

Capability and managerial competence

The due diligence audits, and my own experience in post, uncovered that we have both capability and capacity weaknesses in the public service, which are barriers to modernising and to delivering effective, efficient, value-for-money public services. Some of these gaps are in senior leadership and management competence, and some are in specialist expertise – especially in finance, HR, communications, IT, risk and audit, commercial, and programme and project management.

I therefore secured external specialist support to conduct thorough developmental reviews of existing senior leaders' technical and leadership capabilities, which I have extended to the second tier of States leaders. At the same time, I instigated a ring- fenced matching and recruitment exercise for Tier 1 and 2 roles among the existing senior leadership, as a result of which the following internal appointments were made:

Richard Bell – Director General for States Treasury and Exchequer and

States Treasurer

Ian Burns – Director General for Customer and Local Services

John Rogers – Director General for Growth, Housing and Environment

Tom Walker – Director General for Strategic Policy, Performance and Population Richard Corrigan – Group Director for Financial Services and Digital Economy

Dan Houseago – Group Director for Economy and Partnerships

Kate Nutt – Group Director for External Relations (including Brexit)

Andy Scate – Group Director for Regulation

I also authorised, with appropriate Ministerial support and financial approvals, the programme to transform the finance function, the restructuring of communications, the recruitment of individuals into interim and fixed-term roles, and the contracting of specialist external resource from consultancies on project and time-limited contracts. This is an important investment in the reform of future management capability, which will deliver long-term benefits for improving services.

Among the appointments made in recent months to strengthen capacity are:

Interim Director of Finance Transformation

Interim Director of People Services

Interim Director of Communications

Interim Director General for Children, Young People, Education and Skills Interim Director General for Health and Community Services

Director of Health Modernisation

Director of Adult Social Care

I expect to announce the permanent appointment for DGs for Justice and Home Affairs, Children, Young People, Education and Skills, as well as a Chief Operating Officer, Chief of Staff and Director of Commercial, within the next fortnight.

Recruitment to a further 20 senior roles will take place over coming months to complete appointments to key roles in Tiers 1 and 2. This will be a combination of internal and external recruitment arrangements.

All of the above posts, including those interim positions where appropriate, have been overseen by the Jersey Appointments Commission, and the appointment panels have included independent Jersey representatives, as well as technical experts.

Culture and behaviour

The siloed culture of the States of Jersey, in which teams have operated in isolation as part of departmental fiefdoms, does not serve the interests either of effective public administration or of good quality customer services.

I made clear from my first speech that we needed to develop a culture that is based on teamwork and collaboration, openness and transparency, learning, innovation and appropriate risk-taking, combined with respect for customers and for each other. We need to invest in staff to create tomorrow's leaders and to grow and nurture our talent and future stars over the longer term.

I commissioned the first all-employee survey for nine years, which ran in March, and which found that only 50% of employees are engaged with the States of Jersey, that 58% say they are proud to work for the States, with only 36% feeling a strong personal attachment to the organisation and only 36% of staff would recommend it as a great place to work.

The survey showed that while employees are generally committed to their work and their team, 15% are detached, 28% are not inspired, 27% are committed for now, and only 30% are engaged enthusiasts. Over many years, the States have not won the hearts and minds of the workforce, and as we embark on the most intensive journey of transformation in our history, this could prove to be a serious impediment to what we are seeking to achieve. Nonetheless, we now have a baseline from which to work, and I am committed to more regular surveys in the future.

I have started or authorised a number of initiatives to support the change to a One Government culture, including:

• Getting out and being visible across the States
• Starting a major improvement in communications with staff
• Seeking to procure an experienced long-term partner to work with us on culture change
• Approving an enhanced employee engagement and new internal communications plan
• Introducing a regular schedule of senior leader, senior manager and all-staff events, starting in July
• Announcing One Government staff awards for the autumn
• Securing a building to bring teams together from Cyril le Marquand House and from across many other States offices in a new government headquarters.

Culture change cannot happen overnight, but I believe have put down some important foundations in my first months to drive a long-term shift in the way public services are delivered and led across Jersey.

The public sector estate

The siloed culture of the public service has been physically and visibly reinforced by the demarcation of departments in different buildings. While frontline services need to be delivered in the right place – whether this be schools, the hospital, or social services – and team managers should be based with their teams, there is no reason why non- frontline departments and senior leaders and managers should be so dispersed. The Health department senior leaders are not giving direct healthcare, and the senior officers in Education are not teaching, so they don't need to be based in the Hospital or at Highlands.

That is why, early on in my tenure as Chief Executive, I announced my intention to bring together as many teams, managers and leaders as possible into one building, which will contribute to creating the One Government culture we need and provide an opportunity to consolidate and reduce our public sector estate, releasing buildings and land for other purposes and securing cost efficiencies or commercial revenues.

We will shortly announce the location of a new building into which staff from Cyril Le Marquand House and other offices will move as an interim step in the autumn, while we design and deliver a modern, purpose-build government office building. I have been deeply involved in this project throughout the past six months, personally visiting potential sites and working closely with senior officials from key departments.

The accommodation for Ministers and States Members is also part of the plan for better utilising of the public service estate. Ministers will have a bespoke Ministerial suite in the new building, to enable them to be co-located and improve their time spent working together. We are also investing in upgrading Morier House, part of which will provide space for States Members to work and hold meetings. Currently support for them is almost non-existent and is wholly inadequate for our democratically-elected representatives.

Improving community and voluntary sector partnerships

Just as there has been siloed working within the States, the relationship between the public service, parishes, community groups and the voluntary sector has also suffered from a lack of collaboration, partnership and common purpose. This has resulted in inconsistency, duplication and, on occasion, conflict between parties who ought to be working together in partnership.

Islanders identify strongly with the 12 parishes and value the parish tradition of independence from the States and from each other. At the same time, customers are increasingly frustrated by the complex delivery model, duplication and bureaucracy associated between the different parish systems and States departments – all delivering what are consider to be public services.

Similarly, the relationship between the States and the island's large voluntary and community organisations (VCS) sector is variable and somewhat immature and focuses mainly on contractual, and grant making arrangements with departments. While pockets of best practice exist around co production and commissioning in social care, there is limited strategic oversight or dialogue that engages the sector as a key partner, rather than just a provider of services.

This ignores the wider impact that VCS organisations can offer, both in strategic planning and identifying changes locally in community needs. There is therefore untapped potential to engage the sector in a different way and use the huge social

value embedded in the Jersey system to align objectives, co-produce outcomes, manage demand and ultimately reduce costs, and improve public services for islanders.

I have put improving these relationships at the heart of the local services portfolio in the new Customer and Local Services department. To make some early progress, in April I announced the appointment of an Interim Director of Local Services, who has been actively building stakeholder relationships, especially among the VCS and parishes.

Also in April, I met with more than 35 VCS organisations to discuss these issues, outline my ambitions and seek a common framework for the benefit of islanders. There is now considerable momentum to build a new relationship that recognises the different roles and responsibilities of the States; one based on shared principles, and which then values the contribution of the VCS to island life, and is seen equally with that of the public and private sectors.

These shared principles will define how a collaborative relationship will works towards:

• the co-production and strategic planning of services
• commissioning and contracting for outcomes – measuring impact and social value, to gain understanding on what is being achieved as well as what is being done for islanders
• offering support (financial or otherwise) which is based on success and innovation, to reduce service demands/costs
• promoting enterprise and exploring a new funding and investment model for Jersey.

The draft principles to underpin this new relationship will soon be out for consultation with the wider sector and closes in the summer. Once the outcome of the consultation is known, there will then be further dialogue with Ministers as to the next steps.

Channel Islands partnership

In my first week in post, I visited Guernsey and met the Guernsey Chief Executive, to discuss opportunities for closer collaboration between our public services, in order to secure better value for money and to share expertise. We have since created a Channel Islands Public Service Board, which I chair jointly with the Chief Executive of the States of Guernsey, to support ongoing cooperation between the two islands' public services, and to find and support new partnership opportunities to jointly improve our public services and reduce costs to taxpayers. We have recently included the Chief Executive of Alderney in the discussions.

We have met three times to date. In May, we formally constituted the Board and identified a pipeline of opportunities across a wide range of public services, and agreed priority work streams, where significant progress can be made within the next six to 12 months. These were approved at the first Channel Islands Political Oversight Board on 25 June, which was chaired jointly by the two islands' Chief Ministers, and announced publicly on 26 June.

The priority work streams include:

1. Joint working onpolicy development, including through joint commissioning of external experts, secondments of policy officials between islands, joint teams, joint island community engagement, joint performance measures and the potential for a joint graduate programme with placements in both islands
2. Introducing a shadow Channel Islands Health Authority to promote joint working in healthcare, including joint procurement of IT and other operational services, professional liaison, recruitment, shared learning and education, to support the improvements to the provision of healthcare in both communities
3. Setting up a joint digital transformation board to work together on the delivery of technology to speed up online services for islanders
4. A formal partnership for public sector procurement, including contract and supplier management, to improve value for money and reduce costs
5. A commitment to sharing data and analytics.

The Channel Islands Public Service Board meets every two months, and the Political Oversight Board will meet twice a year.

New Council of Ministers and States Assembly

During May and June, I was involved in shaping and leading the civil service preparations for the new States Assembly and Council of Ministers, overseeing the work of a team of policy officers and consultants in preparing briefings, workshops and induction sessions for Ministers and States Members. We continue to work with Ministers in supporting the development of their strategic priorities, which will be discussed in the States Assembly in November.

My ambition is for the public service to better serve Ministers to deliver their priorities for the island, through the public service reforms outlined above and particularly through improving the ways in which we develop policy. I welcome the Chief Minister's commitment to run a more inclusive government and improve working relationships between the Assembly and Ministers. We are setting up new structures and providing more resources, both in the States Greffe, and within government,

to support our elected representatives in all that they do.  

Legacy issues

I inherited a number of ongoing issues on taking up my post, not least a range of potential disputes with employee groups arising from pay and workforce modernisation proposals.

The workforce modernisation proposal, which was made to more than 5,000 employees in November, was comprehensively rejected by most employee groups. Since there was no further money to increase the financial offer, and since the unions had made no constructive alternative proposals, on 6 March I took the workforce modernisation offer off the table, and made an alternative commitment to settle the 2017 pay claim, and introduce negotiations that would take place for a two-year deal for each of the employee groups which had not accepted the workforce modernisation offer. I agreed to honour the offer for the groups which had voted in favour of workforce modernisation.

Since then, on behalf of the States Employment Board, I have authorised a two-year pay offer to nurses and midwives, which is currently being considered by them. Discussions with other pay groups continue. I also announced a two-year pay freeze for senior managers on pay above £100,000 a year.

Conclusions

This report is a snapshot of the activities that I have instigated, led or overseen during my first six months in post. It covers a wide range of interventions that I have initiated, as I have started to create a vision for the future of our public service. These changes have been across the whole of government, necessitating me to delve deep into the organisation to take action on the most critical operational issues, while showing visible leadership to begin the shift of the culture of the States and make rapid progress in establishing the team who will drive the modernisation and transformation of public services.

Because of the longstanding weaknesses that the due diligence reviews have uncovered, during my first six months I have been personally involved in looking to address many of the basics in our public service. This has involved more directing of activities, problem solving, granular decision making and recruitment than a Chief Executive of a high-performing organisation would expect to be involved in. Over time, with a capable leadership team that is focused on strategic outcomes, and is supported by modern processes, I will expect the wider leadership to be driving the delivery of the government's agenda.

Once the above has been bedded in, I will ultimately spend more time in refining our strategy, to ensure that we continuously improve as an organisation, developing our leadership succession pipeline, engaging with stakeholders, listening and responding to staff, customers and our Jersey community, to ensure that we understand and meet their expectations for the reform of public services in Jersey.

Charlie Parker

Chief Executive and Head of Public Service

9 July 2018