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Public Accounts Committee Performance Management Follow-Up Review Witness: Assistant Chief Executive Officer with responsibility for People, Policy, and Digital
Thursday, 29th June 2023
Panel:
Deputy L.V. Feltham of St. Helier Central (Chair) Deputy M.B. Andrews of St. Helier North (Vice-Chair) Deputy T.A. Coles of St. Helier South
Mr P. Taylor , Lay Member
Mr. M. Woodhams , Lay Member
Mr. G. Phipps , Lay Member
Mr. T. Haslam, Jersey Audit Office
Witnesses:
Mr. T. Walker , Assistant Chief Executive
Ms. M. Mathias, Director of Delivery and Improvement
Ms. F. Capstick, Interim Group Director of Modernisation and Digital Ms. S. Goodwin, Head of Organisation Development
[13:00]
Deputy L.V. Feltham of St. Helier Central (Chair):
Hello, everybody, and welcome to this public hearing of the Public Accounts Committee. Today is Thursday, 29th June, and we are holding a public hearing with the Assistant Chief Executive with responsibility for Strategic Policy, Planning and Performance as part of our review into performance management. Noting the recent announcement of the interim C.E.O. (Chief Executive Officer)
position, we will also take the opportunity to ask a few questions about the plans for the period prior to Dr. McLaughlin taking up post where you shall be taking on the responsibility as Principal Accounting Officer. Before we begin, I would like to draw everyone's attention to the following. This hearing will be filmed and streamed live. The recording and transcript will be published afterwards on the States Assembly website. All electronic devices, including mobile phones, should be switched to silent. For the purpose of the recording and the transcript, I would be grateful if everyone who speaks could ensure that you state your name and role and also speak clearly for the transcript. If we can begin with introductions, I am Deputy Lyndsay Feltham and I am Chair of the Public Accounts Committee.
Deputy T.A. Coles of St. Helier South : Deputy Tom Coles , St. Helier South .
Deputy M.B. Andrews of St. Helier North (Vice-Chair):
Deputy Max Andrews , I am Vice-Chair of the Public Accounts Committee.
Mr P. Taylor , Lay Member: Philip Taylor , Lay Member.
Mr. G. Phipps , Lay Member: Graeme Phipps , Lay Member.
Mr. M. Woodhams , Lay Member: Matthew Woodhams , Lay Member.
Jersey Audit Office:
Tom Haslam, I am not a member of the Committee, I am from the Jersey Audit Office, deputising for them.
Deputy L.V. Feltham : The officers present?
Assistant Chief Executive:
Tom Walker , Assistant Chief Executive.
Head of Organisation Development:
Sarah Goodwin, I'm Head of Organisation Development.
Interim Group Director of Modernisation and Digital:
Fiona Capstick, I am Interim Group Director of Modernisation and Digital.
Director of Delivery and Improvement:
I am Megan Mathias, I am Director of Delivery and Improvement.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Thank you. Before we begin with the questions, I just wanted to make it clear that the majority of questions will deal with your department and your direct reports when it comes to performance management. I will hand over to Deputy Andrews to begin the questions.
Deputy M.B. Andrews :
Thank you very much, Chair. Tom, I would like to just ask firstly, what are your personal objectives for 2023?
Assistant Chief Executive:
So I have 7 objectives for 2023. The first one is implementing the delivery plans. The second one is implementing the relevant bits of the 3 areas of relentless focus. For me that is mostly around housing. The third one is the Cabinet Office restructuring. The fourth one is mitigating some of the safeguarding risk that we have across the public service. The fifth one is improving people process management within the People Policy and Digital part of the Cabinet Office. The sixth one is financial management, essentially balancing the budget, which includes value for money. The seventh one, my bonus one, is implementing this year's target for tracker recommendations.
Deputy M.B. Andrews :
Thank you very much for outlining your 7 objectives there. That is obviously quite a lot in terms of the objectives that you are responsible for. So how do you ensure that those objectives are cascaded downwards and reappraised as well every so often?
Assistant Chief Executive:
The cascading downwards is a simple exercise in sharing, so I circulate the objectives that I have agreed with the Chief Executive to all of my direct reports, so everyone is aware of what my objectives are, there are no surprises for anyone. Then the review process is part of the usual objective-setting process that we go through. So we set objectives at the start of the year, review them during the year in meetings with the Chief Executive, and then final end-of-year review.
Deputy M.B. Andrews :
So how many officers report back in to you?
Assistant Chief Executive: At the moment 8.
Deputy M.B. Andrews :
How often do you hold meetings with those 8 officers?
Assistant Chief Executive:
We would do formal mid-year reviews and the I do a mixed pattern with the different officers, depending upon what they are dealing with and also depending on the nature. So perhaps if I give an example. So at the moment myself and Fiona will probably meet every week in order to go through key issues. We have a lot of issues that we are working our way through. We need to stay in touch, so we will do that every week. Whereas the work that I do with the Director of Public Health, he has more professional autonomy, I am not a public health expert, so I meet with him slightly less often but in a slightly more structured way.
Deputy M.B. Andrews :
Of course, at the moment we are going through this transition with the Cabinet Office, so I was wondering how is that process going at the moment?
Assistant Chief Executive:
The part of the Cabinet Office that I am responsible for is the People, Policy, and Digital parts, and we have a revised structure that was agreed by the States Employment Board. The revised structure is being implemented across the piece within Modernisation and Digital, we are just in the process of doing that. There were revisions to be made within Strategic Policy, they are all done. Then the revisions to be made in People and Corporate Services are scheduled for the back end of this year once we have completed the next phase of the Connect system rollout.
Deputy M.B. Andrews :
I know from previous public hearings, we have spoken to other Chief Officers, and they have mentioned how they report back into the Chief Executive. So I was wondering, how are your personal objectives reappraised once a month with some of the challenges that you may face when you do speak to Suzanne?
Assistant Chief Executive:
Like all the Chief Officers, I have regular meetings with Suzanne. Even though I see Suzanne perhaps more often than some of the other Chief Officers, we still maintain a structured one-to-one, time in the diary as well, so that we can have a proper discussion about how the objectives are going and feedback from Ministers and review those, deal with upcoming issues, and make changes. So my objectives have already changed a little throughout this year in response to events.
Deputy M.B. Andrews :
Do you think there are some challenges presented potentially for yourself and Suzanne with the number of people having to report back in to you and to then take on board some of the personal objectives and where we are now or where there may have been some barriers in place where we have not been able to maybe deliver in terms of timeline-wise? Is that something that is quite difficult to address?
Assistant Chief Executive:
Suzanne, the Chief Executive has very broad control, much broader than I do, in terms of the number of direct reports. I know that Suzanne has expressed a view to you and to others about that span of control and the challenges just in terms of time. For myself, I find that my own span of control works just fine. I do not particularly have a difficulty with it. That is really because of the nature of those different post-holders and the number of them, like the Director of Public of Health, or the work that I do with some of the other professional heads is less time-intensive than perhaps some of the more direct management relationships where there is a need for a lot more regular dialogue.
Deputy M.B. Andrews :
In terms of when we are looking at ministerial priorities, where are we in 2023 in terms of where we were from say the beginning of the year to now, and how much has been delivered in your role in supporting Ministers?
Assistant Chief Executive:
My first objective is implementing the relevant parts of the delivery plans, so the delivery plans have within them a really clear assignment of who is responsible for delivering what. So I have parts of the Chief Minister's plan, the Minister for Housing and Communities' plan, a number of other Ministers, which fall to me and the people who work for me to deliver. At this stage in the year, we do not have any serious concerns about being able to implement any of those, but naturally, as the year goes on, we will start to take stock in case there are any that look like they are going to be at risk of delivery. But at this stage the teams are off to a good start. I do not have anything that is red-rated among the delivery plans at this stage.
Deputy M.B. Andrews :
What would happen, for instance, if there was say a red-rating on something, what is the process, how would that be reported?
If it was something within one of the ministerial delivery plans, then that would be tracked through the Perform system, so a part of that corporate portfolio management office process. It would get flagged up through there. It would get flagged up as a risk. That would escalate to me and then I would take a judgment as to whether we could bring that into control through mitigations or whether we needed to go further, escalate it from me to the Chief Exec, to the relevant Minister, and start to have a discussion about whether we could bring it back on track and, if we could not, what we might do about it.
Deputy M.B. Andrews :
Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Just before we leave that particular subject, you mentioned 2 Ministers that you work to, can you clarify how many ministerial delivery plans you are currently delivering on?
Assistant Chief Executive:
It is primarily the Chief Minister and the Minister for Housing and Communities. Although when you look at some of the other ministerial delivery plans, there is probably at least another 5 that have some relevance for people in the department, either because we are delivering on people initiatives, like recruitment within Health and Social Services. It might be we are delivering an I.T. (information technology) project for the benefit of the Health Department. It might be that we are doing some policy work for the benefit of the Health Department. So, because of the nature of the services that we provide across People, Policy, and Digital, we find ourselves appearing as key elements in a number of ministerial plans. That is exactly how it should be. We are here to support and deliver across all of the Ministers really, it is a core Cabinet Office function.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Given that breadth of delivery, how do you prioritise ministerial objectives against each other?
Assistant Chief Executive:
All of the things that are in the delivery plan are deliverable. We would not put them in the delivery plan if we did not have any confidence that we could not deliver them. They are all delivered by different people across the Cabinet Office, whether that is in People and Corporate Services, Policy, Delivery Unit, or whether it is in Modernisation and Digital. So in that sense there is no trade-off between what People Services might be doing to support a particular Minister and what M. & D. (Modernisation and Digital) might be doing to support a particular Minister. It is in the delivery plan
because we felt that we had the capacity and capability to do it.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
As part of the feedback process, do you get feedback specifically or directly from Ministers?
Assistant Chief Executive: As part of my personal?
Deputy L.V. Feltham : Yes.
Assistant Chief Executive:
Yes, I do. So I had feedback at the end of last year, which was really valuable and really helpful.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Thank you. I am going to hand over to Matt.
Mr M. Woodhams :
I should start of by saying I think you have the second most interesting job in the States. The most interesting job is the Chief Executive's. The reason being is that most people get to see a tiny piece of why, you get to see much more exposed areas of the whole States and also looking at the strategies in all the different areas. So you get to know what is the States of Jersey as a whole, so not just the individual elements, because you are co-ordinating it and obviously your objectives are to help deal with that strategy to try to make Jersey a better place to be and to deal with our risks. So, I like things in 3s, I can go with 3, so forget 4 and forget number 1. So what are your top 3 risks that you are managing.
Assistant Chief Executive:
I am thinking about how best to answer. I think I might answer twice if that is okay, although there is a strong overlap. So within my own objectives, so within the objectives I have, I would say that the top 3 risks there that I am managing are around cybersecurity, safeguarding, and probably the review of the Rheumatology Service where I am the Senior Responsible Officer for that. I think those are the top 3 that are in my personal objectives that I am managing.
[13:15]
Then if I look at my part of the Cabinet Office and what are the top things on our risk register, I would probably pull out cyber again, because I think corporately that appears large in our departmental risk register. I would pull out recruitment of keyworkers and some of those vital front line services
where we have challenges around sufficiency of staff. Then I would pull out health protection. So one of the things that I have overall responsibility for is public health and so biohazards, nuclear hazards, the things that threaten the health of the population of Jersey.
Mr M. Woodhams :
So when you have those risks obviously you need to control and manage the risk and eventually you want to have controls to deal with it and escalate it where it comes along. So how do you manage those risks? What is your way of dealing with them?
Assistant Chief Executive:
The risks, we use the Enterprise Risk Management System, so we have a good tool at our disposal for managing risks and then we use the standard methodology. So we are meeting regularly to review the risks. We are ...
Mr M. Woodhams :
What do you say is the standard methodology?
Assistant Chief Executive:
I guess it is the review update where we mitigate, tolerate, re-review. It is a constant cycle of going around our Enterprise Risk Management System to review the risks. Indeed, we were doing that last week and going all the way through the risks across M. & D., across People and Corporate Services, to make sure that we all had a shared up-to-date understanding. As a result of that we ...
Mr M. Woodhams :
Do you look at control effectiveness?
Assistant Chief Executive:
Yes, because of course you are looking at that usual, can we mitigate it, do we need to tolerate it, have we got the right controls, has the risk increased, can we bring it back down. So those are exactly the conversations that we were having just last week across our risk management system, which was really helpful, and we do that regularly, because as you will have gathered we have some quite serious risks and quite significant ones within what we are responsible for. So we take risk management very seriously.
Mr M. Woodhams :
So we have got to the end of 2023 and we are having a lovely chat in December and you say to me: "I have had my perfect year, everything has been amazing." I say to you: "Why was it perfect? What did a good year look like?"
Assistant Chief Executive:
If I got to the end of this year and I was having a really good year, then in terms of Islanders I think that they would see progress on housing, on affordable housing, and that really big challenge that we face as an Island. I think they would see progress on digital services and they would see that we were moving in the right direction on providing more public services digitally. I think they would see that we had filled the gap on some of those key public sector front line workers where we have a big challenge in the current global labour market to fill some of those gaps and I think they would see them being filled and they would see services being delivered reliably as a result. I guess that would be my top 3.
Mr M. Woodhams :
We are having a different conversation now on a different 31st December and I go: "How was your year?" and you go: "Oh, it was not good." I would say to you: "What was it that stopped your wonderful year from happening?" What are the things that could stop that or prevent it?
Assistant Chief Executive:
We have talked about some of the risks on the I.T. and digital infrastructure and if we had ...
Interim Group Director of Modernisation and Digital: That would not make a good year.
Assistant Chief Executive:
It would not. I suppose there on that side, Fiona, in my mind a bad year would look like probably a significant outage of some sort across the network or the systems or a significant cybersecurity incident that impacted ...
Mr M. Woodhams :
What would cause it though? What do you think might be the thing that would cause those things to happen?
Assistant Chief Executive:
Cybersecurity is well documented. We all know what can cause cybersecurity problems. So we do not need to go into those. In terms of system or network outage, we have a whole risk or a whole range of things that can cause that, including power cuts, to be topical, because there are a number of reasons and there are a number of things that are on the risk register that can cause whole- system outage or network outage and we manage those. Then I suppose it is a bit like the converse, on the people side, in that what would be a bad year there would be that things like the staffing crisis becomes intensified into a real crisis and people cannot get the health services that they need because ...
Mr M. Woodhams :
Yes, but trying to go behind, what is it that might have caused that? What would be the reason for that happening? So, yes, it is a bad thing if you lose your power, it is a bad thing if you have not been able to get your staff in, what is it that would prevent you, do you think, from doing that? What is the biggest risk stopping your ideal environment?
Assistant Chief Executive:
I do not think there is one big risk. We manage a range of risks. So if you go back to say the 3 that I outlined around cybersecurity, safeguarding, Rheumatology Review that I am managing, any of those 3 have multiple risks in them. They do not have one big thing. We are not managing one big thing. We are managing different sorts of significant risks in each of those 3 areas and they have different factors ...
Mr P. Taylor :
Perhaps I can help. The risks, which are under your control, not the world employment problems, it is the risks that you can control. What could go wrong?
Mr M. Woodhams :
Yes, what would stop you from delivering your personal aim?
Assistant Chief Executive:
The 2 are linked because for a lot of these, whether it is cybersecurity or whether it is being able to recruit enough key front line workers, the risk comes from the world. So we have controls, so on recruitment we can do things that make Jersey more attractive, we can do things which are more proactive in attracting keyworkers to Jersey. We can do things over the medium to long term, which are around investing in skills and in the ability of Islanders to step into those roles. So we have controls but the controls are not complete controls on any of those risks, I would say.
Mr G. Phipps :
Would it be fair to say, if you were unsuccessful, you would have to say that the plan you had put in place to address that was not sufficient to drive that. Because ultimately we do have to compete and it is supply and demand. I am just trying to drive it through that there are certain things you are doing, you have to track them, and if they are not working you have to change what you are doing so you get there.
The recruitment pilot that we have done in the delivery hub is a good example of that.
Director of Delivery and Improvement:
It is a good example of the control. So it is an additional action into the work on recruitment earlier this year was ...
Mr M. Woodhams :
It is not a control, it is an action. Controls and actions are different.
Director of Delivery and Improvement: Apologies.
Mr M. Woodhams :
Okay. The control is what you use to get your inherent risk, you have your control is what reduces the risk down to a residual level that sits within your appetite. The action is how the control takes place. There is just a slight variation in the taxonomy for it.
Director of Delivery and Improvement:
Apologies. Then, in that taxonomy, the control would be the additional capacity that can be brought to bear.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Just moving on from risk, but also I think what that conversation highlighted is there are a number of things that you as the Assistant Chief Executive, but part of the Executive Leadership Team, how do you work within E.L.T. (Executive Leadership Team) and how does E.L.T. work together to support each other in achieving each of your objectives?
Assistant Chief Executive:
So E.L.T. is an open conversation, so all of the senior team bring whatever they need to bring to the table. So, if you have a risk in your area, which is escalated, if you have an issue that you are having trouble overcoming, if you have an area where you need the support and help of others, then E.L.T. works as a place to bring that, to raise the issue, to have the discussion. Colleagues will help you work it through, they will rally around to see where they can support you, so it has that kind of collegiality, which is really important to dealing with things across the Executive Leadership Team. The other thing that we do of course is we do more structured engagement with E.L.T. over key issues or key risks. So Fiona and I have spent the morning with E.L.T. briefing them on
cybersecurity, because we felt that was a risk that we needed to bring back to them in a formal way and to re-brief them on. We will probably do that again I think.
Interim Group Director of Modernisation and Digital: Yes.
Mr G. Phipps :
How well is it working and what do you do when it is not?
Assistant Chief Executive:
How well is it working? It works well when you need it to work well. So whenever I have needed it, whenever I have an issue that I need help with, that I need E.L.T. to rally around on, then I have always found that it works because it does have that collegiality. We are the shared leaders and so it does swing into action. But obviously there are limits to what E.L.T. can achieve on its own. Working within Government is a partnership with Ministers and the democratic system. So E.L.T. has its limits and quite often you might find that it is perhaps the start of a conversation but that conversation needs to continue in the Council of Ministers or even something needs escalating up to the Assembly ultimately. So it is useful, but obviously senior officers on their own can only deal with so much.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Thank you. I will hand over to Philip.
Mr P. Taylor :
Can I ask a quick supplementary question? The role is Policy, Planning, and Performance. Performance of who and what?
Assistant Chief Executive:
My former role was as Chief Officer ...
Mr P. Taylor :
No, your role now.
Assistant Chief Executive:
I will come on to that. So my former role was as Chief Officer for Strategic Policy, Planning, and Performance. The performance part of that is the performance framework for Jersey, if you take it out to its widest, so that is the well-being indicators, the stuff that I think the Chief Statistician came to brief you on yesterday. So that framework of well-being indicators, which then turn into service performance measures. The performance part has been that plus the annual reporting and the ...
Mr P. Taylor :
Is it the process effectively.
Assistant Chief Executive:
Yes, the process and the methodology, because I think the methodology is important. So it is the overall framework. So my current role, to be very technical ...
Mr P. Taylor :
I can understand the old role.
Assistant Chief Executive:
My current role is Assistant Chief Executive with responsibility for People, Policy, and Digital.
Mr P. Taylor : Not performance?
Assistant Chief Executive:
No, but the reality is that the performance part is something that is now being taken forward through the Delivery Unit within the Cabinet Office.
Mr M. Woodhams :
We need to change this chart.
Assistant Chief Executive: Can you pass me the chart?
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
We were only supplied this about a week ago. So if it needs changing it would be great if we could get an updated version.
Mr P. Taylor :
That was 9.00 a.m. this morning.
Assistant Chief Executive:
The reason for that is that you will remember that Suzanne said that there was a part of the Cabinet Office restructuring, which is under discussion because it is linked to the role of the Chief Executive. So that certain functions, and those functions are the Private Office function, the Communications function, and the Delivery Unit, and so this has not been updated because that remaining part of the Cabinet Office forms part of the work that group that the Chief Minister has set up to think about that is doing.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Thank you. We will follow that one up.
Mr P. Taylor :
My next question is how many people do you have in your department that you are responsible for directly? How many people are there in there?
[13:30]
Assistant Chief Executive:
It is changing. The only reason I am thinking about it is that the policy part is declining, so when we did the Annual Report last year it was about 190 ...
Mr P. Taylor :
Okay, this is just background, so I have other questions dealing with roughly how many people, nearest 10 or 5 will do?
Assistant Chief Executive:
It is probably about, at the moment, 400, 500, something like that.
Mr P. Taylor :
So you are responsible for the performance of 500 people. The nature of your work seemed to me to be, when you went through your objectives, special projects, where it is not. So what is business as usual? Your personal objectives, which were areas of special emphasis in one year, but what is business as usual for your department?
Assistant Chief Executive:
So business as usual is the Modernisation and Digital work, running Government I.T. and digital systems and networks for the public service. It is the People and Corporate Services function, so the Policy section, Organisational Development, case management, just the regular work that a people services function does. It is the Policy and Strategy Section, providing policy support, doing the legislative programme, supporting the work through the Delivery Unit.
Mr P. Taylor :
So how many of the 500 people are in scope for performance, all of them?
Assistant Chief Executive:
In scope is currently nearly all 500.
Mr P. Taylor :
Have they all completed their objectives and recorded them on the system?
Assistant Chief Executive:
So 98 per cent of them have objectives recorded on the system.
Mr P. Taylor :
Better than PwC ever managed, so that is pretty good.
Assistant Chief Executive:
In the previous year, between 50 and 55 per cent had objectives recorded.
Mr P. Taylor :
That is a big improvement.
Assistant Chief Executive: Yes, it is.
Mr P. Taylor :
Can you let us know here the ministerial objectives, future Jersey, delivery plans, how do you ensure you have clear line of sight from the less junior people to your direct reports and how do you make sure their objectives are all consistent with the delivery of the plans?
Assistant Chief Executive:
So, as you have articulated, we have the golden thread, so from the Common Strategic Policy to the ministerial plans to the Government Plan to the delivery plans, then to individual objectives. So you can see that in my objectives, as I have explained, that flows right through. Then that does the same across the organisation. So the way that the Chief Minister's plan around Modernisation and
Digital or around People Services gets delivered is through that cascade. So the golden thread
works all the way down, supplemented by the areas of relentless focus as well. I do not think we should lose sight of the 3 areas of relentless focus because they are also often a factor in what people are doing. So those 2 things work all the way through the golden thread all the way down. Then, as you say, I then take my objectives, share them with my direct reports, we then agree objectives for each of the direct reports, and then the cascade continues. So it is through the line management structures that happens.
Mr P. Taylor :
How are you measuring the performance of your department and the people within it?
Assistant Chief Executive:
A lot of the performance of the department is around achieving things within a project structure or a portfolio structure. So one of the features of our bit of the public service is a lot of it is saying manage the transition of electronic patient records from one system to another, so that is what you are tracking, so you are using the Corporate Portfolio Management System, you are using Perform, and you can see how those projects are going. The same on Policy, quite often that is a piece of legislation, or the same on People and Corporate Services, where perhaps what we are tracking there is the rollout of a new policy and whether it is being done. So most of the tracking is of that nature. It is a specific task, project, that needs to be completed on time, on budget, when we said we were going to do it.
Mr P. Taylor :
How do you track performance of people and how well they are performing individually, reaching their individual objectives?
Assistant Chief Executive: Yes.
Mr P. Taylor :
It cannot always be activity based. There is other stuff involved in it too.
Assistant Chief Executive:
Well I guess what I am explaining is that the activity is really important and then over the top of that becomes the other things that the Connect system helps us track, so things like the values, because how people go about doing things is just as important in a values-led organisation as what they are doing. So we use the system, we use the values to track that. Alongside that, we are tracking factors such as the outcomes they are achieving, financial outcomes, people outcomes, all of that. So we have quite a good range of information coming into us from personal objectives, from finance system, from what we are asking people to do and the way they are going about the business and reflecting the values and so on.
Mr P. Taylor :
I am a bit old fashioned. I believe systems and processes are great but they do not always deliver. Because it is the way people behave when they do their jobs on a daily basis that influences delivery. Can you give us some examples of where you have come across, I will use the word "poor behaviour", but I do not mean it in an extreme sense, where people individually are really struggling and how you have managed to deal with that or how you make sure that is dealt with at all levels.
Assistant Chief Executive: The ...
Mr P. Taylor :
Because nothing is ever perfect in this world.
Assistant Chief Executive:
The example of the proportion of staff who now have objectives, having improved from 50, 55 per cent, up to 98 per cent, if we use that, so how do we go about that? We started from the values and the rights and we have a very clear set of employee rights, which include the right to be well managed. It is one of the published rights of all of our employees. So there we are having a conversation with the managers to say: "The people that work for you have a right to be well managed and being well managed involves making sure that you had a good, rich, quality conversation about their development, about their objectives for the year." That then links through to the values, so one of our values is we deliver. How do we demonstrate that we are delivering? That is through having clear objectives. That is through everyone being able to show that they can deliver in a way that reflects our values. So we use it ...
Mr P. Taylor :
I understand all that. But you have situations where that does not happen.
Assistant Chief Executive: What I am saying is ...
Mr P. Taylor :
The issue there is how do you deal with it?
Assistant Chief Executive:
I am explaining how I did deal with it. So we had a situation where it was not happening, because we only had 50, 55 per cent of people with objectives on the system ...
Mr P. Taylor :
No, no, this is not about objectives.
Assistant Chief Executive:
... so we have dealt with it. So how we dealt with it ...
Mr P. Taylor :
No, no, you have individuals, Sarah may hate the sight of you and it prevents her performance, bullying, all that sort, how do you deal with it? Have you got those situations?
Mr G. Phipps :
More related to stress, things that are not necessarily directly pointed at results. For example, do you implement 360 feedback so that there is a mechanism?
Mr P. Taylor : Thank you.
Mr G. Phipps : Sorry, I ...
Mr P. Taylor :
No, no, no, I was not getting through but you have helped me.
Assistant Chief Executive:
That is helpful. So you mean individuals who are not performing?
Mr P. Taylor :
Yes, individuals, yes.
Assistant Chief Executive:
Yes, I had not understood that, apologies. So I think that there are always individuals at any one time who are going to struggle to deliver and that is always going to have different reasons. So we always treat each of those on their own merits, you seek to understand what is going on, you seek to understand how you can help them perform in the way that they want to. So that is a normal process ...
Mr G. Phipps :
How do you do that though? That is an easy thing to say, but tapping into the mood and the culture and what is happening in an organisation, that is why I asked the question about 360 feedback and what was your other mechanisms. I know you have the survey every 2 years, but how do you personally feel confident that you understand the mood of your organisation, whether they are all clicking or whether there is issues going on?
Assistant Chief Executive:
So 2 different questions, one about the pulse of the organisation, how we get a feel for that, and the other is just around how we help and support individuals who are struggling to perform. So I think ...
Mr G. Phipps :
An awareness and then implementation.
Assistant Chief Executive:
Yes, so I think where you have individuals then you do exactly that, you treat them as individuals and you understand what is going on with that individual and that is what we do. That is part of having a leadership and management position and we all do that. In terms of the pulse of the organisation, you are right, we get that through the Be Heard Survey, we got that through the policy part of the organisation, through doing the annual Pulse Surveys, to get a feel for it, and we watch the results from that. So coming out of the pandemic, we had a real challenge with employee well- being within the Policy part of the organisation. They had done all the heavy-lifting during COVID on public health, they had done all the heavy-lifting on public health legislation. They had a really tough pandemic and that is one of the reasons why we were very keen in the Policy bit to do that Pulse Survey every single year for the last few years, so that we could really keep our finger on that and see what was happening. We were testing also how our interventions to help staff well-being were working and you could see the change gradually happening as you came out of 2021 and things started to improve. In the 2022 Pulse Survey, which we undertook not long ago, staff well- being was the most improved area out of all of the improvements that we had. So we are using mechanisms like that to make sure that we have our fingers on the pulse.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
I am going to move on to Deputy Coles now because I think he has some related questions.
Deputy T.A. Coles :
We have been through all my thread already. So your Pulse Surveys and your Be Heard Surveys, is that your main measure of employee satisfaction in your area?
Assistant Chief Executive:
Yes, it is the most empirical measure, yes. So it is giving us data, it is giving us numbers. That is really helpful because you can track trends and you can see what is happening over time because of the consistency of the questions. So it is very helpful. There are other things that you use alongside that though, I do not think you use that alone. You can see how you are doing in things like satisfaction and staff morale through work ethic, through what is being delivered. So you know that when the public service lifts itself up and goes the extra mile to deliver the Chief Minister's 100- day plan or respond to an emergency situation, you can see that things are in a good place because people are responding, they are going the extra mile, they are motivated, they are committed, they really want to get it done. Then I think also you get a sense for it through other mechanisms. So one of the things that we do across People, Policy, and Digital is a monthly Living Our Values Awards and staff can nominate each other for having exhibited one or more of the values. It gives you a real sense for how people are feeling because when people are feeling buoyant there you are getting a good stream of people nominating each other, they are positive about what each other are doing, they want it to be recognised. You can get a feel for it and if it starts to dip then you can see that through mechanisms like that where people's enthusiasm, if it wanes, then they stop doing that and they stop nominating each other.
Deputy T.A. Coles :
There might be other ways as well in a sense. You have a team of 500. Do you see much in the way of a turnover of staff?
[13:45]
Assistant Chief Executive:
I think we see normal levels of turnover. I am not aware that it is anything abnormal in any of the areas. I think we just see normal levels of turnover.
Deputy T.A. Coles :
What would you consider as a normal level of turnover?
Head of Organisation Development:
We would have to come back to you with the specific numbers but I thought we were sort of around the 8 to 9 per cent of turnover, so low for rest of Government, average compared to other sectors.
Deputy T.A. Coles :
Are there any sort of continuing themes through exit interviews of why people are leaving?
Head of Organisation Development:
No, what we see in the areas Tom is responsible for is that we get people that leave and move to other parts of Government or move on progression. So it is a really good, fertile ground for people to be developing their careers and moving on.
Deputy T.A. Coles :
Starting to be able to move, yes, that is good. So going on to a slightly different subject in the same breath though, the Team Jersey Programme and its impact on your department since the 2018 OneGov reforms, how would you describe the impact?
Assistant Chief Executive:
My own take on it is the impact was positive for the organisation. I thought that the Team Jersey Programme delivered real value in bringing the public service values to the front. Team Jersey really helped us focus on the values and become a much more values-led organisation than we were before Team Jersey. I would probably also credit it with introducing My Conversation, My Goals, which, before that, we did not really have a consistent programme across the public sector of people having really insightful, valuable conversations with one another about objectives and development, which we have now built on with Connect Performance and made that even better. I would probably pull out the way that the training sessions were delivered was really valuable because each session was done with a cross-section of public sector workers and people still say to me that they met people for the first time ever on a Team Jersey training programme because a prison officer met an I.T. person, met an ambulance driver, met ... and they would not normally come together. Probably my last area that I felt was really valuable was the stars in the public service that it brought out. We had a system of Team Jersey leads, it was something that people who were really enthusiastic about public service, about making a public service, could volunteer for. Lots of those people that stepped forward as Team Jersey leads have continued to be real stars of the organisation. I can see lots of people whose careers have moved on, they are now enthusiastically championing other things, whether it is diversity inclusion, or whatever it might be. But it really brought out some real internal stars.
Deputy T.A. Coles :
So you found it really good hitting on the boots on the ground, members of staff as well, and not just the management level.
Assistant Chief Executive:
Yes, it did for my areas and for the people who were feeding back to me, absolutely.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
I am going to hand back to Philip now.
Mr P. Taylor :
I have a couple of questions, just 2, depending on how you answer them of course. It is about the delivery plans. Implementation of delivery plans is done by a whole host of areas of Government. So there is conflict there because how do you make sure the objectives of the people in Infrastructure are consistent with the delivery plans? Or is that not your job? Because who is responsible to make sure that happens, is that you or is it the Chief Executive responsible for Infrastructure, shall we say?
Assistant Chief Executive:
It is the job of the Chief Officer for Infrastructure and the Environment to make sure that the people in his chain of command are delivering the parts of Ministers delivery plans that he needs to. So, yes, in its simplest form, that is his job. But, equally, it all integrates around the Minister and Ministers have teams around them, which draw on different expertise and talent across the organisation to get things done. So the other mechanism is that wraparound team around the Minister delivering the Minister's plan. So, for example, I can give you an example. Do you want an example?
Mr P. Taylor :
I would like an example, yes.
Assistant Chief Executive:
So, for example, we meet with the Minister for Housing and Communities once a week, every week, and that meeting has his Street and Housing and Regeneration Team, who are there, but it also has the people from Customer and Local Services that are in Ian Burns' chain of command, who are delivering the Housing Gateway and the Housing Advice Service, because that is part of his delivery plan and that is part of what we are trying to achieve. So they come along every single meeting as well and we act as a joined-up team around the Minister to deliver what we are trying to do on housing.
Mr P. Taylor :
That is how you would see the central delivery plans cascading throughout the organisation?
Assistant Chief Executive: Yes.
Mr P. Taylor :
One final question, do you have any contractors, consultants, within your 500 people?
Assistant Chief Executive: We do.
Mr P. Taylor :
Are they on Connect Performance?
Assistant Chief Executive:
Some of them are and Fiona is an example. Fiona is here until the end of the year hopefully and we are recruiting the permanent Chief Information Officer. But Fiona is on the system because she is in the chain of command, so she is acting as part of our line management structure and so, even though she is one of our valuable colleagues who are not currently an employee, in that sense Fiona is on the system, we do set objectives through the system, we --
Interim Group Director of Modernisation and Digital: We do agree performance.
Mr P. Taylor :
So Fiona is just like any other member of staff in that respect.
Assistant Chief Executive: Yes.
Mr P. Taylor :
Even though she is, I will use the word consultant, or an independent contractor, that sounds even worse. So how many independent contractors/consultants would you have in the 500 people within your department?
Mr G. Phipps :
And how many of them are not being dealt with through the system? What we are getting at is how do you handle appraisals for people that are not in your system? That is really what we are trying to find out, how is that handled?
Assistant Chief Executive:
So where you have a short-term contingent labour, contractor, who may be with us for 3 or 4 months, then their performance is usually managed through the contract. So when you contract with somebody for 3 or 4 months to do a specific task, then the standard States of Jersey contract has an annex in it and the annex specifies what you are expecting them to deliver during the timetable and you manage that and that is how you manage the performance of those individuals.
Mr P. Taylor :
Okay, Chair, back to you.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
I am going to hand straight to Graeme who has a few more questions.
Mr G. Phipps :
You have a lot on your plate given your fingers are in everybody else's pie to a certain degree. As far as the strategy and elements and your success in that department depends a lot on the success of all the other departments because there is this link. So that is, as Matt alluded to, a pretty important role. So how can you explain now, I am interested in the situation we are in right now and how you manage through this, so can you explain the impact of your arrangements prior to taking on this position of interim C.E.O. and how do you wrestle with what you were responsible to there versus filling in and how are you going about that?
Assistant Chief Executive:
This is the how I will go about it in August question.
Mr G. Phipps :
In the short term, how are you going to get through this?
Assistant Chief Executive:
Shall I outline the interim arrangements and then I will come back to what I am going to do? So Suzanne is in employment until the end of July and she is using most of July to take her outstanding leave but she is still in employment, so Suzanne is a Chief Executive on annual leave for large parts of July. Then during July, therefore she remains as the Principal Accountable Officer, and, because I have some holiday in July, Richard Bell as the other Assistant Chief Executive is going to step in where we need a Chief Executive at a meeting during July and Suzanne is not available because she is on leave. Then from the end of July, Suzanne leaves our employment, and then our Interim Chief Exec starts at the beginning of September. So for the intervening period I will be the Principal Accountable Officer and stand in, in the Chief Exec role. So August is the main gap that needs filling and I will be filling that.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Can I just double check, Suzanne is on leave, she is out of the Island I am assuming?
Assistant Chief Executive:
No, she is here, she is not out of the Island.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
But on leave. Something needs to be done that requires the Principal Accountable Officer sign-off during that time, who signs off?
Assistant Chief Executive:
Suzanne, she will come back from leave because she is only a mile and a half up the road.
Deputy L.V. Feltham : Okay.
Mr G. Phipps :
Well good luck first of all because I think we just want to get confidence, do you have any concerns about this or are you comfortable that this process will work and you will manage through and there are no big risks through this?
Assistant Chief Executive:
I think it is a pragmatic and sensible way to bridge the gap between Suzanne departing at the end of July and the new Interim Chief Exec arriving at the beginning of September.
Mr M. Woodhams :
Just a quick question. There is the issue of what Suzanne does as the Accountable Officer, however that is a very small proportion of her role, sitting officially at her desk signing bits of paper or chairing a meeting. There is the job of the Chief Executive Officer. Now the job of the Chief Executive Officer does not stop simply because we do not have somebody in the role. There are still things that need to be done. I do not mean things that have a statutory basis, things that practically need to be done. So you have a full-time job, the Treasurer has a full-time job, during July when she is not going to be here and you are on holiday, so we have 2 of the 3 senior leadership team are not available effectively. How do we make sure that the activities of the C.E.O. are carried on? The challenge when you have a handover, if work stops at the end of June, tomorrow, and it is not picked up effectively until 5th September, so much stuff is lost. So if that role has to be active and you have another person who has to be the C.E.O., you still have to do the job. It is not just sitting in meetings
and signing paper. So the question is, how are we going to keep the job running as the C.E.O. to be able to hand it over to the permanent interim? How are we going to be able to manage all those tasks?
Mr P. Taylor :
In addition to your existing job.
Mr M. Woodhams :
In addition to your initial job where you already have a new job at the beginning of this year, so we are now getting 3 jobs out of you for the price of one.
Assistant Chief Executive:
We should just keep going. During July, I am not off for the whole of July, I am only off for a week and a half or so during July, so Richard Bell will step into a lot of the Chief Exec stuff and if he is overstretched then I am still around for a lot of July and I will step into the Chief Exec stuff. Then during August then, yes, I mean it is my job to make sure that things do not slip and that things do not stop and that things keep going in the way they would normally during August. Then when the Interim Chief Exec joins us that just transitions across. So, yes, I am sure I will be very busy, but that is the job and that is what I have been asked to do and that is what I am going to do.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
So can I just clarify, there is no acting-up arrangements into your current role for that period of time?
Assistant Chief Executive:
I have not requested any acting-up arrangements because I do not think they are necessary for one month.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Okay. Then just a final question, what planning is being done for then your handover to the Interim Chief Executive?
Assistant Chief Executive:
Suzanne is doing the majority of the handover, so she has meetings scheduled with the incoming Interim Chief Executive. She is doing the bulk of the handover work and has dedicated her time over the last few weeks and the time that she has during July to doing that. So Suzanne is doing the bulk of that. Then I will keep the incoming Interim Chief Exec apprised of anything that he needs to know during August and then I will do, if you like, a mini handover at the end of August for things that have happened during my watch.
[14:00]
Mr M. Woodhams :
Also presumably then the handover carries on, it does not finish on 5th September, so the more interesting part will be when you hit the office and go: "Right, I am just going to know 80 per cent of the picture."
Assistant Chief Executive:
Yes, which is where then the wider team across the Executive Leadership Team will kick in because they have started to provide briefings and updates to the Interim Chief Executive. There have been meetings this week and some of that conversation has started. Then that will continue once he is here in September. So I do not think that it is just the Assistant Chief Executive who is involved with that longer process of really getting under the bonnet of all of the issues. The other Chief Officers will be involved in that as well.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
I am conscious we have come to the end of our time. We do have additional questions around outstanding previous recommendations, which we will send to you in writing. I am going to hazard a guess that the Committee will have further questions following your answers today, which again we will follow up in writing. We may call you back for another hearing if we need to. But in the meantime thank you very much to all of you for attending today and thank you to the officers who have supported the Committee.
Assistant Chief Executive:
Thank you very much and I will be glad to come back and see you whenever you wish.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
On that note we will bring the hearing to a close.
[14:01]