Transcript - Performance Management Follow Up - Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey

Public Accounts Committee Performance Management and Governance of Health and Social Care Reviews

Witness: Chief Executive Officer,

Government of Jersey

Monday, 19th June 2023

Panel:

Deputy L.V. Feltham of St. Helier Central (Chair) Deputy M.B. Andrews of St. Helier North (Vice-Chair) Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat of St. Helier North

Mr. P. Taylor , Lay Member

Mr. M. Woodhams , Lay Member

Mr. G. Phipps , Lay Member

Ms. L. Pamment, Comptroller and Auditor General

Witnesses:

Ms. S. Wylie, Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey Mr. T. Walker , Assistant Chief Executive

Mr. M. Grimley, Chief People and Transformation Officer

[12:03]

Deputy L.V. Feltham of St. Helier Central (Chair):

Welcome, everybody, to this public hearing of the Public Accounts Committee. Today is Monday, 19th June and we are holding a public hearing with the Chief Executive Officer of the Government of Jersey as part of our reviews into performance management and the governance of Health and Social Care. We shall also be asking questions in relation to the lessons learned during your time as C.E.O. (Chief Executive Officer) prior to your departure at the end of this month. 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. I would ask that any members of the public who have joined us in the room today to not interfere in the proceedings and as soon as the hearing is closed, please leave quietly. For the purpose of the recording and transcript, I would be grateful if everyone who speaks could ensure that you state your name and role and you also speak clearly. If we can start with introductions, I will introduce myself. I am Deputy Lyndsay Feltham and I am the chair of the P.A.C. (Public Accounts Committee). I will invite my committee to introduce themselves.

Mr. P. Taylor , Lay Member:

My name is Philip Taylor and I am a lay member of the committee.

Mr. M. Woodhams , Lay Member:

I am Matthew Woodhams . I am also a lay member.

Deputy M.B. Andrews of St. Helier North (Vice-Chair):

I am Deputy Max Andrews . I am vice-chair of the Public Accounts Committee.

Mr. G. Phipps , Lay Member:

I am Graeme Phipps . I am a lay member as well.

Comptroller and Auditor General:

I am Lynn Pamment. I am the Comptroller and Auditor General.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

I am Suzanne Wylie, C.E.O. of the Government of Jersey and Head of the Public Service.

Chief People and Transformation Officer:

I am Mark Grimley, Chief People and Transformation Officer.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

Welcome. I will note at this point that 2 people will join us during the meeting, Deputy Le Hegarat , who is a member of the committee and currently in another meeting, and also Tom Walker will be joining, who is also in another meeting. I appreciate we have got quite a lot of important ground to cover in quite a short space of time and this will be your last hearing with us. It would be good if we could keep answers short and to the point.

Okay, happy to do that.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

If we need to, we will bring it back on track during the course of the hearing. We will start with some questions on the implementation of the Connect People objective setting and appraisal process. I am going to hand over to Philip to start with the questions.

Mr. P. Taylor :

Thank you. My view of the purpose or the objective of Connect People is to help improve the overall performance of the entire organisation by concentrating on the people, their development, the goals they have to have assessed for them and their performance.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

That is correct. You are absolutely right. That is precisely what it is all about.

Mr. P. Taylor :

So, never mind what was there before, we are now putting into place some technology to assist in that process. I understand the benefits of doing that because people then are clear about exactly what they have agreed to, what they need to do and where it is recorded and everybody has access to that and it is agreed. Who is accountable for the rollout of the Connect People system?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Well, first of all, I would say that of course Connect People comes on the back of My Performance, My Goals, which was introduced in 2019 and started the cultural change that we needed across the organisation to look at individual performance management and link that to the overall performance and delivery within the organisation throughout all the departments. This is a further improvement on that whole process because you are right, ultimately it boils down to being very clear about your goals and expectations and having those really productive conversations with your line manager about what is expected and what you need to do your job and meet those expectations. So in terms of accountability, which is your direct question, Connected Performance is part of a module of the overall information technology solution, so the whole I.T.S. (information technology solution) programme. One of the modules, which was part of release 2, is Connect People and one of the modules within Connect People is Connected Performance. Just to cover the overall Connect People piece of the I.T.S. programme, because I think it is important that you see that and understand what that is all about, of course release 1 of I.T.S. was in relation to replacing how we pay our suppliers, et cetera, so replacing that technology and that was rolled out from January. Then on 9th January we decided to bring forward only 2 modules of Connect People because we needed

a little bit more time to roll these out and embed them before we brought all of the modules. So the 2 modules of Connect People that we introduced on 9th January were Connected Performance and Connected Learning, so all of the learning and development of individuals as well and having that recorded in one place and having that connected to the performance objectives and appraisal. The other elements of Connect People that has still to be rolled out relate to the overall recruitment process and also relate to the centralisation of all of our H.R. (human relations) data and information, so we can have live updates on our establishment, our vacancies, et cetera, on a very regular live basis as well. So it takes you the whole way through from deciding what the job roles actually are that we need in the organisation and what rewards are in place in the organisation through into recruitment, through into onboarding, through into performance and the goal setting, through into succession planning and right through into a full programme of Ask H.R., which is really about how we provide a more self-service approach to H.R. So it is a very comprehensive programme. Connected Performance is just one of those levels.

Mr. P. Taylor :

I have got that, yes, got that.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

You have got that. Okay, great. Accountability for the development and design of all of the I.T.S. programme was with John Quinn, who was the chief operating officer up until 31st January, and, of course, that coincided with some of the go live implementation. Since 31st January, the accountable officer for the overall I.T.S. implementation stage is Richard Bell. For Connect People and the modules that we have live at the minute then the person who is sitting here to my right is the senior responsible officer for the rollout of the Connected Performance and Connected Learning and the next stages of recruitment and employee central data as well. So, Mark is the senior responsible officer, hence the fact he is sitting here to answer any of your technical questions.

Mr. P. Taylor :

Does that mean that Mark is also responsible for the delivery of the benefits that come from this smaller element of the overall I.T. programme?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

That is correct, yes, Mark and his team. Mark is in the process - I will let him talk a bit about it - of setting up a Connect People ownership board involving members of his team, which is really tasked with making sure that people are well trained, that we are using the functionality of the system as well as we can, that we drive through the cultural change that is needed and that the benefits are fully realised.

Mr. P. Taylor :

How is that going at the moment? What benefits are you seeing and what are you disappointed by?

Chief People and Transformation Officer That is quite a big question.

Mr. P. Taylor :

All my questions are.

Chief People and Transformation Officer:

In terms of what we have at the moment, it is really good learning for us about the organisation. When I came in 3 years ago I said to this committee that the one size fits is not appropriate and what this is showing us is where we have got good traction and where we need to do more work. Now, the previous system did not do that, so it was quite ad hoc. It was one of those things where we had to really pull data out of different places to join it up. So I think one of the big benefits is that we have a central record now and we can see where it is being done. Where we need to mature the system, and that is where the benefits will really come, is starting to be pared down where the approach we take to performance management. Performance management is a system in itself. We have started off with new codes of practice, which cover both performance management but also accountability, which is a key part of that. We have also issued a code of practice around development and succession planning. What the system can do is if we take, for example, social workers, teachers, nurses, doctors, they all have different professional standards and we can start to map those standards into the system through their own local competencies and then we can start to look at how we develop employees. The benefits will come from being able to look at the professions and get better insight, better capability and better capacity.

Mr. P. Taylor :

How do you determine what good practice looks like? You cannot just dream up these things. Normally there is a reference point that you use so that is what we want do.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Yes. I think we have looked at other performance systems in other public sector organisations. I obviously bring my experience as well from previous organisations, as does Mark, and we have looked at what are the most up-to-date performance systems. There is no perfect system, I would have to say. In a very large, complex organisation like ours with front line services, back office services, policy-related services, et cetera, and a real range of different job categories, it is not straightforward to have just one system that does everything, but this system - and I think this is one of the beauties of Connect People in particular - is that it can be tailored to meet individual needs.

For example, with teachers, because, of course, they start their academic year at a different point than the rest of the government planning process, we can start their performance assessments and objectives from September, with the functionality of this particular system.

[12:15]

If you are a nurse or a doctor, for example, and you have your own professional standards that you have to keep up to date as well, we can include all of those in this particular system as well, which we were not able to do before.

Mr. P. Taylor :

Which is absolutely great, just what you need, but have you validated this is what the system is going to do for the nurses, have you validated that that is best practice? Presumably it is for a professional body of some sort to say.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

To be honest, that is probably a work in progress because we brought in the system and really all the line managers need to work with their direct reports to set those performance objectives, but you will have seen from some of the correspondence that we sent, for example, in Health and Community Services that we cascaded performance objectives for all of that service. That was done in conjunction with the senior leadership team and that part of the organisation, looking at what was needed for every individual employee when they were trying to improve the experience that patients had, when they were trying to live the values and behaviours that the organisation expects of them, when they need their mandatory training, because that is really important for them as well, and because we have budget pressures, how they can help the organisation to save money and reduce duplication. I do think, though, the question about how do we know they are valid, how do we know that they are leading to improvement, is something that as we go through this process we can ask for independent input from particularly professional parts of the organisation to make sure that we are getting it right. It really is a very ...

Mr. P. Taylor :

It is still a work in progress, is what you are saying.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

It is. An incremental approach, because I know that we talked previously about a big bang approach and I guess we do not really see it as a big bang approach. We see this as a rollout and it really has to work for the organisation, the individual and for their line manager, and that will take a while. Even for me and my chief officers, I would not profess to have it absolutely perfect yet, but we will talk about that, I am sure.

Mr. P. Taylor :

In the rollout of any new system that is I.T. or processes and procedures, there are always things that happen and the ideal is where you can foresee what might happen and cut if off before it occurs and all of the risks. There are all the benefits but sometimes benefits go hand in hand with risks. Have you assessed the risks of implementing such a big system? Obviously you have referred to part of it that it is all compartmentalised depending on what sort of professions people are in, so making sure that you have the right processes for the right people is important, but what other risks were at the back of your mind when you were thinking about this programme and how did you assess them?

Chief People and Transformation Officer:

I think in terms of risks they were at the front of my mind and I should say that to the P.A.C.

Mr. P. Taylor :

No, you should say it anyway.

Chief People and Transformation Officer:

The biggest issue with any systems is change management and the adoption. The technology does what the technology does; actually it is how people receive and adopt it. That has been one of the biggest areas of focus and as we roll out the remainder we have learnt a lot from the first go. The second risk really is about the data quality. The current system that we use, people do not have visibility so the reporting lines were incorrect but with Connect People now have their reporting lines and visibility of data. That is also a reputational risk to the system with people assuming it is the system that is wrong and not the data that is wrong. I think the third area is the expectation, managing expectations. We have got about 85 different professional groups within the government, which is more than the central civil service in the U.K. (United Kingdom), and we are not going to roll out all of those professions in one year, nor are we going to mature them in one year, but then we get on to the mitigation. The mitigation for the change management is segmenting the workforce, understanding how people will use the system, how people will want to adopt the system. We have learnt quite a lot in Health around front line workers who are not always sat at a desk. Those who are 24-hour workers, manual workers will not have the granular detail. They will have fairly generic objectives. So we will have to segment in who receives things in different ways. We are also learning about where people are disengaging and why. That will inform the next bit of the rollout. In terms of the data, we continue to do data cleanse and try to keep dual systems running, because we have got most of our data in one system but obviously performance data is being held in Connect. We are looking at the migration and transition of that data. Then in terms of ongoing maintenance, we will have a programme where we develop professionals by priority group.

Mr. P. Taylor :

My expert on risk is here. I will just ask him if he has got any questions before I get to my fifth question.

Mr. M. Woodhams :

I have 2. When you are doing this whole process, have you set yourself clear objectives for what you wanted to achieve? That is the first one. If so, can you summarise it in a sentence? The second one: what were your testable outcomes, 3 of them, top 3 testable outcomes? What were your clear objectives and what were the testable outcomes and have you tested them?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

The clear objective was to make it as straightforward as possible for people throughout the organisation to set their performance objectives and for their managers to carry out performance appraisals using this process and to improve the numbers that are taking part - I know we are going to come on to the numbers in a minute - in this process and use it to help really change the culture and drive performance management as something that we do on a day-to-day basis and that it is not just something that you do at the beginning of the year and the end of the year. It allows those really, really valuable and rich conversations between a member of staff and their manager.

Mr. M. Woodhams :

The 3 outcomes you test for it?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

The 3 outcomes are getting more people to have objectives set, getting more people to have their appraisals done and improving learning and development within the organisation, so developing our people is really the third one. Are you content with that? All 3. You can add a fourth.

Mr. P. Taylor :

Before I pass back to the Chair, what are the top 2 challenges that you have met, you have had to meet in rolling out this system that have been really hard?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Just quickly on risk as well, because I think it is important that at the outset we did have a risk management strategy and approach to this. While we were talking about the risks that we are facing on a day-to-day basis, we did have our corporate portfolio management office help us with setting

out the overall risk strategy for the I.T.S. programme. We had 200 risks and issues logged on the programme workbench, which is a tool that they let us use, and 6 of those related to things like experience and staff morale, et cetera. We did a readiness assessment and we did make adjustments at those times. We had pre-go before we went live, impact assessments and actions on post-go. In the early days we were out doing site visits on a regular basis. We had a network of 160 agents to help and we also had for 3 months some quick daily tips, et cetera, being rolled out. In terms of the challenges that we have had, well, of course, the risk of it not being used by people and trying to get people on to the system and using it well. It is a large project, as we have said. Making sure that we continue to learn the lessons and get the solutions. Engagement with people, I would say, and making sure everyone has accessibility and is trained to use the system. Those are the biggest challenges.

Mr. G. Phipps :

I just have one question. To what extent does customer feedback link into performance management explicitly and tie in for the patients or the ... how do you get customer feedback built into the performance to enable better performance? Ultimately that is the objective.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

We are going to talk later about some of the improvements that I think we can make in terms of the information that managers have in front of them whenever they are doing performance appraisals. We want to get much more sophisticated at that level of information. Customer feedback is available. We do gather comments. That is available on our systems and we need to make sure that managers and employees are able to access that information so that that can be integrated as part of both setting the objectives where something has gone wrong but also in terms of using compliments, et cetera, when things are going well. Customer feedback has become much more sophisticated in terms of how we collect it in the organisation and in terms of the number of departments that are involved in collecting that data.

Mr. G. Phipps :

That is hardwired right into it so they can see that that is ...

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

It will be. I cannot sit here and say it is hardwired in today. It is available if somebody wants to go and look at it but it needs to be systematic.

Mr. G. Phipps :

It is amazing when it is in writing ... I encourage that because when it is explicit I think people will draw that connection a little better.

Chief People and Transformation Officer:

Chair, if I could, one of our values is we are customer focused. Lots of people do not like the term "customer" but that is the phrase that we have. That is in everybody's appraisal. All the values are in people's appraisal forms. The other area that we have got, and it is not being rolled out heavily at the moment, is a continuous feedback part of the system. Continuous feedback means that you can capture praise or any concerns and put that on to the employee's record. Now, the reason that we have not rolled that out in its entirety is because we want to make sure that that system is an employee system. It does not store the data of our clients or our customers. There is some training to do to make sure that we get the appropriate data within the system, but you can take screenshots, you can get customer feedback put in there through a continuous performance tab.

Mr. P. Taylor :

To prevent this meeting being taken over by the lay members, let me pass back to the Chair.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

I will hand over to Deputy Andrews who is going to ask the next set of questions.

Deputy M.B. Andrews :

Thank you, Chair. Obviously we have seen the transition to Connected Performance. Firstly, why did we have to initiate this change? In initiating this change, were there any identified drawbacks in making this transition?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

I think My Conversation My Goals was certainly a good process. It started, as I said, back in 2019. That got the organisation used to performance appraisals and conversations with their line managers, et cetera. However, the system itself was clunky. People did not find it that easy to use and that meant that some people did not use it at all or stopped using it during that number of years. We found it quite difficult to adjust that technology and we did not find it as flexible as we needed it to be for some of that tailoring I talked about to different parts of the organisation who needed to use it differently. Also it did not link in to other parts of the performance system, which is functionality that we still have to turn on within Connect People as well. It is one of those systems that is used around the world. I believe that Microsoft, for example, use it for their own employees as well, so success factors is something that is used and tried and tested in many places.

Deputy M.B. Andrews :

Thank you for just outlining some of the concerns that were obviously raised with the previous programme. However, do you believe that those issues you have just raised could still exist with this transition with Connected Performance?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Obviously we are still rolling it out and it is a more intuitive system and that is what we have been told by people. It has not been without its glitches and its issues in terms of accessibility but some of those issues are related to the fact that some of our staff, 500 of them for example, have not updated their user directory - I cannot remember the exact term for that but Mark can put me right - and are using out-of-date systems or there have been changes in their job titles, et cetera. There have been some accessibility issues but we are working through those, we are finding solutions to those.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

Just for the benefit of people that might not ... because that is quite a technical term there. When you say people have not updated their user directory, what exactly were they expected to do? Is this something that people have to do while sat a computer? How is the process working for people who do not sit at a desk? Is that where the issue is?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: Some of that is certainly where the issue is.

[12:30]

Chief People and Transformation Officer:

Those who do not really use email on a day-to-day basis, those who do not access government networks, predominantly front line employees, they are expected to log in and register or at least confirm their credentials because we have put new security layers. We have had a number of people who have not done that. We have also had a number of contingent workers who have had to go on to the system. Now, there is a balance here though, which is about the licensing, which is we do not want to put lots of people on there if there is very little value to the licence. Contingent workers, for example, agency workers, bank workers may not be on the system but they have to register their credentials first for security reasons.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Some of our uploads of data have a time lag in them as well, so we are getting better at that as well. I think we call them delta uploads of data, so as new staff come on board and people leave, et cetera, we have to upload all of those changes on to the system, so we are getting much better at doing that so that the information is as live as it possibly can be. People need to try and test out the system. I have had to do that and call for help at times and once you get that help and you work through it and watch some of the little videos that we have created as well, which are quite simple, to help people ... I think really it is about the people though, is it not? It is not just about the system. It is about making sure that everyone knows that this is supporting a performance culture in the organisation. It is to help individuals know their jobs, look at the development that they need and agree that with their line manager and look at their career pathways as well.

Deputy M.B. Andrews :

For instance, when we are looking at, say, the chief executive leadership team, do you believe this system is better in terms of providing the opportunity to cascade objectives to members of their staff as well?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Yes, absolutely. It is much better being able to do that but then it is also flexible as well, so you can add very individual performance measures in there on top of the cascaded objectives.

Deputy M.B. Andrews :

In terms of when we are looking at senior executive leadership, what has the message been to team managers with this system and also from a performance management perspective to ensure that we are developing a culture that is a modern, supportive culture for employees?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

The message has been that we want to get as many people on to the system as we possibly can and that is being reviewed by the States Employment Board on a regular basis as well as by me through the chief officer appraisals, but that it has to be as meaningful as possible. So it has to be specific to the roles, to that part of the organisation, and it has to lead to improvements not only in performance of delivering what is on your job description but also whether you feel motivated, creating high performance teams as well where you work with other people and where you want to go in your career as well. That is all really important.

Chief People and Transformation Officer:

Chair, if I could just add to that, it is not just about the system. Our management development programme covers specifically about appraisal, objective setting, giving feedback, but also tackling poor performance. That is within the training programme as well.

Deputy M.B. Andrews :

Okay, thank you very much. I do note as well in the submission that the Public Accounts Committee received it states that there are 5,923 employees who are in scope. What does that mean "in scope"?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

I have now got a figure of more than that, of in scope, 6,616 at 31st January in scope.

Mr. M. Woodhams :

How does that tally up with the figure we have got of 5,032?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Can I come back and check on that because that may have been an earlier figure and this may be an updated figure now? I just want to check what date that related to, so I will come back to you and confirm that, if that is okay.

Deputy M.B. Andrews : Yes, indeed.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Some employees are excluded at this point, or some workers are excluded at this point, and some will be onboarded over a period of time. Teachers, for example, will be onboarded from September to the system. Contingent workers whose job is very, very specific and they are line managed on the job, so to speak, some of those workers are excluded. Then some manual workers are also not on the system at this point because their terms and conditions are such that they are not required to have a performance appraisal. However, we are working with the trade unions and those discussions are very positive about how we can probably tweak and tailor the system for manual workers and they do have their performance discussions with managers. It is not that they do not have them.

Deputy M.B. Andrews :

I know you obviously just mentioned about manual workers not having appraisals. How soon do you think this will be subject to change and could you just also articulate the reasons why it is so important to have appraisals across the organisation as well from your perspective?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

I am going to hand over to Mark for the timeline because he is the one talking to the trade unions or his team have been talking to the trade unions. In terms of why it is so important across the organisation, this is why it absolutely is fundamental across the organisation because it is about that

culture, it is about people feeling valued. That is what we want, employees to feel valued. We want them to feel rewarded for doing a good job as well, so we cannot leave some parts of the organisation out at all. I think that would not be right. However, what I will say is that the tailoring of the approach for different jobs is incredibly important because it has to be fitting into those individuals on the jobs that they do. If you think about my chief officers, their objectives, they have a maximum of objectives they can put in the system but they have lots of sub-objectives underneath that, very, very detailed. The whole process is very detailed. You would not expect that for other parts of the organisation.

Deputy M.B. Andrews : For instance, as it currently stands we have some staff who do not currently have an appraisal process in place. In terms of the objectives set, that potentially could be set, if they are not being set anything is that potentially leading to a poor culture where maybe they do not know what they are supposed to be doing? Does that impact then on the provision of public services as well?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

I think that most of the staff in the organisation would be fairly clear about what they are supposed to be doing. If you think about manual workers, et cetera, their jobs are very clear and there is a lot of front line supervision as well in those particular roles, but what I would say is what it potentially would lead to if we did not have that rolled out to all of the organisation is people feeling that they potentially are not valued as much as the other employees across the workforce and people who may want to progress into different roles not being able to find the pathway and the support to be able to do that and not being able to identify or agree with their managers their learning and development goals that they have.

Deputy M.B. Andrews :

Thank you very much. I just wanted to also touch on the big bang approach in terms of the rollout. Was it ever considered in terms of maybe having a phased or incremental approach to the adoption of Connected Performance?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Well, I think first of all Connected Performance, yes, it was rolled out on 9th January but it was expected that different departments would come on board in their time when they got used to the system, when they got training on the system, et cetera. At the same time, we were encouraging everybody to come on board as quickly as possible, but we understand that we have to support some parts of the organisation further, particularly front line services who are always pressurised. If you think about nursing, for example, if you think about some of our youth workers, they are always prioritising being out on the street for the youth workers or being in the hospital looking after patients, for example. It is much tougher to get the time to sit down and do that but it is still really important

that we do it. When you think about we are turning on different parts of the functionality of the system, so this rollout as well is just the first section. Get your performance objectives done, give them to your manager, let your manager assess them and agree them with you and then we will go to the mid-year review and see how that works and then we will start turning on other parts of the functionality. We do want to get to a place where, for example, we are quality assuring some of the processes as well and if the system allows you and helps you to do that too. That is one part of the rollout, the simplest form of the functionality at the minute. Also in terms of the rollout, we are only at the stage of now developing the other modules, like recruitment for example. So it is a phased approach to the whole of Connect People. It is just performance and learning and development that we have rolled out first.

Deputy M.B. Andrews : Okay. Thank you very much.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

Before we leave the subject of Connected Performance, can you very, very briefly tell us the 2 or 3 key differences between Connected Performance and My Conversation My Goals for the individual? We have head about from the organisational perspective and the data perspective, but if I was sat in my old civil service role that I had just a year ago, what would be the difference for me today with Connect People compared to My Conversation My Goals?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

You can see within this system exactly where you are in the process. If you have just put in your objectives but you have not passed them on to your manager, you can see you are only at step 1. You can see exactly where you are in the process and what is expected next and what the target date is. That is the first screen that you will see, so it is very clear.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

For me, I have the advantage of having done a My Conversation My Goals and when I look now at Connected Performance it looks very similar, so I could do those things before. What is the key difference?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

I think the key difference is it is more intuitive to use, so it is not as clunky and I have been told by people trying to use My Conversation My Goals it was very difficult for them, for example, to upload and connect in with. For example, I have asked my chief officers to provide me with assurance statements on certain things. They could not have uploaded those very easily on to My Conversation My Goals. It is very simple and straightforward for them to do that and that links through to other parts of the system.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

Appraisals and performance management are very soft skills. What we have talked about today so far has been very systems-driven. I suppose where I am trying to get to is are we in danger of the system driving what is actually a very soft skill set area?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

You are right, I think. You are absolutely right that we need to caution against that being the case because I think when you asked me about at the very outset what are the objectives, the objectives are to have good performance conversations. That is the key and to make sure that we are supporting staff to achieve and to progress. The system only assists to do that. I think the focus on the hard bit at the minute is just because it is new and we are trying to get everybody on board, but from hereon in we absolutely need to focus on the soft elements and that is some of the training that is being rolled out for supervisors and managers.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

Philip has just got a quick question.

Mr. P. Taylor :

How will you know if somebody is not having a good conversation? Are you monitoring? Do you have surveys going out to make sure that it is being done as intended?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

I think you are right. I think there is a couple of ways. We do want to quality assure and we also do culture surveys on a fairly regular basis and certainly we can ask questions within some of those surveys as to how well they feel ...

Mr. P. Taylor :

In other words, it is a continuum.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: It is a continuum, yes.

Chief People and Transformation Officer:

You asked a specific question about the difference for the individual. My Conversation My Goals was a reflective practice started by an individual and they rated themselves. This is about connecting the line manager and the objectives of what they are trying to do to the individual. That is the biggest change because that is organisation and systemic performance. The other difference it will be is that you can put down your learning needs, your development needs and we can aggregate that up, which we were not able to do. Therefore, we will be able to look at skills across the piece.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

Thank you. What I will do now is move on to the question area around the governance of Health and Social Care. Matthew is going to take the first few questions on that.

[12:45]

Mr. M. Woodhams :

Can I ask one quick question on the last one? I do not necessarily think it has changed dramatically since the end of 2022 but we have a big disparity between how it is being used. For example, the Department for the Economy is leading at 93.9 per cent of objectives agreed and 86.7 per cent of completed end of year review. Lagging behind very much bottom is Health and Community Services with 25 per cent have got agreed objectives and 7.1 per cent have completed a review. There are figures all between those things. Has there been any analysis of why there is such a disparity for those?

Chief People and Transformation Officer:

Yes. What we are finding is in Children's and in Health they are large, complex front line organisations and people are out doing their jobs. They are not in front of computers, whereas the Department for the Economy is an office-based team. It is also a smaller team, so proportionately their percentages will go up. What we have done through the organisational development team, we have been doing face-to-face sessions, we have been doing ward walks around the hospital and we will see a greater improvement in sites from September. We are learning how those organisations work, which is some visibility we did not have before.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

But there is an overall general improvement from 2022 into 2023.

Mr. M. Woodhams :

I hope it gets better than 25 per cent. It is hard to get worse.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Absolutely, and there are certainly more people that have objectives agreed with their managers than ever before, even in the first quarter.

Mr. M. Woodhams :

 I will go back to the thing I was tasked to do originally and I will let you know in advance, as you have probably guessed, I focus mostly on risk, whether we have assessed risk, worked out what the risks are, looked at the controls, setting outcomes, objectives, being able to test those. I am currently helping a lawyer and a compliance board. Looking at the overall situation with the health and compliance service, what was the summary of the rationale for appointing the turnaround team?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

When I came into post in February 2022, and obviously I have regular one-to-ones with my chief officers, at that time I was having regular one-to-ones with the chief officer from H.C.S. (Health and Community Services), as you would know. I obviously was asking about performance measures such as level of complaints, et cetera, and also I would have been aware of any claims, et cetera, that were coming through this system. It was clear to me that absolutely there were issues in the system from a corporate H.C.S. perspective with systems, et cetera, data being easily available, and also in terms of culture. We had complaints about bullying, et cetera, as you know, coming through the system. We know from the reviews that have been carried out by C. and A.G. (Comptroller and Auditor General) and others that there were some clinical issues as well. The maternity review is one of those, et cetera. Obviously Caroline Landon at that stage was concerned, alongside me, and she decided then, on the advice of her medical director and chief nurse, to commission the Hugo Mascie- Taylor report in the clinical governance. When the Hugo Mascie- Taylor report was produced of course it laid bare the fact that we had so little assurance around clinical governance, clinical safety. That is obviously very concerning to the accountable officer and obviously to me as well. So from that, speaking to the Minister for Health and the Chief Minister, the Minister for Health and I produced a turnaround plan.

Mr. M. Woodhams :

What were the objectives of that plan? I like 3s of things. What were the 3 objectives? If you get to number 4 you forget the first one, so just stick with 3.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

A big objective was to improve the assurance around governance and of course the big recommendation of that was to create a board.

Mr. M. Woodhams :

We are going to be getting on to that one.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

We will, but it was a very important and fundamental part of that better way turnaround plan. The second objective was to improve recruitment. We knew there were lots of vacancies in the organisation, so we needed to improve recruitment and other systems like financial management and getting a grip on the finances of that part of the organisation. Also clinical safety as well. I am going to give you a fourth one, sorry, about culture, being able to speak up. So obviously the Freedom to Speak up Guardian was one of the actions that we brought forward as a result of the fact we wanted to improve openness, transparency and culture and to really get to the bottom of the concerns that people had across the organisation. So that was the rationale for bringing in a team to support the leadership team already in the organisation. This was not like a U.K. health trust special measures approach where you replace the senior leadership team. This was to provide additional capacity and support for the team so that they could with fresh eyes look at the challenges that were being faced, get to the bottom of what needed to be done and produce a turnaround plan over a 12-month period. That plan, I have to say though, in terms of its delivery, will take certainly more than a 12-month period, in fact potentially up to 4 to 5 years to really make sure that we have a really effective, first class health system.

Mr. M. Woodhams :

You are going to guess what the question is going to lead to now. It is another 3. What are the 3 outcomes you set for that turnaround team to deliver to you that is going to take that 4 to 5 years not 12 months to deliver? What were the 3 outcomes you said we must have?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

We must have a financial recovery plan. As you are well aware, there was a significant overspend in H.C.S. at the end of last year with £12 million to £13 million over budget and that the financial recovery plan had to be put in place this year to find efficiencies, to find savings, to bring H.C.S. back down within budget. I will come back to that if you want to ask me any more questions about that. Also to create a clinical safety turnaround plan and that includes some deep dives into some areas where there are some concerns within the organisation. That is an ongoing process at the minute and a recruitment and retention plan for the organisation as well.

Mr. M. Woodhams :

I was looking with interest just now at some of the recorded stuff on the States website and I was looking for the previous board pack for 14th February and the associated minutes for 14th February and I looked at the outstanding actions and I saw in those minutes a very positive picture, surprisingly positive ...

Is this 14th February this year or last year?

Mr. M. Woodhams :

2022, last year. So it was last year. This is the old board that was disbanded on 31st March this year. I was looking at the February minutes and the management actions following up from that one. Unfortunately we have not got round to publishing the minutes from May 2022 yet and what the management actions were then and then obviously it did not meet after May and it was disbanded in March. What are the current oversight arrangements for governance, because we do not have a board, an old board, and we do not have a new one?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Yes. Well, the old board, of course, was more of a partnership board, very wide with lots of different parts of the whole system represented on that board. Of course, if you are looking back to those minutes in February, I would say and question whether or not that board was the right kind of a board to really ensure and challenge clinical governance and safety in the organisation because, of course, the new board that has been now agreed through the States will have non-executive directors who have a clinical background, H.R. background, finance background, et cetera.

Mr. M. Woodhams :

That is all really good, but the last one obviously the report said where it got to. The thing is not what the last board did. It is what have we got now in the intervening period when we do not have any board?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Yes. So at the minute we still have the committees, the subcommittees of the old board on people and organisation, risk, et cetera. Those committees are still meeting and they are still overseeing those particular functions of the organisation. The interim chair that was appointed is overseeing those committees and the reports that come in from those committees as well.

Mr. M. Woodhams :

He is obviously going to doing catch-up because he has only just started. Do you have assurances about what risks we have today about the health system and, if so, what those risks are?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

I still feel that to have assurances about those risks ... I certainly know some of the risks. Do I know all of the risks in that part of the organisation and do I have assurances of all of them? Obviously I have appointed a new chief officer who is getting to grips with H.C.S. and where the risks are. The

turnaround team are identifying risks but they are also lifting certain stones and looking underneath them and more risks will be identified, I have no doubt about that. I think that is really why we need this professionally qualified board who will challenge the right things. I do not think that one Minister or one C.E.O., for example, who is not medically qualified can on their own, without having a board like this, adequately hold the system to account.

Mr. M. Woodhams :

At the moment, is it the situation that we currently do not have a total picture of the risks that they are facing?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

As we did not have when Hugo Mascie- Taylor did his report, as we did not have with the previous board.

Mr. M. Woodhams :

Yes. That is where we are. On a day-to-day basis, how do we get more comfortable with that? Effectively we are flying blind.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Well, we are not flying completely blind but, of course, we want to be much, much better at it. We want this to be systematic. We want to be reviewing every part, every care pathway. We want to have complete assurance around each and every care pathway that exists in the organisation and, of course, the turnaround team is already putting measures in place to improve those risks that they are identifying. They immediately put measures in place to identify ... to improve the mitigations against those particular risks.

Mr. M. Woodhams :

Obviously we are in an interim period, so how do you get briefed, updated about what the issues are? If you have a board it would be quite straightforward. They can talk to you and the Chief Minister and the Minister for Health. What have you got as a temporary workaround?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

As a temporary workaround I have a number of things happening. Of course it is the chief officer always who is the accountable officer and that accountable officer portfolio passed from Caroline Landon to Chris Bown. I meet with Chris on a very regular basis, once fortnightly if not once a week. I also meet with the turnaround team and with the Minister for Health, the Chief Minister and the chair of S.E.B. (States Employment Board) every other week as well. We oversee what the turnaround team are doing, what they are finding, what they are improving, et cetera. I also meet

with the turnaround team and the S.LT. (senior leadership team) collectively because they have produced a Being Our Best programme, which they put in place immediately after the Hugo Mascie- Taylor report. They involved all parts of the organisation in lots of workstreams to bring about improvement. The trade unions, for example, are all involved in that and are very complimentary about the process that has been put in place. Of course, the freedom to speak guardian is reporting into Tom and Tom is assisting me, as one of my assistant C.E.O.s, to make sure that we put the right arrangements in place. Tom has been taking on some of the heavy lifting, I guess, in terms of looking at reviews that are going on, like the rheumatology review and being the senior responsible officer for that, reporting back into me on a daily basis sometimes as well on those kind of things. Then the chair will meet with me at least once a month as well and update me on the committees, et cetera.

Deputy L.V. Feltham : Can I just ...

Mr. M. Woodhams :

I have one final tiny question, which may be similar to yours. Do you feel you have got enough specialist expertise and support for you? Obviously health issues are beyond all of us because unless you are actually in the profession you are not going to be an expert.

[13:00]

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Yes, and that is precisely why we need a board with medically qualified people on that board.

Mr. M. Woodhams :

At the moment, before we have that board?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

At the moment because I have the turnaround team they are obviously supplementing some of the SLT skills. So between the leadership team, the permanent S.L.T. at Health, and the turnaround team I feel we do have the skills there but of course the turnaround team are not here for ever.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

I want to clarify absolutely. In your view, is the establishment of this health board essential?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

In my view, absolutely essential. I do not know any other health system that does not have a board like this.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

Okay. I am very aware that we only just had the voting in the last week and obviously we do not want to get into a political debate in this room but I am conscious as a States Member that we did not hear from you directly in relation to that. Do you think it would have been important or useful for States Members to have had your views around the health board prior to that vote?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

It may have been. I think obviously the Council of Ministers heard my view on a number of occasions, as they would have done Tom's view as well and the interim chair's view too. So it may have been but obviously that was not part of the process that we have just had.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

Have you completed your questions?

Mr. M. Woodhams : That is done for me.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

I will hand over to Graeme Phipps .

Mr. G. Phipps :

Thank you. We have great expectations for this new board. Can you let us know the implementation timing of this board and when do you anticipate it will be up and running and taking over from this change group?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

We are about to appoint the non-executive directors to the board and I am not on the recruitment panel because the process goes into early July. The recruitment panel has been set and we have quite a number of really strong applications for this board, so we are hoping that it will be up and running during the summer. Is that correct? Yes.

Mr. G. Phipps :

You have talked a fair bit about your role and how you got engaged in this and you are moving on. What process is in place to ensure that the new chief executive gets assurance to the effectiveness of this board and implementation, if it is recommendations, effectively, managing this whole process to ensure it happens?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Yes, yes. Of course Tom will be the continuity to help support the new chief executive. He has been supporting me with drawing up terms of reference for the board, et cetera, and his team as well have been very supportive. There will be continuity from that perspective in terms of what the expectations of the board are, what systems need to be put in place to properly support the board to carry out its functions and how the board will report back in to the Minister and to the principal accounting Officer. As part of my handover as well to the new C.E.O. this will be one of the issues at the top of the list that I will be recommending a very diligent focus on as soon as they take up the role.

Mr. G. Phipps :

The visibility of that whole process you are talking about will be available to the public to understand and see how that works as well.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: The visibility of which bit?

Mr. G. Phipps :

Just the expectations, this is a big change, so clarifying not just to the new chief executive but understanding how this works to the public as well because I think it is fair

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: How the board works.

Mr. G. Phipps :

Just think to the extent of comfort so they know where this goes, how it works, those concerns, et cetera, how they interact with the board versus the Minister and all these kind of things.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Yes, I mean I think it is a really good point. I think it is something we just need to be really good in terms of our communication publicly about the board, once we get established reminding people what it is for, what it is there to do, what the next steps of the board are as well. Obviously we have to appoint a new chair as well to the board because we just have an interim chair, so that is an important part of the process too. Obviously there is a cost to the board and we know that and we know that the public will want to know, well, what will they be getting for their money? Yes, I agree with you, communications to the public will be incredibly important and we will make sure that those are built into the process.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

Just before you move on from cost of the board because obviously that has been publicly quite a contentious issue and as the Public Accounts Committee will look in the future at what the cost and the benefits are.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: Yes.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

What do you envisage the benefits to be of the board and you sell us the value for money?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

How do I sell you the value for money? For me, the key benefit, obviously it will have a much more systematic approach to how it looks at information, what information it asks for in terms of things like number of complaints, how quickly they are dealt with, looking at the patient experience, looking at the culture within the organisation; is it improving? But for me the number one factor is that we can have assurance around clinical safety. The board will help with the strategy for health, the future strategy for health; I think that is really important. Obviously the Jersey Care Model was paused but that is not to say that the future strategy for health is not incredibly important and it is the same with funding as to how we are going to fund our health service going forward is absolutely a critical part of the discussions of the board as well.

Deputy L.V. Feltham : Okay, thank you.

Mr. G. Phipps :

While we are on costs sorry.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: Go ahead, on avoidance, yes, good.

Assistant Chief Executive:

I was just going to add that of course the costs to the board in any one year pale into insignificance compared with the costs of some of the reviews and the remediations that are required where parts of the service which have not benefited from good, robust, ongoing clinical governance need attention. As the Chief Executive mentioned, I am currently the senior responsible officer for the rheumatology review, so I can see from my own experience the costs of remediating service improvements where it has not benefited from long-term, good, kind of robust clinical oversight; we touched upon maternity and other areas. There is significant cost in making all of these downstream reviews, improvements and corrections, all of which could have been avoided by a relatively modest upstream investment.

Mr. G. Phipps :

It would be a good time, as we moved forward then to track and monitor what happens different because this board is in place versus what doing exactly what you are saying but making that very visible. The P.A.C. notes of our costs that there was an overspend in H.C.S. budget for 2022. Can you explain your understanding for the reason for this overspend?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Yes, my understanding is that we are talking about £12 million, driven primarily by temporary staffing costs and also some non-pay expenditure. The pay overspend spent on agency, spent on overtime as well due to a large number of vacancies and difficulties in recruiting and also non-overpay spend, which is, for example, some tertiary care contracts, expensive, or off island care as well when needed, including mental health and also the volume of drugs used as well and the complexity of some of the patient issues too. Significant income was also down and the income we think was down because some of the planned levels for some of the private patients could not happen because of the fact that a lot of patients were still in beds and there is difficulty in getting them care packages in the community. There were no beds to occupy some of those private patients, so those operations did not happen.

Mr. G. Phipps :

Given the big component of that was temporary staff and everything associated, we note that the Minister for Treasury and Resources requested a plan for how this overspend in 2022 will be recouped in 2023 and what effect will this have on delivering your services in 2023? Are you going to be able to replace these people or are you going to have the same problem again?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

We are looking at the various contracts. We are looking at how we use more bank staff, as opposed to agency staff. We are also looking at the consultants' contract as well and renegotiating that particular contract. We are also looking at more on-Island education programmes and recruitment as well but of course that is going to take some time for that to really make a lasting difference. We are looking at other recruitment campaigns in other parts of the world, which are very targeted to the types of skills gaps that we currently have in the organisation as well. In terms of bringing the £12 million ... and in fact the estimate for overspend going into this year was nearly up to £20 million; it was not just £12 million, it was nearly up to £20 million, in terms of what was in the base budget. It is a big ask to bring that back down. The financial turnaround plan that we have, financial recovery plan that we have in place and we have brought one of the turnaround team with very specialist skills in this area in to help us to do that work, along with some short-term support from KPMG and that work is progressing really, really rapidly now. But I cannot sit here today and say that £20 million will be shaved off that budget within a year. They are very confident that they can find duplication in the system, that they can find savings but it is going to take longer than a year. If we were going to get within the £20 million it would mean a reduction in some services and that is still a conversation that needs to be had with the Government and is ongoing at this point in time.

Mr. G. Phipps :

The other side of the coin, I appreciate your focus on cost and savings but how do you ensure when you are doing all this that there is attention from the Treasury to drive costs down? The other side of it is ensuring that the services are not adversely affected, that trade-off. How are you planning to manage that?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

It is very important for me and for the Minister for Health and Social Services, and I think for the Council of Ministers in general and the Chief Officer and even the turnaround team, that services are improved at the same time that costs are reduced. That is why they are looking at some of the contracts that we have in trying to drive better value out of some of those contracts, for example. That is why they feel that things like bringing people in on a bank approach, rather than working overtime and maybe paying them on a weekly basis, rather than monthly basis, et cetera, to incentivise them, it provides a better service as well. I do not think they have to always cut the service but I think we do have to have the conversation about the timeframe for meeting those targets of getting it back into budget, but that is a Council of Ministers conversation that needs to be had. Do you want to say anything more about that? Sorry.

Mr. M. Woodhams :

Is there a material risk of an overspend this year?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: I think there is, yes.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

Just before we leave that subject, what advice have you given Ministers with regard to recouping that overspend, the levels of budget? What advice have you given to them about what budgets might be required to provide the types of services that we might be expecting or to maintain services and the impact of recouping those funds?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

I am not sure that we are quite at that stage yet because the conversations that we are having here are similar to the conversations that we have been having with the Council of Ministers, except that they have and will continue to receive reports from the financial recovery plan. The financial recovery plan looks at immediately bringing down some budget overspend, the control, looking at vacancy control, et cetera, how we are bringing in new staff. It is looking at productivity levels and trying to get those up. It is looking at some of the house-saving opportunities and also how I.T. and digital, et cetera can help with that. It is still a work in progress I guess is what I am saying, okay.

[13:15]

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

Thank you. I think what I am hearing is that the decision-making around that what you think, it sounds like a political decision rather than

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: It is a political decision.

Deputy L.V. Feltham : Okay, thank you.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

But it is still a work in progress. The financial recovery team, when they have their final report ... they are just on an initial report. They are in the process over the next 6 weeks of producing their final report, a more detailed report that will be presented to the Council of Ministers. That is the stage that we have those conversations.

Deputy L.V. Feltham : Okay. Yes.

Mr. P. Taylor :

One question: we have not the right clinical outcomes.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Sorry, I was just talking about the financial recovery but

Mr. P. Taylor :

I know, I know but clinical outcomes is fundamental.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: Of course.

Mr. P. Taylor :

To get improved clinical outcomes.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: Yes.

Mr. P. Taylor :

This whole process was about improving clinical outcomes. How are we going to monitor improvements in clinical outcomes?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

You are absolutely right, the whole process of turnaround is about clinical outcomes. The fact that we are setting up a board is absolutely about improving clinical outcomes, but there are certain aspects of this system that we have to change to allow that to happen as well.

Mr. P. Taylor :

Saving money is a danger of not improving clinical outcomes.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

But we have to spend money on the right things and not the wrong things and I think that is really what this recovery plan is looking at. You are absolutely right in terms of clinical outcomes; that is something that the new board will be very, very focused on delivering. We do have 2 clinical members of our turnaround team, someone who has been a medical director before and someone who has been a chief nurse before. They are helping the current leadership team to look at the clinical outcomes. They are the ones who are looking at the care pathways, assessing them and looking at the risks and improvements that can be put in place.

Mr. P. Taylor :

Chief Executive, if you were going to be here, one of the key things you would be looking for would be clinical outcomes is the number one priority.

Yes, 100 per cent, absolutely.

Mr. P. Taylor : Thank you.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

Okay, thank you. Any further questions on no, okay. We are going to move on to talking about your own appraisal and that of chief officers. We spoke earlier around Connected Performance, so this is quite a different focus area around senior officers. I am going to hand over to Deputy Le Hegarat .

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat of St. Helier North :

Yes, my apologies for being late but it coincided with another meeting across the corridor.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: So I believe.

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat :

Yes. In relation to appraisal of the chief executive and other officers, there has been some letters of correspondence and on page 5 of that it talks about performance and updates, Connected Performance in bulletin 2 and it says: "94 per cent of senior managers in tiers 1 to 3, excluding schools and head teachers, have had some objectives set for 2023 and entered on to Connected Performance." How many people does this 94.4 per cent represent exactly?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

It is 187 people. So that is all of tiers 1 and tiers 2 and 3, so down to head of service level.

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat : Down to head of service level.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: Yes, yes, it does.

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat :

Okay. Can you please clarify what do you mean by some objectives? What does that mean?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Okay. Yes, that is a very good question because when I read it again I thought that was a bit ambiguous. I think the reason why that had been put in was to try and be as truthful as possible because we talked earlier about Health and Community Services having cascaded objectives right down through their workforce. They have 4 key objectives that they have agreed are important for every individual in H.C.S: looking after the patient, their experience, values and behaviours and how they improve the culture within the organisation. They are making sure they keep up to date with their training, both mandatory and voluntary training as well. Also, that they help try and find some of these savings and value for money and make suggestions around that as far as they possibly can. Of course the further you go down the organisation sometimes the more difficult some of that might be with finance but of course people can say, and we know that front line workers can often see, where money is being wasted and can report that back up through the system. All of the H.C.S., also all the managers have also been asked to make sure that individuals also add to those 4 objectives. But as we sit here today in terms of very personal things, personal development and other individual objectives that they may have, I cannot tell you how many of those have had those specific objectives added. That is why it says "some" because we did not want to mislead.

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat :

Having come from a culture of very much appraisals and set objectives for the organisation, so not all employees have their own set objectives; is that what you are saying?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

They will have, but initially because this system allows this cascading process to happen, which is not a bad thing ... if you have both things working together it allows this cascading to happen, so everybody is clear. This is the culture that we want to create within the organisation but they need to add in their own individual objectives to those 4 core objectives as well, but that is only in H.C.S. In every other part of the organisation that cascading has not happened in that way.

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat :

Okay. How are you, as chief executive, ensuring that objectives set with chief officers to date relate directly to ministerial delivery plans?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Okay, so that is really important for me, that they do relate to ministerial plans. Obviously they will have some corporate objectives that they will set and be agreed with me. For example, how they cascade and roll out performance across the organisation, how they are maintaining propriety and good financial management, et cetera, so those kind of things but also how they are delivering on the priorities of ministerial plans. Each of them is setting those objectives, within those objectives the priorities within the ministerial plans do feature. Where they do not or where they have not,

certainly I have been sending them back to them and asking them to include those priorities within those objectives. I have already booked their quarterly review now, even though it is not halfway through the year, but because I am not going to be here for that point, I have already carried out their half-yearly reviews with a significant focus on delivery and some of the key projects that they really need to take leadership on.

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat :

Just back to that, when the objectives were set and then comes new ministerial delivery plans, did you consult with the Ministers in order that you could get the idea of what they were anticipating and what they were going to  require? Was that a mixed meet between the deliverers and the ministerials?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

No, and that is probably something that needs to be improved because, of course, going through the end of 2022 when we had the new Government in place, ministerial plans were being developed. I was part of that process of development of those plans and of course then come January 2023 new objectives were set with the chief officers. Those delivery plans were very, very hot off the press, very new and I would have been aware of what the priorities would have been within them because that would have been part of the Government planning process where those priorities were agreed and set. I did, however, introduce last year a reporting mechanism from each of the Ministers as well. I asked them 2 questions at the end of the year about the performance of their chief officers: what do they feel they performed well at and where were the areas of improvement? The Ministers responded to me. I do think the question though that you ask is very valid. At the outset of the year it would be good to have some input from each of the Ministers into those delivery plan objectives, so at the end of the year they can give me that or my successor that appraisal again.

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat :

Okay. Please, can you outline the process for your appraisal as a chief executive?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Okay. The Chief Minister and I meet on a weekly basis. Every week we talk about the performance of the organisation and that includes the expectations of me and the priorities that are expected of me. We have as well worked through the development of a template on performance for me as the C.E.O. That has now been halted since I handed in my resignation, so it has not been taken any further. However, it sets out the main responsibilities that I have that are written into my job description, that are written into law and also some of the priority projects within the Government Plan, that there would be an expectation that I would have a leadership role in. I think one of the most difficult things for a C.E.O. is to set K.P.I.s (key performance indicators) and I know that is something that P.A.C. has talked about on a number of occasions. I also have looked at some other heads of civil service and in fact at the British-Irish Council. I talked to some of the heads of civil services from around the jurisdiction and they feel that it is very difficult to be still doing the entire performance approach of what you do and what you need to take that visible leadership role on into a small number of K.P.I.s. I do not think, as far as I could see, that any of those heads of civil service have their K.P.I.s or performance requirements and objectives published. I know that the U.K. Government did that but stopped doing that, I think, back in 2016, as far as I know.

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat :

Okay. Just finally a point from me, when you talk about all of these appraisals, can I double-check with you that every single employee within the States of Jersey every single year gets an appraisal?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

No. We have talked about this before you arrived, I am afraid, and we talked about some employees that were not in scope at the minute. We talked about manual workers, we talked about some contingent labour, et cetera and we have still got some people to on-board like teachers, for example. Of course not everyone has yet engaged in the process in the system. The plan is to have everyone in scope engage in the process and the system.

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat :

You say engaged. I do not really understand that terminology because from when I came I was obligated to appraise all of my staff; that was part of my job and the person above me did that as well. What you are saying is some people do not engage with the process.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Of course this process is the new process, it has only been in since 9th January and so we are trying to get everybody on to the system at this point in time. The mandate is, like I said, one of the objectives for my chief officers and one of the asks that I have in them signing an assurance statement for every half year is that they ensure that all of their management team ensure that performance appraisals are carried out with all in-scope staff. It is mandated, it is just taking a while to get the culture right and the system sorted out.

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat : Thank you.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: Thank you.

Mr. P. Taylor :

I am a bit hesitant to ask you this question because the answer may be simple. We have seen an artificial process to continue with the delivery of public services after which they are stripped up into years but we start on 31st January and then 31st December. Priorities change during a year, they become less important, some of them. If Tom has an objective set in November that we do next year, come June no one may care about it any more. What is the process for adding objectives during a year and modifying objectives that have been set? Is that formalised?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Is it formalised? No, but it happens. You are absolutely correct

Mr. M. Woodhams :

If you do not write it down it did not happen.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

But we do write it down, it is just that the process is not formalised yet. You are absolutely right, particularly the further you go up an organisation and I think that comes to the performance appraisal between the Chief Minister and the C.E.O. going forward as well, because there are always issues arising that the C.E.O. has to go off and deal with, are there not? That is part of the job, in fact a very big part of the job. You are absolutely right. That is why quarterly appraisals are held and also regular one-to-ones. I meet with Tom a lot but formally I meet with Tom every 2 weeks. All of my chief officers, I meet with them all every 2 weeks. We talk about performance.

[13:30]

We do not sit and go through each of the objectives but we talk about delivery, we talk about the problems, the challenges, how we are solving them, any new challenges that have come along or opportunities that have come along and then each quarter we will update the system. What Mark can probably tell you is

Chief People and Transformation Officer:

There are 2 mechanisms, so one is in the quarterly review, so you can switch off or add new objectives for the year. Performance we need to move to a continuous performance appraisal, as opposed to just an annual because things do not suddenly stop on 31st December and that is a public sector trait that everything is in one year. The second thing is called continuous performance. We have turned it on in the system but we have not rolled it out yet. Some people are using it and that is to record the regular one-to-ones, the short-term objectives or anything that is arising. We have got 2 mechanisms of recording continuous performance.

Which I have used and maybe a lot and it is really great and it will be great for the handover to the new C.E.O. because they will have all the notes as well in the background in that system of some of those changes that have happened.

Mr. P. Taylor :

As you have told us, the same with the people who report to him.

Assistant Chief Executive:

Yes, it is the same system and it has the same kind of dynamic nature. As you say, you start the year with one set of very clear objectives and then the priorities of citizens, of Government evolve as the year goes on. You need to continually refresh as you go through that formal mechanism each quarter, particularly the media, to make sure that you have reflected the current set of priorities and deliverables.

Mr. P. Taylor : Thank you.

Mr. M. Woodhams :

Can I ask you a question just as a simple line manager? Even today you are a line manager and what you do is reflected in your chief officers with everybody. It is good to see that you are doing a 360 process and feedback is coming from people underneath and probably get a rounder view. Obviously feedback for appraisals then comes from individual employees about their employer. Looking at your world as that line manager, how effective do you think it is to deal with the not so good events, when there has been a cultural issue that has been not so positive? It has been cross words between one person to another or behaviour is not quite acceptable or something is not quite right. On the softer side of managing that, how effective do you think the process is, staff well-being, effectively?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

I think when it is bedded in it will be much more effective. I do think that certainly at a senior management level we do have those conversations about when things go wrong and behaviour, et cetera, and the scoring system in this process forces you to because as a manager you have to write very detailed comments as well under each objective, under each competency, under their development needs, et cetera. It forces you to be very honest about this.

Mr. M. Woodhams :

If when we get all the chief officers coming to give their evidence and we say to the chief officers: "So she has gone now. Okay, how happy were you about when things were not quite so right?" would you be happy that they would all say: "Absolutely, when every event was not quite right we managed it well together and resolved it and I feel happy and loved"?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

I would hope that certainly the vast majority of them would say that because my approach is let us get our sleeves rolled up, let us see how we solve this particular problem together and work through it and get out the other end.

Mr. M. Woodhams : Cool.

Deputy L.V. Feltham : Okay.

Mr. G. Phipps :

One other, just I note that you do not have specific K.P.I.s but do you think it would be beneficial for the next person who will be replacing you to have as part of their performance the top K.P.I. of each department, that they would say you already said health and safety, this is definitely what I want to see happen, but as part of your performance with the new person performance take into account the progress of each of these K.P.I.s as a shared? In the corporate world they share like

ratings or cash flow and things. Do you think that would be beneficial?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Yes. I have to say I am not sure because when we tried to do this as a process it ended up that the K.P.I.s that I would have been in complete control of, as opposed to the political system or individual Ministers having some control or the Minister for Treasury and Resources having control of the budget, et cetera, it is quite a small number of those K.P.I.s that I would have complete control of. It is not easy to do. I am not saying it is impossible, it is just not easy to do and not easy for the Public Accounts Committee, et cetera, the public, I think, to get understanding and of the breadth of the job as well and each of the different functions of the job when you are distilling that down into 3 or 4 K.P.I.s. I am certain

Mr. G. Phipps :

Do you know where I am coming from? I am talking about your alignment with each of your direct reports and

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Yes, but they also have a Minister that they report to for policy issues, et cetera. We also then have decisions, a lot of decisions are made through the Council of Ministers; they are not always my decisions. Some of the corporate stuff is mine, which means that the K.P.I.s are likely to be more corporate than they are about departmental delivery and that

Mr. G. Phipps :

That is untrue, that is something maybe that can be considered but

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

It is and I am very happy in terms of where the Chief Minister and I got to with my performance template, which did have a number of corporate K.P.I.s. I am very happy to hand that over to the new C.E.O. if the Chief Minister is content for me to do that and they can work on that; it is maybe a starter for 10 template.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

I have got a couple of questions just arising from those conversations. Firstly, we found that 94.4 per cent of people in tiers 1 to 3 had objectives, which means that 5.6 per cent of them do not have objectives. Is there a specific tier that those 5.6 per cent are in?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

I do not think so. I think they relate to maybe a few changes in role. For example, Chris Bown has just put his objectives on the system now as chief officer for me because he had only been made a chief officer on 1st April, so it took him a while. I would imagine that those 5 per cent relate to something similar across the organisation.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

Okay. You have almost pre-empted my next question, which is have all chief officers got their objectives in the system?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Yes, absolutely, all chief officers. Chris Bown was the last one to have his objectives in the system. They have all had their first quarterly review, apart from Chris because he was not available and they are now being written up by me. I have written up half of them and I have the other half to do before I go.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

You spoke about your own performance template. I think you can tell me whether or not it is fair to say that there may not have been clarity at the beginning of you starting the role around how your performance was going to be appraised as C.E.O. I understand that there some political changes as well to deal with. Are you confident that there will be clarity around the objectives that have been set for the incoming interim C.E.O.?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Of course the incoming interim C.E.O. in the job pack and description, there are some specific objectives that are set out in that job specification, I guess it is. Of course areas of focus really, performance management being one of those areas, visible leadership across the organisation, the move and preparation to the new officers continuing with the turnaround in H.C.S. Those are just a few off the top of my head. Those have been thought about before the job specification went out into the public domain. Do you want to say anything more about that because you were involved in the process?

Chief People and Transformation Officer:

The job specification was written specifically for an interim period because as an interim you can only focus on so much. You do not want to get bogged down into the operation of the organisation. The Chief Minister was very clear in the job specification about the areas of focus and one of the areas that you mentioned was about organisational health, so making sure this is well run, this is well governed, this is well managed.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: Yes.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

Okay. I think we will have some further questions that we might put in writing in relation to that.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: Okay.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

Philip has got a question before we leave that particular topic.

Mr. P. Taylor : Sorry about this.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

That is fine.

Mr. P. Taylor :

But I am really talking about cultural change here. How big a cultural change do you think will be necessary to get the full benefits out of the new systems and processes?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: How much culture change, is that what you said?

Mr. P. Taylor :

Yes, the extent of it. The reason I say that is speaking from having been operating through maybe 40 years going through various processes, the biggest pain was having to do your own self- assessment.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: The biggest thing.

Mr. P. Taylor :

Absolutely and quarterly was even worse.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: I know.

Mr. P. Taylor :

The biggest pain from a line manager was getting me to do it and then having to put his input into it. It is a massive change. Is it fully appreciated that this may take years to put in place?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

I think you are right. I think it will take considerable time. I think we do appreciate that. That was one of my key messages that I was supposed to get across today was that cultural change like this does take significant time. It is a big commitment. It is a big commitment from the individual. It is a huge commitment as well from the line manager. At the minute I am reducing my direct reports, as you know, but even to carry out performance appraisals for 12 direct reports and then write them up it takes 1½ hours to write each one up. The only way I can do that is to take one every evening after working on it and do them, so we can see how much of a commitment that involves. If you are doing that on a quarterly or biannual basis, well that is

Mr. P. Taylor :

Cascading that down 5,000 or 6.000 people, it is enormous.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Yes. It is really enormous, it is really enormous. But for me I have seen systems like this work and they work where the organisation, the line manager and the employee value the process and participate properly in the process and drive it as much as the line manager drives it. I think that is really important, so we have to get that down and made right.

Mr. P. Taylor : Okay, thank you.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

Okay. We are going to move on now. As I said at the outset, we are conscious that this is your last hearing with us as C.E.O. and I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for the hard work that you have put in while you have been here in this role.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: Thank you very much. Much appreciated.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

What would you say have been the biggest challenges that you have faced during your time in the role?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

I think that some of the challenges have been the fact that some of the systems, infrastructure, et cetera, support mechanisms around the C.E.O. are not mature enough yet in the organisation. I did take the opportunity to read back to my predecessor before one in terms of their final report to the P.A.C. They reported something similar about the maturity of all of those systems. It has moved on since then, there is no doubt, but I still think it has a way to go. You will know that, for example, when I came into the organisation and started to set up the Cabinet Office, I appointed 2 assistant chief executive officers. That was really to help me with running the organisation, with solving some of the problems. We have been able to give somebody the rheumatology issue to go and sort out, whereas at first I did not feel I had anyone like that because, of course, all of the chief officers are very busy running their departments and dealing with the individual issues that they have. I do think the support mechanisms and systems and data and information around the C.E.O. to enable them to do this incredibly wide job because the scope and scale of it is really significant. Everything really needs to be there at your fingertips. Those mechanisms still need a lot maturing. I would have to say the other challenge of course was trying to move forward with some of the significant projects

and leadership across the organisation that you do on a day-to-day basis, so all the day-to-day role with some of the challenges. Of course a change of Government but a cost of living crisis at the same time and then of course we had the tragedies in Jersey as well. The leadership time that that takes, rightly so, because of course that is exactly the space that Government should be involved in their role of recovery.

[13:45]

But the leadership time involved in that is incredibly significant as well. I think that other challenges would be that getting to know the system at the outset and this of course in terms as a new C.E.O. and hitting the ground running is one of the things I would like to be able to help with as they take up the role, the kind of insight into exactly what is needed where. It took me a while to get that level of insight and to make sure that I had kind of worked out who the right relationships I needed to have with whom because the system is fairly complex. Of course I think I obviously did get there. Vacancies, having the right people in the organisation, being able to recruit to the front line posts that we really need being a significant challenge as well because, of course, when you are responsible for making sure that there is good services and safe services, there are a lot of challenges to being able to do that if you cannot recruit the right people.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

You have talked about some of those challenges and some of those systems that need improving. Can you give an example of a specific type of system, for example, that might have helped or we might be in need of?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Yes. I think of course having the right we are on a journey in performance information, are we not? I do not mean individual performance here, I mean performance in terms of service delivery and some things that we have talked about helps in the availability of data and dashboards, et cetera, that you are able to look at and have at your fingertips, so you know where the problems are at any one point. I think also risk management and understanding the risks effectively in the organisation. Again, we are on an improvement journey on that and we have improved significantly this year, but it has taken a lot of effort to get to that stage. Of course there are risks in part of the organisation that we do not yet have all of the assurance frameworks around. I find that personally difficult because as a C.E.O. you absolutely want to know where your risks are in the organisation. You really do not want to have too many surprises coming at you. That will always happen every so often but you do not want to have too many of them coming at you. For me, that is a work in progress as well and very important work in progressing. I do feel there is a lot of risk on the shoulders of the P.A.O. (principal accounting officer) and I do feel there is a lot of risk on the shoulders of some of

the accountable officers. That is quite unique to the system here in Jersey because, of course, the employer entity is the States Employment Board and that is very different from other places as well. We have been in a new scheme of delegation, which has helped as well to create clarity too as to who is responsible for what. The accountable officer accountability statements have been really important this year as well, putting those in place so it is really clear who is responsible for what particular role and what risks they have to manage, but that has improved throughout the year and we still have to keep that going, again, something that I will be talking to the new C.E.O. about.

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat :

In relation to risks - this is a bit radical - do you believe that the sort of senior management within the States of Jersey when you arrived in Jersey were really on top of their game in relation to risks?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

We talked about Health previously when you were not in the room and we talked about the fact that we did not have the assurance levels and so that certainly was an issue and one of the reasons why we brought in the turnaround team. I think that they have certainly got better in terms of the risks over the year, that 18 months that I have been here, but when I came into the role, not in all parts of the organisation.

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat :

I was not necessarily thinking of Health but I was thinking across the board, that we do not seem to have ever really taken risks seriously.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

I think we are now, I really do think we are taking it seriously. I guess my plea will be to the new C.E.O. that that does not slip back again, that the risks are absolutely up there and that includes risk of not delivering on some projects, for example.

Mr. M. Woodhams :

Just a quick question on risk. If you are on a journey of 1 to 10, of 1 where we start and 10 where we need to be, where are we, a number?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: This is very unscientific, probably about 5.

Mr. P. Taylor :

What has kept you awake at night since you have been here?

I guess that is why I did talk about risk because risks do keep me awake at night. I guess not having that assurance in the early days of all of those risks being managed effectively. I think that certainly discovering some of the concerns in the health service also would have kept me awake at night as well.

Mr. M. Woodhams :

Fear of the unknown in some ways I think.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: Yes, yes.

Mr. G. Phipps :

To counter that out is what are you most proud of, the most single thing you are most proud of you have been able to influence in your stay here?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

I think I am proud of the fact that we have improved risk management. I think I am really proud of the fact that we have been able to respond really well, certainly so far, to the incidents that happened in Jersey. I do not think anybody could have anticipated that Jersey would be hit with 3 incidents of such significant nature in such a short space of time. I think that Government really stepped up to the plate and I did have a lot of involvement in that personally at the time as well. I think I am proud that we have held our hands up and said we are concerned about clinical governance in the hospital and we are going to do something about it.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

Moving forward, in your opinion what changes, if any, need to be made to the role of the chief executive?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

Obviously there is a group that has been set up by the Chief Minister looking at the role of the chief executive so they can consider whether or not there are going to be any changes for the permanent recruitment. Some of the issues that I have talked to you about around the level of expectations of the support around the chief executive and what that looks like in terms of how the Cabinet Office will be structured and how direct support can be provided to the chief executive role, whether that is through assistant chief executives or whether it is through some sort of corporate management board, for example; those discussions are happening at the minute. I do not think personally that the P.A.O. role is the wrong thing to have. It is not power at all and it is not about, in my view, one

person being too powerful at all. It is about taking responsibility and driving and helping to drive forward ministerial plans and solving problems with chief officers as well and doing the cross-cutting work and leading those big cross-cutting projects too. I do not think that the actual legislation in terms of the role needs to change significantly. I think it is more about the system, so it is more about the support mechanisms and the layers beneath the C.E.O. to enable them to do their job and being able to lift their heads and look at the strategy.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

You mentioned the group that is currently looking at the role. Have you been able to give frank and fearless feedback to that group?

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey:

I have, yes, on a number of occasions and these are the kinds of conversations that we have been having with them. I have not said anything different to you than I have said to them.

Deputy L.V. Feltham :

Okay, thank you. Does anybody have any final questions? Thank you once again. I am conscious it has been an unprecedented time, as we have discussed, that you have been in this role, so we appreciate the difficulties with that. Thank you to everybody for attending the hearing and to the officers. I would like to apologise to anybody who may have been watching online because I have received messages to say that it was not as clear as it could have been. I will draw this hearing to a close. Thank you.

Chief Executive Officer, Government of Jersey: Thank you very much. Thank you.

[13:55]