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House of Commons
Director General’s Review
Report
The Director General’s Review team
The work of the DG's review was organised into ten workstreams managed by staff from
across the House Service, with strategic oversight provided by Ian Ailles and Mark Hutton.
Annette Toft has been overall Programme Manager.
The workstreams are:
Strategy - managed by Sarah Petit
Analysis of the Current Organisational Structure - managed by John Owen
Organisational Design - managed by Ugbana Oyet and Annette Toft with specialist analysis,
benchmarking and challenge from KPMG, and support from David Vere
Customer Service - managed by Patsy Richards
Operational KPIs and Management Information Work - managed by Amanda Colledge
Review of Boards, Groups and Committees - managed by Clementine Brown and Paul
Dillon-Robinson, Internal Audit
Programmes and Projects - managed by Charlotte Simmonds
Lean Delivery/Process Improvement - managed by Martin Trott
Shared Services - managed by Martin Trott
Communications and Engagement - managed by Marianne Cwynarski.
The following have also supported the DGR Process: Judith Boyce, David Foster, Margaret
McKinnon, Jonathan Neffgen, Mary Ollard, Chris Sear, Richard Tapner-Evans, Karen Watling,
Maria Zakharova.
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Contents
Report Page
1 Preface 3
2 Report and Recommendations 4
Introduction 4
Clerk of the House/Director General 5
ExCo 5
The Board 6
Recommendations 7
Stepping Up – a Change Programme 7
Phase 1 (Stepping Up) 9
Organisational Design 9
Stripes 10
Centres of Excellence 11
Spans and Layers 11
Customer Service 12
Performance measurement 13
Boards and Groups 14
Programmes and Projects 15
Process Improvement 16
Phase 2 16
Decisions 17
Customer Service 18
Performance Measurement 18
Boards and Groups 18
Proposals to the Commission 19
3 Implementation Plan 20
Purpose 20
Communication 20
Resources 21
Stripe team 21
Vertical teams 21
Specialist 21
Approach 21
Implementation outcomes 22
Timing 22
4 Blueprints 24
Strategy 24
Organisational Design 25
Customer Service - embed customer service and challenge 26
Performance Measures 28
Boards and Groups 29
Programmes and Projects 30
RA – MANAGEMENT – COMMISSION EYES ONLY
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Process Improvements 31
Shared Services 32
Appendix 34
ANNEXES 37
Annex 1: Strategy 37
Annex 2a: Current Organisation 39
Annex 2b: Current Organisation 42
Annex 3a: New Organisational Design 44
Annex 3b: New Organisational Design 60
Annex 4: Customer Service 69
Annex 5: Performance Measures 78
Annex 6: Boards and Groups 91
Annex 7: Programmes and Projects 96
Annex 8: Process Improvements 103
Annex 9: Shared Services 107
Annex 10: Communications 110
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1 Preface
1. This report is from ExCo. It is based on the work done by the Director General’s Review (DGR) team, but the conclusions, recommendations and proposals are ours.
2. But they will only work if they become yours, the staff of the House of Commons, as well. We know that it is your enthusiasm and commitment, as well as your skills, professionalism and expertise, which deliver the exceptional levels of service which the House has come to expect. Our intention in making these recommendations to the House of Commons Commission is to give you the tools to improve further what is done well already and to identify and address areas where we can do better.
3. Structures and processes cannot ensure effective delivery—only people can do that—but they can make it more or less easy; they can be facilitating and encouraging or obstructive and difficult. Good people can make poor processes work, as some of you, we know, are demonstrating on a daily basis. The DGR started with processes and structures, but we know that, just as you are our greatest asset, so your development should be our greatest priority. And it is: very shortly we will be announcing how we plan to work with you, across the organisation, to expand opportunities for all our people, emphasising career and personal development. In addition we will work even harder to increase our diversity across the organisation, in order to create ‘one team’, which reflects and represents the full breadth of the society we work for, and which is the stronger for it.
4. We believe that the recommendations in this report will improve our processes and our structures and give you the time, the space and the confidence to step up the support you give to the central democratic institution in our country and without which it could not function. This is just the first step; to make further progress we will need your engagement and your ideas, both to make sure that what we are proposing now works and to point us to where we should continue to work to do better.
Ian Ailles
Myfanwy Barrett
John Benger
John Borley
Rob Greig
David Natzler
Andrew Walker
Penny Young
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2 Report and Recommendations
Introduction
5. The DGR was set up in response to the Governance Committee report. That report set us some key challenges:
a) Sustained delivery of high levels of the full breadth of parliamentary expertise
b) Enhancing public engagement and participation especially through digital means
c) Focus on core functions (both to increase efficiencies and to prepare for Restoration and Renewal)
d) Supporting and creating structures where there are clear lines of accountability and responsibility
e) Reducing unnecessary bureaucracy
f) Creating a unified parliamentary service.
6. In autumn 2015, the Commission set the broad strategic direction for the House Service for 2016-2021. The Strategy workstream of the DGR was tasked with translating this baseline strategy into “a strategic approach which resonates with staff everywhere in the organisation and inspires a sense of common purpose and pride”.
7. We now have a ‘strategy on a page’ which sets out clearly for staff, Members and the wider public what we intend to do, how we will do it and how we will measure it. It sets out three Service-wide objectives which will collectively ensure that we support a “thriving Parliamentary democracy”, and which will generate outcomes that enhance satisfaction with our services; the reputation of the House; the impact of MPs’ work; and the sustainability and value for money of our services. Implementation of the DGR will embed and deliver the strategy.
8. As ExCo members we are very proud of the House Service and of the consistently high standards of professional service which it delivers across a wide and varied range of functions. But we should always look to improve. The purpose of the DGR has been to give us the tools to be able to achieve our strategic objectives and to rise to the challenges of the future, including those set by the Governance Committee.
9. We have adopted a hybrid approach to organisational design: primarily functional, but with many functional staff structurally embedded close to the customer. This approach reinforces the importance of the other strands of the DGR. It is through them that coherent and consistent strategic prioritisation will be delivered across the service.
10. The DGR was conducted through ten workstreams. Reports from each of them are attached as annexes.
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11. The Organisational Design workstream is the most anticipated piece of work. But it is just one part of a wider cultural change which aims to orient the organisation so that it is best placed to deliver against its strategic objectives.
12. Our aim is to create an organisation which is
Unified but not uniform
Professional and respectful of the professional skills of others
Customer focused
Driven by performance measurement
Engaged with change
Willing to take risks and to learn from them
Open to positive internal challenge and process improvements
Permeable: the boundaries between organisational units are low and people regularly cross them.
Empowering: allowing and encouraging managers to manage, and giving them responsibility whilst ensuring they are accountable.
Clerk of the House/Director General
13. As recommended by the Governance Committee, the Clerk and the Director General (DG) together are the leadership team of the House administration. Their respective roles and responsibilities are set out in the Appendix.
ExCo
14. The existing ExCo will be replaced with the smaller core ExCo recommended by the Governance Committee and agreed to by the House. Its terms of reference are set out below:
a) The ExCo acts as a sub-committee of the Commission and is accountable to it.
b) Its membership is the Clerk, the DG (chair) and the Head of Corporate Services in her/his role as Finance Director.
c) Its responsibilities are:
To be accountable to the Commission for the delivery of the strategy for the House of Commons Administration
To support the Board in the development of strategies
To hold the Board to account for performance against the strategy
To hold the Board to account for delivery of the strategy
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To provide assurance and hold the Board to account on risk
To support the Corporate Officer and Accounting Officer in meeting his/her statutory duties.
d) It has a general duty to support the Clerk in the exercise of his/her responsibilities as Head of the House of Commons Service.
15. The ExCo is expected to hold formal quarterly meetings and to meet, often virtually, in direct support of Commission meetings.
16. It may where appropriate invite others to attend, for example the Head of Digital or the Clerk of the Parliaments. In particular Digital, as a joint department, will need to have a relationship at ExCo for strategy, at Board for operations and at day-to-day as a partner in change and business as usual (BAU).
The Board
17. ExCo will be supported by the Board, which will be chaired by the DG. Its membership and terms of reference are:
a) The Board is accountable to the ExCo.
b) Board members are selected by ExCo to contribute to:
the overall running of the organisation
the strategic development of the organisation
key initiatives for the organisation and
to drive efficient use of resources.
c) As from 3 May they will be:
Ian Ailles, Director General of the House of Commons (Chair)
Myfanwy Barrett, Head of Corporate Services
John Benger, Clerk Assistant and Head of Chamber and Committees
John Borley, Head of In-house Services
Lee Bridges, Head of Communications
Tom Goldsmith, Head of the Governance Office
Rob Greig, Head of the Parliamentary Digital Service
Penny Young, Librarian, Head of Research and Information and Head of Participation
A Change Programme Manager (April-September 2016), to be appointed
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A Customer Service lead (May 2016-May 2017), to be appointed
Paul Martin, Head of Parliamentary Security
d) Board members are not simply there by virtue of running a department or functional area.
e) The Clerk has a standing invitation to attend, ex officio, and receives all Board papers.
f) The Board is responsible for:
the delivery of the House’s strategic objectives
the efficient and effective conduct of business
regular performance and risk management
addressing operational issues and managing performance KPIs
developing strategies for the House administration.
g) The Board meets weekly and as necessary.
Recommendations
18. The recommendations in this paper relate to Phase 1 of the DGR. They will be implemented by 30 September 2016. The implementation will be branded as ‘Stepping Up’ not because we have not delivered in the past but stepping up to the challenges of the Governance Committee; stepping up our performance and service; stepping up the pace at which we do things; stepping up for the future.
Stepping Up – a Change Programme
19. Taken across the ten streams, the work to implement the DGR objectives will be significant and should not be underestimated. To achieve it, we will need to manage Stepping Up as an integrated change programme. This is in line with external good practice.
20. The key elements will include:
It will be sponsored and visibly led by ExCo and Board members
Board members collectively will champion, communicate and engage with their teams and all colleagues on the change planned, and be role models of new behaviours and ways of working
They will be supported by:
An Implementation Team led by the DG to agree the integrated plan, monitor progress against the plan, manage risks and report, and (as necessary) escalate, issues to the Board
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A Change Programme Manager to lead and coordinate dedicated implementation resources
Communication and engagement expertise to design and deliver activities at all stages of the implementation, working with colleagues in each department.
21. Our aim will be to deliver change through four themes:
‘Making it Known’ – communicate and engage with colleagues to build understanding of the overall change context, vision, and agenda
‘Making it Real’ – translate the change vision into reality for people and clarifying what the change means for them, addressing impact on different communities
‘Making it Happen’ – guide colleagues through the transition, provide access to senior management, Q&A, regular updates, training and development and other support
‘Making it Stick’ – align HR and people strategies (for example, performance management, capability and people development) to support the change and help embed behaviours. Measure outcomes against the vision, and provide additional support where required to implement change in full. Implement clear accountability for BAU organisation design governance, for example, monitoring staff in post against targets, working on spans and layers, and alignment of new organisation changes to design principles.
22. The timescale (effectively five months) is demanding, but the DGR itself has shown that we can move at pace. Its terms of reference were agreed on 2 December; its principal outcomes were agreed by ExCo on 16 March. All bar one of the team have continued to do their day job alongside their DGR work. Taking into account the Christmas and New Year break, it has taken less than three months.
23. The primary objective will be to embed the principle that in all we do we should be outward, rather than inward, looking. The focus will be on achieving outcomes, not on the process of driving output. This shift runs through each of the workstreams. It is at the heart of customer service (“in their shoes”). It is explicit in the concept of ‘centres of excellence’ where the expert function sets professional standards and provides guidance and support to practitioners located elsewhere in the organisation. It must be accompanied by the other half of ‘empowerment’: managers, led by the example set by senior managers, must take responsibility and accept the consequences for their decisions and their actions on behalf of the organisation as a whole. As the Governance Committee stated:
A proper system of delegations is fundamental to transparent decision-making and accountability. Decision makers at all levels need to understand the extent of their delegated authority, be clear on their accountability for their decisions and be confident of the support of those above them in the exercise of that authority.
24. The DGR will be the first step towards making the House Service an organisation which is used to and expects to review itself regularly and flexibly. It will not be a once-in-a-decade event. It is a hallmark of effective organisations that they are self-critical and
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responsive to change whether internally or externally driven. There will be a phase 2 of the DGR (see below) and beyond that further work will follow.
Phase 1 (Stepping Up)
25. The phase 1 recommendations relate to:
Organisational design
Customer service
Performance measurement
Boards and groups
Process improvement
Organisational Design
26. The first priority will be to implement the new structure. It has been developed through a combination of organisational design principles (a broadly functional approach and a set of design principles, both agreed by ExCo) and successive iteration with ExCo members. It was presented to ExCo on 10 March and directionally agreed on 16 March. Throughout implementation we will engage with the House of Lords to ensure that the quality of services delivered by the Commons to the Lords is not compromised and that constructive partnerships are maintained.
27. We have agreed the structure for tiers 1 (Head of Department) and 2. Below that our recommendations are just that: recommendations to the heads of the relevant areas whose implementation we expect them to consult on (see Chapter 3) and to work through in practice with their staff and with the central team and taking account of our ambitions in terms of spans and layers (see paragraph 35). The new structure represents a significant change from the current arrangements: no department is unaffected. Nonetheless it remains important to emphasise that structural change is primarily an enabler of a different way of working rather than an end in itself. Although we have to describe our structure formally in terms of departments, our intention is to regard them as groupings of functionally related activities, rather than organisational stovepipes. We will therefore drop the day-to-day use of the term ‘department’. Instead we will use ‘team’. We will also encourage the use of professional job titles where relevant e.g. Clerk Assistant, Chief Engineer, Librarian, etc. In other words we will focus on what people do, not on what grade or status they might have.
28. Under the new structure we will have eight broad functional areas:
Support for the House of Commons to do its job (Chamber and Committees): parliamentary and procedural expertise; supports scrutiny and debate: 150 chamber sitting days; 104 sitting days for Westminster Hall; nearly 1,300 select committee meetings; over 400 General Committee meetings
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Supporting the organisation to be efficient, professional and fit for the future (Corporate services): oversees £200 million+ resource budget; sharply increasing capital budget; a headcount of 2,000+ people
Providing the essential services (catering, offices, access) (In-house Services): services to 2,500 workers; 17 catering venues across four buildings; over 1.4 million meals served annually; maintenance services provided 24/7 – nearly 39,000 maintenance requests dealt with in 2014/15
Promoting public engagement with Parliament (Participation): 1m visitors; a target of 100,00 school visits in 2016-17; outreach to UK citizens
Providing high quality research and briefing on the issues that matter to Members, their staff and the public (Research and Information): policy expertise provided on every subject to every Member; 67 research papers written; 194 debate packs prepared; nearly 27,000 enquiries answered; over 4,000 standard notes available on the intranet (2014/15)
Keeping us safe (Security): balancing protection of one of the highest profile targets with access for all; over 1 million visitors screened annually
Looking to the future (Strategic Estates): responsible for the long term preservation and development of the buildings and services that constitute the Parliamentary Estate
Excellent digital services for a modern Parliament (Digital Service): managing our IT and digital resources to provide secure technology that works
29. These will be supported by
Communications Office (getting our message across), responsible for internal and external communications and relations with the media on behalf of the central institution in our democracy and (with the Lords) one of the most iconic buildings in the world; and
Governance Office, supporting the work of ExCo and the Board, and the responsibilities of the Accounting and Corporate Officer from a risk and assurance perspective. It also provides the secretariat for the Commission and the Finance and Administration Committees.
Stripes
30. Laid over this structure will be a limited number of cross-departmental ‘stripes’ (STRategic Initiatives Promoting Excellence) through which progress on strategic objectives will be delivered with direct ExCo sponsorship. The stripes will be service-wide initiatives, time limited and tightly scoped. Initially there will be two. Stepping Up will be one; the other will implement the Customer Service DGR outputs (see below). We have emphasised the importance we attach to people development. It is a key priority. We expect the third stripe to be People Development, and to be set up (as part of DGR phase 2) once Stepping Up is complete.
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31. We need to make sure that in reorganising departments we also lower the walls between them. The centres of excellence concept will be an important part of this but so will a change of attitude so that issues or functions which cross departmental boundaries, or are done in several places, are seen as opportunities for constructive collaboration, and not grounds for border disputes. Examples include how the line is drawn between the new In-house Services and the Strategic Estates areas; the relationship between the Digital Service and what is currently DIS following the move of the Web and Intranet Service; and responsibilities for design, content and publication across Digital, Research and Information and Chamber and Committees. Some of these may have structural solutions, but most will depend on culture change. Stepping Up will need to identify where they arise across the organisation and agree actions to address them.
Centres of Excellence
32. Centres of excellence will be one of the most powerful tools to break down the silos (both organisational and behavioural) which so many staff have described as characteristic of the House Service currently. They will be used alongside the concept of ‘Head of Profession’ to set standards and best practice and to provide support and consistency to functions which by their nature are conducted in a number of different organisational places. The centres will sit with and usually be managed by the Head of Profession. Their use will enable staff across the organisation to feel that they have control over their own work while being supported, guided and set standards by a professional centre, whose role will be to encourage and enable innovation and, where necessary, enforce compliance. In organisational terms the centre of excellence model describes accountabilities and responsibilities, but not necessarily management structures.
33. There is overlap between the centre of excellence and the business partner models. In developing the former we should build on the strengths of the latter. They are to a large extent different versions of the same basic approach.
34. Functions which could follow the centre of excellence model will include:
a) Customer service
b) Information management
c) Media and communications
d) Programmes and Projects (EPMO)
e) Research
Spans and Layers
35. It is good practice in organisation design work to look at the spans of control of individual posts and the numbers of layers of management in specific areas. We have not been able to do this in detail during the DGR. However, it is clear that overall our spans are less wide and we have more layers than would normally be found in similar sized organisations. As stated above, implementation within departments will be largely the
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responsibility of departmental heads (within the parameters set by ExCo in this report and the Commission). In each area, assessments will be made of current spans and layers. Each departmental head will be expected to set out what steps s/he will take and over what timescale to move towards prevailing norms (broadly spans of five to eight and up to five layers).
36. In some areas, this may lead to the introduction of a division between functional and management roles at the same grade. In others, reductions in the overall number of posts will be expected. These reductions will contribute to resourcing other functions and roles which ExCo has prioritised.
Customer Service
37. This stream built on existing successful areas of innovation in order to improve and leverage what we have, and ensure it is applied across the whole organisation. Objectives included:
Providing a challenge to the other workstreams regarding the clarity of their outcomes, customer outcomes, and basing these on customer views
Providing a clear understanding of what good customer service is in each area of the organisation and ensuring that coherent and consistent customer service across the organisation is also understood
Using real customer feedback to design DGR outcomes and ensuring that real customer feedback (including a more structured complaints system) is captured and acted upon to drive service improvement
Putting in place good benchmarking for customer service, reviewed on a regular basis
Using customer feedback, which is often operational, to shape the outcomes of the longer term projects
Balancing customer service with stewardship1
Offering ways to assess services and investment decisions, including whether some services should be stopped.
38. We need to become an organisation where all staff feel able to have conversations with customers, use that feedback to suggest improvements and expect to see their suggestions addressed. Staff should see themselves as one team supporting the work of Parliament, wherever they work.
39. As a first step we propose to map customers' experiences in real time. The customer groups could include Members, their staff, our own staff, and the public. Customer journeys could include a day or week in the life of a Member or of a member of their staff, public or contractor visits to Parliament, or setting up a new member of staff.
1 By stewardship we mean the continuing responsibility we have on behalf of the public for the good order, the
effective running and the reputation of the House of Commons.
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40. Customer Service will be one of the first ‘stripes.’ Work on it will therefore be done separately from but alongside Stepping Up. By September the aim will be to:
Establish a customer service implementation team supported by customer champions across the organisation
Start procurement for an interim customer database
Develop ways to engage staff with customer service and drive up standards
In conjunction with the Lords, consider future arrangements for the public information office and the switchboard.
Performance measurement
41. Building on our existing performance measures, we have agreed to establish a coherent overarching framework to measure our strategic objectives underpinned by a suite of performance measures, including a number of KPIs, both forward looking and retrospective, to enable senior managers, the Board and ExCo to monitor key functions and areas.
42. The performance measures workstream has considered:
Design of a performance measurement framework
Performance measures reporting to ExCo
Operational KPIs, based on best practice
Overall framework for the evaluation of the strategy's success, setting strategic outcome measures and methodologies for measuring.
43. The objectives of the workstream were to:
Increase focus on the management of performance in line with the agreed strategy
Ensure ExCo has more meaningful performance data that allows it to
focus on things that matter, in line with the agreed strategy
understand and agree on what the organisation needs to do to deliver its objectives
understand business performance
take well informed decisions
Agree a protocol for what is reported and managed at ExCo, the Board and within the business, and how issues can be escalated effectively.
44. The recommendations come in two parts: performance measures and evaluation.
Performance Measures
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45. The framework will measure performance against our strategies, goals and objectives to ensure that there is clear alignment between the outcomes that should be delivered (determined by the strategy) and how the business is measured. ExCo should receive regular reports on:
Strategic Measures: limited high level information presented to focus discussion on strategic matters: Is the organisation on track to meet its plan?; updates on progress of critical path items; reporting of critical failures that impact on strategic areas.
Aggregated Operational Measures. Key operational measures aggregated (using weights to denote importance) to provide clarity of progress against goals/identify thematic issues; RAG status and requirement to present actions/options to correct underperformance.
46. The reports will include: information on trends, commentary on underlying causes including of any under-performance, actions taken and/or decisions required. Operational measures would be escalated where they were indicative of wider issues, critical failure, or major strategic/reputational impact.
Evaluation
47. Our framework will enable us to evaluate the outcomes of the objectives in the strategy consistently across the House Service. These outcome measures will be underpinned by operational measures in each functional area.
48. The framework and detailed recommendations on evaluating customer satisfaction and reputation outcomes are set out in the workstream report. Work on evaluating the other two strategic performance measures (‘impact’ and ‘sustainability and value for money’) will be included in DGR phase 2.
49. In order to ensure the successful delivery of the framework we need to establish the internal expertise and capacity to design, manage and analyse the various measurement tools, or to manage contractors to administer evaluation projects effectively. A proposal to implement this will be brought to the Board in the usual way.
Boards and Groups
50. Following the Internal Audit report on Boards and Groups, the DGR commissioned them to draw up a set of criteria which any board or group should be expected to meet.
51. Many boards and groups do valuable and necessary work. Sometimes their existence is a reflection, or even a consequence, of organisational or process failings. But each group should have a clear objective as to why it is needed, to whom or what it is accountable and what it will achieve. All members should be familiar with this and be able to identify that the work of the group is directly related to the achievement of its objective. This objective should be clearly set out in the terms of reference.
52. There are three categories of group:
decision-making: decisions are binding on the group and the House Service
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consultative: can express views but decision-making, and responsibility, rests elsewhere
communicative: purely to disseminate down–or up–information.
53. Currently many groups have elements of each category. Where that remains the case, clear demarcation between them (e.g. within meetings, in papers submitted) is necessary.
54. Each House of Commons group will be expected to meet a set of criteria relating to:
Objective/Remit: why it is needed
Responsibilities: what it is for
Reporting lines: to whom it is accountable
Outcomes: what it produces (e.g. advice or decisions)
Terms of reference: linked to its remit, and set centrally or by the body to which it is accountable
Lifespan: no more than three years without review and an explicit decision to continue by the body to which it is accountable
Structure: reflecting functions and responsibilities within the House/Parliament structure
Membership: who (including a named Chair) and why (decision-making groups should generally have no more than eight members).
55. Information relating to all boards and groups will be held and maintained centrally on behalf of the Board, which will have strategic oversight of, and responsibility for, them. Transparency of delegations is critical to empowering managers.
56. We will seek agreement from the House of Lords and from the Digital Service that those groups which are bicameral and/or involve the Digital Service should undertake a similar exercise.
57. This exercise is not intended simply to reduce the number of groups, nor should it prevent, or discourage, the establishment of new groups where appropriate. It should be a valuable tool to help the many groups which do important work to focus their time and effort more effectively and precisely. An illustrative set of criteria and questions is set out in the report of the workstream.
Programmes and Projects
58. The Programmes and Projects workstream was established to ensure that the DGR was aligned to already-commissioned bicameral studies and reviews focusing on the way programmes and projects are prioritised, planned, executed and resourced. Building on the establishment of the Joint Investment Board, the stream has looked at how programmes and projects are managed across Parliament, in order to ensure both that
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the right information supports investment decision-making and that investment objectives are fully realised and coordinated in the most efficient way possible.
59. An Enterprise Programme Management Office (EPMO) scoping study, commissioned by the Joint Investment Board, is developing proposals for a corporate and strategic portfolio and programme office to support the Joint Investment Board and professionalise programme and project management across Parliament.
60. A final report was made to ExCo and the House of Lords Management Board in April 2016. Work to establish the initial EPMO capacity will begin during the Stepping Up phase, but be conducted separately.
61. From a DGR perspective, the establishment of an EPMO will be an important example of one model for the ‘centre of excellence’ concept. Its medium term ambitions may also set a direction of travel applicable in other parts of the organisation.
Process Improvement
62. The Process Improvement workstream was introduced as an enabler for the other workstreams, to test the present and proposed future organisations and to sponsor reviews of processes identified as inefficient. In parallel, during the review, the 'light touch' approach to process improvements in business areas has been strengthened, for example by the introduction of 'Leads' and the inclusion of objectives in departmental business plans.
63. In addition we have agreed to a step change in ambition from the present low-key approach. Workshops have identified ways of introducing more cross-cutting process improvements and the House of Lords has agreed to join in a bicameral efficiencies programme, firmly encompassing process improvements within it and giving further impetus to them.
64. From 1 April 2016 Process Improvement will become part of the Efficiencies Programme, under which it will be one of the tools and techniques that the business can use to meet targets for efficiency improvement, whilst remaining an enabler for other areas such as Customer Service.
65. A more efficient House structure will enhance the opportunities for cross-cutting process improvements and remove some of the barriers that have been in place up to now. The DGR has demonstrated that process improvement can be used across departments. Stepping Up will actively challenge on process improvement during implementation.
Phase 2
66. Stepping Up will be a challenging agenda of change, particularly alongside the need to continue to deliver excellent BAU services. But it is only the first step.
67. Phase 2 will build on the progress made in phase 1. It is expected to include:
Work to introduce a House-wide career/people development programme
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More work on ‘centres of excellence’
Development of the EPMO
Progress on shared services
Active use of strategic measures and KPIs and more work on evaluation.
Decisions
68. ExCo has agreed:
a) DGR phase 1 implementation (Stepping Up) will be led by a small team, sponsored by Ian Ailles, but much of the practical activity will be the responsibility of heads of teams/managers; it will be completed by 30 September 2016.
b) There will be eight broad functional areas:
Support for the House of Commons to do its job (Chamber and Committees)
Supporting the organisation to be efficient, professional and fit for the future (Corporate Services)
Providing the essential services (catering, offices, access) (In-house Services)
Excellent digital services for a modern Parliament (Parliamentary Digital Service)
Promoting public engagement with Parliament (Participation)
Providing high quality research and briefings on the issues that matter to Members, their staff and the public (Research and Information)
Keeping us safe (Security)
Looking to the future (Strategic Estates).
c) These will be supported by the Communications Office (getting our message across) and the Governance Office (secretariat and assurance).
d) Selected strategic objectives will be delivered through service-wide initiatives, time limited and tightly scoped (STRategic Initiatives Promoting Excellence, ‘Stripes’). Initially there will be two. Implementation of the DGR phase 1 (Stepping Up) will be one; the other will implement the Customer Service DGR outputs.
e) There will be 'centres of excellence' which set professional standards and provide guidance and support to practitioners across the organisation. Staff will have control over their own work and will be supported, guided and set standards by the centres of excellence, which should encourage and enable innovation and, where necessary, enforce compliance. In organisational terms the centre of excellence model describes accountabilities and responsibilities, but not necessarily management structures.
f) Current spans and layers will be assessed.
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Customer Service
g) We will map customers' experiences
h) By September the Customer Service ‘stripe’ will:
Establish a customer service implementation team supported by customer champions across the organisation
Start procurement for an interim customer database
Develop ways to engage staff with customer service and drive up standards
In conjunction with the Lords, consider future arrangements for the public information office and the switchboard.
Performance Measurement
i) ExCo and the Board should receive regular performance measurement reports on:
Strategic Measures
Aggregated Operational Measures.
j) A team should be established to set up and run an evaluation management framework or to manage contractors to administer evaluation projects effectively.
Boards and Groups
k) During Stepping Up, each House of Commons board or group will be expected to meet a set of criteria relating to:
Objective/Remit: why it is needed
Responsibilities: what it is for
Reporting lines: to whom it is accountable
Outcomes: what it produces (e.g. advice or decisions)
Terms of reference: linked to its remit, and set centrally or by the body to which it is accountable
Lifespan: no more than three years without review and an explicit decision to continue by the body to which it is accountable
Structure: reflecting functions and responsibilities within the House/Parliament structure
Membership: who (including a named Chair) and why (decision-making groups should generally have no more than eight members).
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l) Information relating to all boards and groups will be held and maintained centrally on behalf of the Board which will have strategic oversight of, and responsibility for, them.
Proposals to the Commission
69. Our proposals to the Commission are:
i) That the Commission should agree that the House of Commons service should be organised into the following departments:
Chamber and Committees
Corporate Services
In-house Services
Participation
Research and Information
Security
Strategic Estates
ii) That the Commission notes the proposals set out in this paper and endorses ExCo’s implementation plan.
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3 Implementation Plan
Branded as Stepping Up
Purpose
1. A clear phased implementation plan with clear goals and objectives that can:
a) Be regularly communicated
b) Become the responsibility of individuals for delivery
c) Reduce uncertainty
d) Ensure that the outputs of the DGR are acted upon and delivered
e) Be held to account at the Board
Communication
2. The following is the proposed communication approach over the period. We need to target 30 September as the closure of Stepping Up. All our communications should talk about a five month process to implement the DGR phase 1 outcomes (Stepping Up). These outcomes will be communicated on 26 April.
3. We will not start the second phase of the DGR until significant elements of Stepping Up are embedded and delivered. Phase 2 DGR (i.e. research and planning) will begin at the start of September, having been planned in July-August 2016.
4. The communication is as follows:
Outline communication of ExCo recommendations in week beginning 21 March
- Engage senior leaders; Finance and Administration Committees (10-20 April)
Full communication of the DGR outcomes through staff meetings and direct messages
- A senior management meeting on 26 April to go through the points in more detail and get alignment/be clear on the implementation
- Face to face meetings with individuals for whom there is clear personal impact by end of 29 April
A two week consultation period (up to Friday 6 May) during which staff will be invited to feed back on the proposals, including
- Open all staff meetings in week beginning Tuesday 3 May
- Engagement with the TUS.
5. After this communication we should regard phase 1 of the DGR as complete. From Tuesday 3 May:
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Rebrand the DGR as Stepping Up
- Without prejudice to the ongoing consultation, communications in the week starting Tuesday 3 May need to be about delivery and implementation - i.e. we are going to do this all together by 30 September
- 11 May and every other Wednesday until end September: summary of key target events in the forthcoming two weeks of Stepping Up and an overview of what we have achieved every two weeks.
Resources
6. The implementation and delivery will need to be—and to be seen to be—a resourced project, following the guidance of the EPMO and managed to those standards.
Stripe team
7. Our policy is always to recruit through fair and open competition. For future phases of the DGR work we will do so, inviting staff to apply from across the organisation. However, given the time constraints in this phase, set in part by the Governance Committee, we cannot run an open internal recruitment for the initial implementation (Stepping Up). Instead we will continue to use DGR resource where we can (programme manager, stream leaders) and draw in additional resource from relevant business areas. We will establish a small team whose roles will be to:
Manage the coordination and implementation of the workstreams across the organisation
Hold the Board to account for project and milestone delivery
Provide resources to get workstreams delivered.
Vertical teams
8. We expect virtual teams to be formed in each department or ‘vertical’ to implement the workstreams as they affect them. Each vertical would have an individual who would be responsible for Stepping Up delivery in that area. The starting point is likely to be resources such as Business Partner and Business Management roles.
Specialist
9. We will draw on specialists within the organisation such as the Change Team in Corporate Services.
Approach
10. There has been concern on the number of initiatives underway - with DGR implementation adding to the competition for resources and focus. There are five ExCo-sponsored Initiatives in the House of Commons:
Stepping Up (DGR implementation)
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Efficiencies Programme - which should be seen as contributing to the DGR Lean Stream
Implementation of the review of capacity and capability—which underpins the DGR EPMO stream as well as the 'way we do business'
Joint Working - which forms part of the DGR Joint Working Review
Joint Investment Board (JIB) prioritised projects.
11. To ensure that we do not over-stress the organisation, we need visibility of other 'projects' and non BAU activities.
12. For Stepping Up to achieve its goals and timelines, we need transparency from the organisation on the non-BAU activity and then to take a conscious decision on priorities. So moving from an 'emotional' response to a 'fact-based' balance of BAU and non-BAU, properly resourced through the JIB process and in the context of the Actica report (which has assessed our capacity and capability in programme and project management).
Implementation outcomes
13. The target is for the Organisational Design workstream to be implemented in priority to the other streams, but as a phased process over the period of Stepping Up, and completed by 30 September.
14. Hence each appointed Board member will receive from the DGR phase a clear proposed structure for their areas. They will be responsible for implementing tiers 1 and 2 as agreed by ExCo. Implementation in the lower tiers may be worked through with staff and their representatives and the central team to allow incorporation of agreed changes within their area. To support this the HR team, supported by the Corporate Services team, will support job matching processes and where appropriate will conduct an appropriate VES. The target should be for as many roles as possible to be confirmed by 26 April, or to have a clear, time-boxed process for confirmation. The process is to be run with as quick as timetable as possible.
15. The outcome for OD and Boards/Committees should be that all tier 2 roles are filled by 31 August, and for the structure of internal Governance to also be confirmed by that date. Tier 3 job descriptions should be written by 30 September.
16. The key imperative for the other workstreams is to ensure that each of their recommendations is implemented and live by 30 September.
Timing
17. The current timing is:
26/4/16: announcement and switch from DGR to Stepping Up
3/5/16: implementation begins
30/6/16: checkpoint and delivery of KPI metrics
1/8/16: formal start of planning for DGR phase 2
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31/8/16: OD and Boards completed
30/9/16: Stepping Up completes
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4 Blueprints
Strategy
Phase 1:
a) Staff will be familiar with the one-page summary strategy and it will be visibly displayed throughout the Estate and online.
b) All secondary strategies will be aligned to the corporate strategy.
c) There will be an agreed set of strategic measures, and these will be used by the Executive Committee to measure performance against our strategic objectives.
d) Managers will have tools in place to communicate the values and behaviours required of staff to deliver the strategy.
Phase 2:
a) There will be a clear and explicit link between the strategy and individual policies and job plans.
b) The detail of the strategy will be refreshed, as necessary, as we respond to changing needs and priorities.
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Organisational Design
Phase 1:
a) The new structure has been implemented and understood.
b) Managers and team leaders have scoped lower reporting level detailed design.
c) Updated and validated staff data are in place for the new teams.
d) Plans are in place to:
Define and promote culture change requirements;
Diagnose and identify process improvement opportunities;
Support the preparation of the people development stripe, and
Identify and develop centres of excellence.
Phase 2:
a) Walls between departments/areas are visibly lower; collaborative working to support ‘one team’ is widespread and considered normal practice.
b) The new people development model has been implemented to support:
i) strategic workforce planning and succession planning;
ii) capability mapping and development
iii) clear career paths and career planning strategies
iv) good practice spans and layers.
c) The Heads of Professions model has been rolled-out.
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Customer Service - embed customer service and challenge
Phase 1
a) Customer champions from each area meet regularly as a network.
b) Communications have been reviewed for tone of voice.
c) There is a central complaints system available.
d) All new starters are inspired on their first day about working for Parliament, and understand something of how MPs work.
e) The switchboard is better integrated and part of a customer service function, with performance measures tracking customer satisfaction.
f) The Pass Office has customer service measures in place, and can act as an exemplar for other parts of the business.
g) The Commons inquiry service telephone hours and service better meet the needs of the switchboard and its other customers.
h) Complaints figures are collated and acted on, with feedback to the business and to customers.
i) Feedback from constituency roadshows is being collated and fed back to the business with actions tracked, and to customers.
j) Staff have attended foundation training on customer service around acting collaboratively as ‘one team’ and in an empowered manner.
Phase 2
a) Customer journey mapping provides a powerful tool to help staff identify priorities for action.
b) Staff have helped develop a customer service strategy based on customer journeys, and feel better able to ‘stand in the customer’s shoes’.
c) Customer champions have reviewed customer performance measures and their quality; use of methods is widespread and consistent, as appropriate to services.
d) Champions have reviewed access routes and numbers, unifying where appropriate with a primary service point and number for each significant functional area.
e) A staff recognition scheme is in place, and is used actively by staff to nominate their colleagues.
f) A customer relationship management system is being used to record centrally service issues and interactions.
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Longer term
a) An online staff suggestion and innovation system is well used, with ideas being adopted by managers from other parts of the business as appropriate.
b) Customer satisfaction measures show measurable improvements.
c) Outcome (strategy evaluation) measures start to produce baselines against which we can measure longer term outcomes.
d) Staff around the organisation address and log locally complaints or feedback but this is still collated centrally to provide a corporate service picture and address systematic issues.
e) A suite of customer service training is in place, with different skills for front of House and functional areas.
f) A customer strategy is in place.
g) Service area databases are aligned so that we can easily collate customer interactions with different parts of the business.
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Performance Measures
a) All departments have agreed goals aligned to the strategy, against which performance measures have been set.
b) Departments have identified which measures are critical to the success of the strategy; these will be reported regularly to the Board and ExCo.
c) Departments will also be monitoring their own suite of performance measures, escalating to the Board those that could affect the achievement of the strategy.
d) The Board is in a position to be able to assess whether it is on target to achieve what it has set out to achieve, and is in a position to take corrective action if required.
e) Measures are in place to evaluate the overall success of the strategy; these are evaluated and the results are fed back into the organisation so that improvements can be made in what we do.
f) Performance measures are being used to ensure that we deliver customer satisfaction, improve the House’s reputation, support our MPs to achieve impact in the work that they do, and are sustainable moving into the future.
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Boards and Groups
Phase 1:
a) Each House of Commons board or group has assessed itself against the criteria and agreed a plan of action.
b) At least 10% will have agreed to disband.
c) A central register of all boards and groups will have been created including for each:
i) Terms of reference
ii) Role (decision-making; consultative; communicative)
iii) Reporting lines
iv) Membership (including Chair)
v) Procedures (frequency of meetings; preparation of papers etc.)
d) Agreement will have been reached with the House of Lords and the Digital Service on a similar process for groups with bicameral or Digital Service membership.
Phase 2:
a) A coherent and streamlined structure of boards and groups with clear roles and accountabilities across both Houses and the Digital Service will have been established.
b) A process of regular review and self-assessment will be in place.
c) The resource devoted to attendance at boards and groups will have been reduced by at least 25% from the figures in the Internal Audit report.
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Programmes and Projects
Phase 1:
a) In conjunction with the House of Lords, there will be a resourced enterprise programme management office (an EPMO).
b) The EPMO will have knowledge of all programmes and projects operating across Parliament.
c) The major milestones of the programmes and projects in the corporate portfolio will be visible.
d) It will act as the advisory PMO for business change programmes.
e) There will be a set of agreed PPM KPIs.
f) It will be the reporting line for programme and project KPIs to ExCo and the House of Lords Management Board.
g) A five point RAG system will be in place.
h) It will ensure formal appointment of trained SROs and formal acceptance of SRO responsibilities including clear delegation of authority and budgets.
i) There will be clear customer access points for PPM.
Phase 2:
a) Corporate programmes and project management will achieve level 2 P3M3 maturity (repeatable).
b) There will be an agreed strategic portfolio of programmes and projects (the corporate PPM priorities as opposed to the corporate portfolio of all programmes and projects).
c) There will be an active PPM community and a designated Head of Profession.
d) It will have knowledge of all high level dependencies between programmes.
e) There will be a corporate PPM risk register.
f) There will be PPM templates and/or a handbook available for use.
g) A benefits identification, monitoring and realisation process will be initiated.
h) There will be a corporate ‘lessons learned’ register and process.
i) There will be clear proportional assurance requirements for programmes and projects.
j) The two Houses will reach agreement on the future maturity level required to meet Parliament’s need for efficient and effective programme management and spend of public money.
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Process Improvements
a) The in-house training programme in techniques for reviewing processes will continue.
b) The bicameral network of in-house practitioners will be maintained.
c) In-house practitioners will be utilised as a resource for delivering wider change.
d) Process improvement objectives in forward job plans will be further encouraged.
e) Process improvement objectives in departments’ business plans will be mandatory.
f) ‘Leads’ in departments will assist in delivering efficiencies to meet targets set in the bicameral Efficiencies Programme.
g) The collaboration of both Houses in the Efficiencies Programme will mirror that on process reviews and ensure that they can be used as a delivery tool bicamerally.
h) ExCo has agreed a step change in ambition from the present low-key approach and proposals will be brought forward.
i) ExCo will provide a stronger lead.
j) More cross-cutting reviews will be introduced.
k) Consideration will be given to the introduction of working groups to facilitate cross-cutting reviews.
l) The ideas box may become a permanent source of ideas.
m) The advantages of fewer silos will be fully exploited in reviewing cross-cutting processes.
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Shared Services
a) A two-to-three year bicameral Joint Working Programme will be resourced and delivered.
b) The Commission and the House of Lords Committee will receive reports on progress and consider recommendations from the programme.
c) The agreed workstreams for the first tranche of the programme are as follows:
i) further work to align terms and conditions between the two Houses and the Parliamentary Digital Service
ii) further work on the possibilities for aligning the HR and finance IT systems
iii) drafting of outline business cases detailing the opportunities for joint working in six business areas:
Official Report
Catering
In-house cleaning
Diversity and inclusion
Learning and development
Internal audit.
d) Business Leads have been identified for each of the Joint Working work streams and the central team will assist them in drafting Outline Business Cases.
e) Further areas will be considered for alignment as part of a second and future tranches.
f) The development of business cases for this second tranche will learn from the lessons in the first tranche but it is expected that they will follow the same process and methodology.
g) The main focus for the programme will be to identify where improvements to service delivery or efficiencies can be made through joining up, either through reduced administration, less duplication or better use of resources.
h) The principles that underline the programme will be key and will demonstrate that increased joint working should:
i) respect the constitutional position of each House
ii) show a demonstrable increase in value for money (including from indirect benefits)
iii) unless otherwise agreed, deliver at least the same service level as currently exists to Members of each House
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iv) support each House’s corporate objectives and voice.
i) Outline business cases will follow the Treasury ‘green book’ model.
j) This will mean that a preferred option for each workstream will be evaluated based on cost, benefit and risk.
k) The Joint Working Programme Director will be responsible for delivering the bicameral Efficiencies Programme thereby ensuring harmonious alignment between the two and avoiding collisions.
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Appendix
Responsibilities of the Clerk of the House and the Director General
Professional Expertise
1. The Clerk of the House is the chief adviser to the House of Commons and its Members on parliamentary practice and procedure. The Director General of the House of Commons (DG) is the chief adviser on day-to-day operational delivery and on the delivery of major projects which range from Estates to Change and to Digital, on behalf of the Commons as the ultimate client.
Staff
2. As Head of the House of Commons Service, the Clerk of the House has overall responsibility for, and provides strategic leadership of, the Service.
3. The Clerk has responsibilities for the constitutional independence of the Service, for ensuring that statutory and contractual duties are met and for strategic HR management. The Clerk exercises a particular oversight role over appointments and pay of senior staff, advised by the Remuneration Committee. Recruitments, exits, promotions and appointments at SCS level require the Clerk’s endorsement. The Clerk is responsible for overall staffing policy, including recruitment, the training and development necessary to enable greater mobility and flexibility of staff, succession policy and the promotion of a more diverse workforce. The DG, ExCo and the Board support the Clerk in the exercise of those functions.
4. The Director General (DG) reports to the Clerk, who has delegated to him line management of all staff at the next level except Speaker’s Counsel, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the Head of the Governance Office. The DG, assisted by the Board, has a broad measure of autonomy on the use of staff resources across departments and offices, and for ensuring that they are deployed so as to maximise efficiency and effectiveness. He is the final escalation point for the relationship with the staff representative bodies.
Money
5. As Accounting Officer the Clerk is responsible for the propriety and value for money of the House’s expenditure. The Clerk is advised by the Audit Committee and by ExCo on the exercise of these responsibilities.
6. The DG holds budgets, including the Commons’ share of shared services budgets, on a delegated basis and delegates budgets to heads of departments. The Accounting Officer’s authority is required for exceptional expenditure. Business cases hitherto requiring the
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Clerk’s sign-off are now signed off by the DG; the Clerk as Accounting Officer sees the Finance Director’s advice and conveys it to the DG. The DG, as chair of the Joint Investment Board, is responsible for the effective delivery of programmes and projects and reports any material overruns to the Clerk.
Services
7. The Clerk is responsible for ensuring that the House Service is appropriately resourced to provide the level of parliamentary support and advice required by the House, and that the parliamentary nature of the Service as a whole is reflected in all services, administrative processes and financial decisions. In particular the Clerk is responsible for leading on the House Service position on stewardship.
8. Subject to that, the DG is in charge of the day-to-day provision of operational services and is empowered – subject to ExCo and ultimately the Commission – to deploy resources. He has a particular responsibility for leading the agenda on increased joint activity with the Lords, acting as co-chair of the Joint Working Group. The DG is currently chair of the Joint Investment Board. The DG has a particular responsibility for the customer service agenda and a responsibility, shared with the Clerk, for leading stakeholder relations with Members and others, in particular those with a direct impact on the provision of services to the House.
Joint Departments etc
9. The DG has delegated responsibility for the Commons aspects of security provided by the Parliamentary Security Department and other service functions where they are based in the Commons Service but provided to both Houses. He also has responsibility for digital services provided by the Digital Service through the Digital Strategy Board. He holds to account the service providers (through the Board) where providers are based in the Lords but provide service to the Commons. In these areas he works jointly with the Clerk of the Parliaments.
Strategy
10. The strategy is jointly developed and held by the Clerk and the DG.
Communications
11. The Clerk has responsibility for effective internal communications with staff and is the senior outward-facing representative of the House Service. The Communications team reports through the head of that office to the Clerk as regards internal communications to staff and on external parliamentary business, and to the DG on communication issues arising from the administrative services of the House. The DG is the line manager for reporting purposes of the Head of the Communications Office.
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Other
12. As Corporate Officer, and Responsible Officer for fire purposes, the Clerk has a particular responsibility for fire protection, and for parliamentary assets such as works of art and historic furnishings, as well as the entering into of contracts. In all these functions he is assisted by ExCo and as necessary the Board.
Member Bodies
13. Both the Clerk and the DG are members of the Commission. The DG attends the Finance and Administration Committees and liaises with the equivalent Committees in the Lords. The Clerk, as Accounting Officer, and the DG both attend the Audit Committee. The Clerk advises the Members’ Estimate Committee.
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ANNEXES
Annex 1: Strategy
Sarah Petit
Background and objectives
1. In autumn 2015, the Commission set the broad strategic direction for the House Service for 2016-2021. The Strategy workstream of the DR Review was tasked with translating this baseline strategy into “a strategic approach which resonates with staff everywhere in the organisation and inspires a sense of common purpose and pride”. The workstream also aimed to set detailed strategic goals that were challenging but realistic.
2. The workstream was further tasked with communicating the emerging content effectively to other workstream leads, to ensure that recommendations on organisational structures, processes and culture flowed from and supported the strategy.
Methodology and process
3. Working from the baseline set by the Commission, a facilitated away day was held with the Executive Committee in November 2015 to define a purpose statement and establish key areas of focus for inclusion in the strategy. This was followed by more detailed work with individual members of the Executive Committee and key senior leaders, alongside the Performance Management workstream. The workstream drew heavily on the reports of the Governance Committee and the Members’ and Members’ Staff Interview Project in order to ensure the key challenges for the institution identified by Members were addressed in the strategy. Further sources of evidence included the staff consultation undertaken for the baseline strategy and the Hansard Society’s Audit of Democratic Engagement.
4. An emerging draft was shared with a group of staff from across the House Service at a workshop in January 2016. The feedback was used to make the strategy more specific and stretching in a number of ways, and to articulate the common purpose more clearly. A further workshop was held with the Executive Committee to test this feedback and consider how the strategy might address some of the challenges raised.
Outcomes
5. The Executive Committee approved the strategy on 11 February 2016 and the Commission approved it on 14 March 2016.
6. The review has translated the strategic direction set by the Commission into three Service-wide objectives which will collectively ensure that we support a “thriving Parliamentary democracy”, and generate outcomes which enhance satisfaction with our
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services; the reputation of the House; the impact of MPs’ work; and the sustainability and value for money of our services. It has also identified how we will do this, through five enabling objectives.
7. A one-page summary strategy has been designed as an accessible communication tool to demonstrate the essential role played by all House staff in supporting a thriving Parliamentary democracy, regardless of where they work and the service they provide, and thereby unite them behind a common purpose. The “feels like” section of the strategy is intended to bring it to life by describing the outcomes for customers and staff at a personal level.
8. The DGR has designed a management structure and performance framework to deliver, monitor and resource our strategic priorities.
Implementation
9. Every aspect of implementation of the DGR is intended to embed and deliver the strategy, and to bring a halt to any activity that does not stem directly from it.
The following workstream-specific implementation activities are proposed:
Communication to staff: we will undertake a high-visibility campaign to promote the one-page summary strategy to staff in a number of ways.
Clear alignment of all Service activity to the strategy: the Executive Committee has already taken a formal decision to align existing departmental strategies more completely to the corporate strategy. We will undertake this work and also review our processes to ensure that policies, programmes and projects, down to individual job plans, are required to link explicitly to the strategy.
People development: we will work with managers to ensure that staff understand and are equipped to deliver what is expected of them under the new strategy.
Robust evaluation of performance against our strategic objectives: a high level performance evaluation framework has been designed as part of the KPI and Management Information strand of the Review. We will now, as part of the implementation process of both workstreams, produce detailed KPIs to measure our performance in delivering the strategy.
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Annex 2a: Current Organisation
Mark Hutton
Our starting point
1. The Governance Committee
a) made specific recommendations about the direct consequences of the appointment of the DG
b) made wider recommendations about the House Service and its culture and behaviours
c) set out four strategic challenges which the House Service needed to ensure that it could meet.
2. The specific recommendations were that the appointment of the DG should overall be cost-neutral and should lead to a reduction in other senior posts in DCCS and elsewhere. These recommendations responded to the argument made by the Leader of the House that the committee’s proposals should not increase the cost of the overall system.
3. The wider recommendations were that:
a) As part of the implementation process, a structure below the Executive Committee should be developed with a system of communicating responsibilities to staff and Members
b) The Executive Committee must be an effective decision-making body at the head of a structure of delegations of responsibility and authority to key members of staff
c) The priority should be to reduce, not increase, layers of bureaucracy
d) The objective should be a unified House Service
e) The Clerk of the House should take forward and lead the committee’s recommendations on staff development.
4. The four strategic challenges were described by the committee as not new, but arguably of a different magnitude to the challenges of the recent past. These were:
a) Political and constitutional change
b) Public engagement
c) Efficient use of resources
d) Restoration and renewal
5. The committee received evidence from staff and Members which was in varying degrees critical of how the House Service functioned. The focus was, unsurprisingly, on
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the role of the Clerk/Chief Executive, but there were many comments on perceived failings in the organisation at lower levels.
6. Following the House’s agreement to the Governance Committee report, the Management Board initiated a series of staff engagements on how the House Service operated, on its values and on what a new House strategy might look like.
7. Additional evidence of staff views can be found in the annual staff surveys (though few questions relate directly to organisational issues) and IIP assessments.
8. Conversations with ExCo members before the DG’s arrival revealed an appetite for a wider ranging review of the organisation.
The challenges
On the plus side:
9. This is not a failing organisation: it is delivering high quality services to its principal external customers (Members, their staff and the public); it generates high quality outputs, particularly in core areas (procedural, committees, research, Hansard) but also in, for example, catering, heritage conservation, education; it is rated a good place to work by most staff (86% would recommend it).
But:
10. We are a siloed organisation in which loyalties are to departments or directorates not to the Service or House. Management structures can be barriers to collaboration; assets, resources and responsibilities are held within them as if they were possessions. There is a perception that this extends to the most senior levels of the organisation with ExCo members as representatives of their departments rather than a team of corporate leaders.
11. Decision-making can be slow, un-transparent and unaccountable. Sometimes it is hard to tell if a decision has been made and if so who made it.
12. Processes are unnecessarily complicated and can appear to be designed for those who manage them not those who use them. Examples include arrangements for a new starter, different service level agreements for digital and accommodation provision to Members’ offices, recruitment, HAIS and SPIRE.
13. Functions which ought to go together or be done in one place are in several. Information management is in DIS, but FOI is in DHRC. Access in different forms is in SAA, Facilities and Security. AV crosses DCCS, PED and the Digital Service.
14. We lack capacity and capability in key areas. This is recognised and being reviewed in the programmes and projects area. The recent staff survey suggested that confidence in the capabilities of immediate line managers has diminished. There is some evidence that levels of procedural expertise have fallen away among staff in Band A. Improved
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customer service is a strategic priority. But two particular areas have been repeatedly raised:
a) People development
b) Information management.
15. People development: Aspects of operational HR work reasonably well: the business partner model has strengths and the support given by HR in respect of individual HR cases (performance, absence etc.) is well-regarded. However recruitment and new starter processes are complex and have been raised several times in submissions to the DGR. But the greater criticism is for how, as an organisation, we manage, support and coordinate our people development responsibilities. The central function lacks both the administrative capacity to support training activities effectively (ACT—the online Parliamentary Learning Management System—is frequently criticised) and the capability to devise, manage or sustain proper professional development across the organisation. Two leadership programmes (SMDP and Leading4Parliament) were both well-received, but there was a gap of several years between them and the latter has not been sustained. Talent management programmes have been announced but not delivered (a new one, limited initially in scope, is being developed now).
16. Information management: we have focused on records management at the expense of information management. There is some good practice in individual areas (Library, committees, PED), but it is not well coordinated. The relationship between information and data is not clear with people in the respective areas often working at cross-purposes. There has been a series of initiatives/efforts/plans to bring some order to our people data (‘one version of the truth’); none has succeeded.
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Annex 2b: Current Organisation
John Owen
1. Using the staffing baselines established as part of the work of the Governance Committee, further work was undertaken in preparation for the DGR to establish any changes during the intervening period. This was to support the principle that in the overall implementation of the Governance Committee’s recommendations relating to senior staff, any changes should be cost-neutral.
2. The workstream was set up under the DGR to carry out an analysis of the current organisational structure looking at structural boundaries, duplication, potential synergies and areas where changes might enable us to be more efficient.
3. Specific objectives were to provide:
Details of organisational information held by the House
Organisation chart
List of corporate functions held by staff within the House
Risks and issues around data held
Methodology & Process
4. The workstream reviewed a number of sources of information to develop a picture of the current organisation and its current structure. These included utilising existing data such as HAIS records which were validated with the help of the relevant BMD and staff in DHRC. New data was created through a questionnaire sent to senior staff to gather each person’s view of their role and the core activities within it.
5. The questionnaire was sent out to all staff in A1 and SCS bands and provided the opportunity for the individual to provide details on how they defined their role. Although an imprecise tool, it supported the objectives of the workstream by providing information on structural boundaries, duplication and potential synergies. It also highlighted the extent to which corporate roles, such as being an SRO, were being considered in individuals’ roles.
6. Using the information collated, a detailed analysis was carried out thanks to Maria Zakharova. This provided the Organisational Design workstream with information such as spans of control, numbers of direct reports and information around management levels, both by department and as a comparison across the House.
Outcomes
7. Through the work carried out, the following issues were identified:
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Consistency of people data
8. Due to a number of contributing factors the quality of the data held by the House is variable. The key contributing factor is around how people data is stored and managed; this was evident from the numerous databases that were identified as a result of this work. In similar organisations such as the Scottish Parliament, the central HR system underpins other sources of data. Instead four primary data sources were identified within the House with multiple lists also held by respective departments. This diversification of data is invariably going to lead to inconsistencies and removes the reliance on HR systems, with the consequent effect that individuals do not update their own data; thus its value is undermined. This is not solely an issue with DHRC as individuals have the responsibility to keep their information updated and in numerous instances have failed to do so leading to issues with the data.
Organisational structure
9. As an organisation there is no definitive list of roles and responsibilities along with the relevant supporting information such as job descriptions. This is partly due to the issues identified above but has also come out of numerous changes in the management of HR in the House. Recent initiatives carried out by DHRC have started to address it but due to the length of service of a large number of staff it is difficult to fully correct historical issues – such as when departments were responsible for their own HR arrangements and the storage of related documentation.
Implementation
10. Although the workstream was created as a supporting function rather than a delivery mechanism, the following actions are put forward for consideration:
i) Outputs from analysing and verifying data should be passed back to HR to take advantage of the work carried out so far.
ii) Options should be developed for the integration of HR data with other systems, positioning HR data as the core function on the Administration side. To ensure clarity a similar process would need to be agreed for Members and their staff to ensure dependent systems such as Cherwell and Archibus have a single dataset to rely on.
iii) Processes for the collection of HR information should be subject to a CI review to identify good practice in departments and to develop a consistent House-wide model.
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Annex 3a: New Organisational Design
Ugbana Oyet, Annette Toft, David Vere
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Annex 3b: New Organisational Design
Ugbana Oyet, Annette Toft, David Vere
1. The Organisation Design workstream set out to propose a clear and simple structure that is easy for Members and staff to understand at every level. The objective was to produce a package of structural changes, particularly good practice spans of control and reporting layers, which would enable the organisation to become fit for the future and make the management levels more efficient. A critical criterion was that the plan could realistically be implemented without creating unacceptable risks to service delivery.
2. The structures in Annex 3A should be seen as the first step in an evolutionary process—the first station on our journey rather than the destination. They are, in themselves, modest but they are accompanied by a set of further change requirements for heads of the new departments to take forward with support from the Stepping Up change team. Departmental heads will play a key role in shaping their new departments within a clearly defined, strategic framework and work towards a state where continuous improvement becomes the norm post-implementation.
3. The final output from the Organisational Design workstream is set out in this short annex which should be read in conjunction with the presentation found in Annex 3A.
Process and Interim Report to ExCo
4. The Organisational Design team has received specialist support from KPMG (part time) from mid-December 2015. The team worked on the basis of data collated by the Current Organisational Structure workstream. As a result of data issues documented elsewhere, a proportion of the team’s time has been absorbed by the need to cross-reference datasets and seek additional data from departments.
5. Conceptual, high-level design options were produced, reviewed and selected in two iterations, first by the DGR team and then ExCo. On 11 February, following comprehensive discussion of the Interim Report from the Organisational Design team, ExCo decided to proceed with a broadly functional organisational design with the possibility of adding ‘stripes’ or strategic priorities, driven across the vertical structures by ExCo-sponsored, time-limited teams. The outcome is to some extent hybrid in that many staff are located close to their customers rather than with the functional core (or centre of excellence).
6. ExCo decided on 11 February that in order to maintain confidentiality during the detailed design and review period, the Organisational Design team should consult only with ExCo members. With a very small number of exceptions, sanctioned by the relevant ExCo members, the team has therefore not spoken to area leads or other staff in the analytical process.
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Methodology
7. The conceptual, high-level design process identified and reviewed a number of options for the structure of the organisation. These included options based on strategy, function, brand, customer segmentation and matrix management among others. A set of design principles was developed to assist with a prioritised appraisal of the high-level design options and, later, detailed designs. The design principles (attached to this annex) were aligned to the House of Commons strategy and agreed by ExCo.
8. The development of detailed organograms under the functional design option was guided by the design principles and in consultation with ExCo members. It was informed by the mapping of existing teams and by good practice guidance and modelling of potential spans and layers across the organisation.
9. More detailed and team-level design work will take place during the implementation phase, led by heads of the new departments with support from the central change and implementation team.
10. Detailed analyses of posts in areas of change will need to be carried out during the implementation phase. Individual staff and team leaders themselves need to be engaged in this process which should be driven by heads of the new departments. This process will flush out the exact split between departments and teams, particularly where posts or teams are moved or split. A range of other associated issues, such as additional responsibilities accrued by individual post holders, but which are not primary functions of the post, will also need to be re-allocated once the new high-level structure has been agreed and implementation planning is under way.
Stripe(s)
11. The possibility of adding ‘stripes’ to the functional vertical structures will create a mechanism for supporting key strategic priorities. This mechanism, which will require departments and teams to work collaboratively, will also help to lower the walls between departments and engender the sense of being ‘one team’.
12. The ‘stripes’ are a flexible concept that can work in a number of ways, but common to them all is that they are:
a) clearly defined and aligned to the House Service strategy;
b) sponsored by an ExCo member, adding clout and impetus;
c) time-limited, so every stripe will have a timeline for transition to Business as Usual (BAU);
d) the leader delivering the stripe on the ground may have a seat on the Board during the life of the stripe.
13. Stripes can be resourced in different ways:
a) primarily within verticals, with a minimal central ‘stripe’ team of one or two staff planning, coordinating, driving and challenging delivery by departments;
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b) with a larger, central stripe team that not only coordinates and drives but also delivers some elements of the change at the operational level, or
c) any variation of the above, for example incorporating external expertise and support.
14. ‘Stripe’ teams may simply dissolve with staff reintegrating into vacant posts in the ‘verticals’ once a stripe closes down, or in some cases, the stripe team may integrate as an entire team into one of the vertical functions, continuing the work commenced in the stripe in BAU mode. It is expected that the Stepping Up will follow the former pattern on completion (dissolution), and the Customer Service ‘stripe’ team may follow the second model (team integration into vertical for BAU).
Centres of Excellence and Heads of Profession
15. A strong emerging theme from our work has been support for the introduction of centres of excellence and ‘Heads of Profession’. To some extent this support may have been a response to the fact that we have not pursued a more purely functional organisation design, but they are also argued to be important ways of breaking down organisational and behavioural silos. They can be used to set standards and best practice and to provide support and consistency to functions which are conducted in a number of different organisational places. The centres will sit with and usually be managed by the Head of Profession.
General conclusions
16. A number of conclusions and key priorities for the implementation phase and beyond have emerged from the Organisational Design workstream:
By 30 September 2016:
a) Implement new structures and teams;
b) Develop and agree the plan for optimising spans and layers across the organisation with short, medium and long-term milestones;
c) Implement the centres of excellence model;
d) Plan the Heads of Professions model;
e) Coordinate implementation with the new requirements for boards and groups;
f) Support preparation of the People Development stripe;
g) Support the culture change agenda, and
h) Identify process improvement opportunities and consequential potential for organisational development.
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From September 2016:
i) Develop and implement the new People Development model in DGR2 to support:
i) strategic workforce planning and succession planning;
ii) clear career paths and career planning strategies;
iii) good practice spans and layers;
j) Implement the Heads of Professions model;
k) Implement process improvement opportunities.
Corporate Services
17. This department brings together the current Department for Human Resources and Change, the Department of Finance and corporate and strategic functions from the current Governance Office.
18. Corporate Services would be responsible for corporate strategy and planning. It would also be charged with providing efficient, accurate and customer-focused management of human and financial resources. It would be responsible for the development of HR, finance and organisation policies and standards to support internal customers across the House, organisational development and monitoring of performance.
19. Financial Planning and Financial Services – coordinates financial planning and budgets; provides financial advice and support; processes and oversees financial transactions.
20. People – develops policies on pay and reward and frameworks for managing staff well-being; transactional services relating to staff; professional HR support to Members and other internal customers; career development (key priority for phase 2).
21. This combines Payroll from the current DFin and the majority of HR and people functions from within the current DHRC. The key objectives are:
a) to create closely integrated systems and processes for managing HR and payroll data accurately and efficiently;
b) to increase collaboration, coordination and synergies across all areas of HR and people management;
c) to ensure that there is a consistent outward-looking, customer-focused approach to HR, including the Business Manager service.
22. Organisational Development – development of corporate strategy; the monitoring of performance and organisational capabilities; generating and maintaining the momentum for continuous organisational development and change; overseeing the development of a diverse workforce.
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23. Efficiencies and Joint Working - manages programmes to develop joint working with the Lords and to achieve efficiencies; supports the continuous improvement agenda across both Houses. There are strong synergies between this and Organisational Development. Both functions will be important in delivering the cultural change and continuous organisational development and improvement which the DGR has identified as imperative.
24. EPMO – the Enterprise Programme Management Office (EPMO) will be a corporate and strategic portfolio and programme office to support the Joint Investment Board and professionalise programme and project management across Parliament.
Chamber and Committees
25. This department supports the House of Commons’ scrutiny, debating and legislative activities, supports committee activities, generates and publishes the Official Report of proceedings and outcomes, and maintains relations with other parliaments.
26. Chamber Business –supports the House of Commons’ legislative and debating activities. We understand that consideration is being given to the merger of the WPU and PPU into a single ‘Procedural and Committees Publishing’ unit. Teams would be expected to remain in current locations close to their respective internal customers but might have shared management. Managing these units together could facilitate future sharing of these services with the Lords.
27. Official Report –responsible for the generation and production of the Official Report of proceedings - Hansard - and AV. There are a number of urgent operational issues in respect of AV. Our proposals reflect the need to deal with these as a priority ahead of any consideration as to change to organisation roles and reporting relationships.
28. Committee Office –supports the House’s specialist committee activities, including select committee media activity. We considered whether the Select Committee media office should be managed by the Communications team either as a hard or dotted line relationship. We concluded that the team should remain within the Committee office given the importance of the working relationships with the Committee Chairs and Clerks. The Select Committee media team will work closely with the Communications Office (see below) on standards setting and improving external communications.
29. Overseas Office – supports the House's official relations with overseas parliaments, including the UK parliamentary delegations to international parliamentary assemblies and the UK National Parliament Office in Brussels; contributes to and coordinates parliamentary strengthening and capacity-building programmes.
Research and Information
30. The department is responsible for the generation, management and communication of information and research and provides a coherent functional focus for them.
31. Information – leads the activities involved in acquiring information resources and making them accessible and searchable; maintains Library collections; resources required
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to acquire information and make it accessible; potential to incorporate activities currently within Research teams to (a) rebalance resources in the function and (b) align activities more logically between the two areas.
32. IRIS – the Information Rights and Information Security Service will be moved from DHRC to share resource and best practice, which reflects the wider approach to information management.
33. Research – leads research teams to effectively deliver research activities to Members and other customers. The team will be a Centre of Excellence setting standards for research quality, impartiality, professional development of research staff, subject, methods expertise etc.
34. Research Development team will be focused on measuring and evaluating outcomes and impact, product development, customer feedback and front of house services including the promotion and distribution of research services. Business Intelligence and Evaluation is included as a new (or expanded) function for the House as a whole in recognition that the expertise for delivering it is located here.
35. Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) will continue to report directly to the Head of Research and Information, but working very closely with other research teams across the department. We acknowledge the different funding and governance structure, but do not see this as a barrier to closer integration and collaboration given the potential synergies.
Participation
36. This department brings together functions relating to those who visit the building and those who engage with us as an institution. It will focus on building relations with civil society, promoting effective outreach and targeted education experience and materials.
37. Public outreach – activities associated with engaging the public and communities to learn about and engage with Parliament. Education will work closely with school students and young people to explain the democratic process and inspire them to be active citizens. Outreach will engage with disenfranchised communities and work closely with colleagues to bring the experience of citizens and their representatives into committee and wider parliamentary activities.
38. Visitor and retail services – given clear focus to develop visitor experience further, welcome more commercial visitors and generate more income. Opportunity to expand commercial offering, enhance e-commerce offering and explore ‘Retail on the Road’. Area of income generation. Income generation through selling merchandise to visitors and other users of the Parliamentary estate.
Strategic Estates
39. This department brings together all the programmes and projects which together aim to meet the long term Strategic Estate requirements and ensure that the Estate is fit for purpose for the longer term. Specifically, this includes the programmes that enable Parliament to prepare for and deliver the restoration and renewal of the Palace of
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Westminster. In this sense part of the department would expect to become the proto Delivery Authority.
40. This function also brings together in a single unit a large proportion of those staff with the capability to deliver estates construction and renovation programmes and projects – both current and in response to the requirements of NEP and R&R.
41. This structure separates out those activities relating to the management of long term, major programmes and projects from day-to-day estates management, maintenance and catering services which are located in the In-house Services Department.
Rationale for organisation structure
42. The Department has been grouped into the following functions, many of which are pre-existing programmes, with Strategic Support a new grouping to strengthen the overall portfolio management across both Houses, bringing together those elements to set standards, plan and monitor programmes and manage the overall portfolio. From this:
a) Strategic Support (PMO): will provide support to the delivery of strategic programmes to ensure common standards and approaches to programme and project management. Setting the design standards.
b) Project Delivery: project management for all projects to support the strategic programmes as well as the current project portfolio in the Medium Term Investment Plan (MTIP).
c) Northern Estate Programme: the renovation of the Northern Estate buildings to create decant and then longer term Members’ accommodation.
d) Restoration & Renewal Programme: management of the process for determining the approach to restoration and renewal of the Palace, leading into the R&R programme proper.
e) Team Services: as with other departments, coordination of business planning, performance reporting, assurance and corporate activities. Financial management critical in this department.
In-house Services
43. This department would be responsible for managing our physical environment on a day-to-day basis and ensuring that the needs of the occupants are met efficiently and seamlessly. This structure separates out those activities relating to the management of long term, major programmes and projects from day-to-day estates management, maintenance and catering services. It also deals with access management and control, including for VIPs and ceremonial.
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Organisation Structure
44. The Department is organised in the following verticals:
a) Accommodation & Logistics: space allocation for Members and staff; repair and logistics; cleaning; room bookings.
b) Serjeant at Arms: manages access and ceremonial issues; staff (particularly doorkeepers) provide service directly to Members.
c) Catering: provides food and drink across the Commons estate to Members, staff and visitors; also manages commercial events and banqueting.
d) Curator of Works of Art: preserve the historical assets and works of art on the Estate. Responsible for acquisition of works in response to demands of Works of Art Committees in each house and disseminating information about the collection and associated exhibitions.
e) Maintenance: maintain all aspects of the physical infrastructure of the estate in a safe and acceptable condition.
f) Environment and Safety: adherence to safety standards by all those on the estate.
g) Team Services: as with other departments, coordination of business planning, performance reporting, assurance and corporate activities.
Operational Arrangements
45. The priority for this department will be to develop coherent and responsive arrangements to provide a high quality, integrated, multi-disciplinary service to the occupants of the Parliamentary estate. It provides an opportunity to remove duplication in these service functions, clarify lines of accountability and provide a high quality estate management service. It will need to develop particularly close working relations with Participation to ensure the effective alignment of visitor service functions.
46. The consequence of this is that the department will, as an immediate priority, need to develop an integrated approach between the various customer service functions now grouped together (Service Help Desk; Reception; Doorkeepers; Room Bookings and the Accommodation managers). It provides the opportunity to manage these functions to build technical depth and specialisation, enable knowledge sharing through customer relations management processes and build capability for the future.
Security
47. Security provides expert advice on, and operational, security services. The Parliamentary Security Director reports to the DG and the Clerk of the Parliaments. The department has just gone through a significant restructure which has included bringing in-house the security officers previously employed by the Metropolitan Police.
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doorkeepers and reception functions as part of the wider work to improve collaboration across departments, to work as one team and to focus on delivering seamless customer service.
Governance Office
49. The Governance Office provides the secretariat to the governing bodies and domestic committees of the House, the Clerk of the House and the Director General. That is unchanged from the current position. This relatively new co-location of the Domestic Committee secretariat with the Commission, ExCo and Board secretariats is widely seen as well-functioning, providing significant synergies.
50. It will also retain its current arms-length audit and assurance functions, including Internal Audit and Risk. A new addition to this is Safety Assurance which also fulfils an arms-length function, providing policy, advice and assurance functions across Parliament.
Communications Office
51. Communications manages external and internal communication to enable the development of high quality and professional communications expertise, and coherent standards for all content. Communications should be a centre of excellence, providing standards and guidelines for teams across the organisation involved in media and communications work.
52. This proposal enables us to bring Media and Communications and Central (internal) Communications together under a Head of Profession who can have a real impact on the reputation of the institution.
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Annex 4: Customer Service
Patsy Richards
Background
1. The House of Commons Service puts a great deal of staff time into supporting Members of Parliament, their staff, and other customers, who include colleagues as internal customers, and the public, whether paying to visit or acting as committee witnesses, contractors or accessing services remotely. However, the House has not yet sought to develop services consistently from a customer viewpoint, and there is no House-wide ‘system’ for customer service. Departments have developed their own approaches to developing services, measuring customer satisfaction (or not measuring it), and acting on this (or not).
2. Over the last few years some initiatives have developed into corporate level activities, by drawing in staff for delivery from a range of departments, and tracking actions corporately, as a result. These have included the Members’ interview study, the regional constituency staff engagement events, and the General Election buddying scheme. Evidence to the Governance Committee suggested that the House had further to go in changing to a true service culture, and the then Acting Clerk David Natzler told the Committee that providing “Excellent customer service to our customers, first and foremost to Members, [will be] at the heart of the strategy that we are preparing for the new Parliament.”2
Objectives
3. The Director General of the House of Commons (DG) specified that this workstream should build on existing successful areas of innovation that were already challenging the way we ‘do business’. We should improve and leverage what we had, but ensure it applied to the whole organisation. Objectives included:
Providing a challenge to the other workstreams regarding the clarity of their outcomes, customer outcomes, and basing these on customer views
A clear understanding of what good customer service is in each area of the organisation and that coherent and consistent customer service across the organisation is also understood
Real customer feedback being used to design DGR outcomes and real customer feedback (including a more structured complaints system) being captured and acted upon to drive service improvement
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Good benchmarking in place for customer service, reviewed on a regular basis
Customer feedback, which is often operational, being used to shape the outcomes of the longer term projects
Part of the feedback loops to customers include identifiable public aspects, balancing customer service vs stewardship (see below)
Ways to assess services and investment decisions, including whether some services should be stopped.
Methods
4. Five strands of work and consultation were conducted under this workstream:
Audit of current service teams, customer bases, feedback collected, customer satisfaction measures, and customer strategies (Chris Sear)
Staff training, recruitment, skills, recognition (Richard Tapner-Evans)
Empowering staff for service design (Judith Boyce)
Organisation and strategy (Patsy Richards)
Outcome evaluation framework for the House strategy, managed jointly with the performance measures strand (Naomi Jones)
5. The strand leads consulted widely, including with all service teams, DHRC colleagues, and the staff of the Parliament switchboard (outsourced to Capita and run from Southampton). The strategy strand drew on visits to private and public sector organisations conducted under an Industry in Parliament Trust fellowship, the findings of the Members’ interview study and feedback from constituency staff that had been gathered at regional constituency staff engagement events. The workstream met with others to ensure that the customer was being taken into account.
6. Two customer service workshops were run with staff. Suggestions sent to the ideas inbox and examples of customer service issues were collected during the review period. Several meetings were held (and are on-going) with the Digital Service (PDS) about corporate customer information, and about online discussion boards. The emerging findings were tested at ExCo and with key stakeholders.
7. Finally, the results were discussed with KPMG-Nunwood to discuss the best way to address the findings and develop a new House-wide customer service strategy.
Findings
Staff workshops
8. Staff were asked what we do well, or could do better, to ensure that we are focused on what Members and our customers need and want from us.
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9. The areas of strength identified included a service consisting of dedicated staff in small tight-knit teams working really hard, and willing to go the extra mile. They included many directorate-level new service and engagement initiatives. New corporate initiatives were praised, as was the catering service’s work to seek feedback from customers, notably including colleagues as internal customers.
10. Suggestions for improvement focused on adopting a more joined-up approach, knowledge sharing, and consistency in standards. Feedback work was going on in silos, with no-one knowing who was seeking feedback from whom, and no-one sharing it. We needed, staff said:
Top level standards across all services, not the various customer service charters, standards, strategies in place
One, not eight, customer databases
Sharing of basic customer information and transactions
More talking to our customers
KPIs that reflect the customer – customer satisfaction targets and outcome not output measures
To close the loop to all staff and customers, with feedback mechanisms for all interactions
Better service as ‘internal customers’ of one another
Time, resources and culture (the ‘bandwidth’) to try out new services and ideas a little at a time
A culture that allows us to say that we think something could be better.
Findings of the as-is audit
11. The audit strand contacted all customer-facing teams to ask about their customers and their service approach. This reinforced strongly the findings of the workshops. Almost 40 teams self-identified as customer facing. In some areas, notably DHRC, there were many more customer teams (14) than expected. This work provides an invaluable reference source including a detailed map of customer groups for all teams, and those with customer strategies in place (Library, Visitor Services, Commons Enquiry Service, Facilities/Catering, Education). Over half of teams identify the public as among their customers and slightly fewer count Peers or House of Lords staff as customers. Some areas that deal with high volumes of customers (e.g. the switchboard and the Pass Office) do not have customer satisfaction performance measures. Most teams collect feedback in some form, and only a minority do not (Accounts Receivable, IRIS, Recruitment, Workplace & Property Services).
12. In addition to service teams’ activities, corporate resources that might contribute towards a House-wide system for customers sit in a variety of places:
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The Parliament switchboard, managed by Digital Service, Telecoms team
Customer details are held by IPSA, the Pass Office, PDS, DHRC, and in service teams’ databases, with little overall information management
The buddy system, initially a project, now overseen by DHRC/DIS
The Commons Public Enquiry Service, DIS (and a Lords equivalent)
The central feedback system, Governance Office
The Members’ interview study, DIS
The staff survey, administered by DHRC
The Members' constituency staff engagement events, GO and DIS
An ‘internal customer’ survey, DCCS (through UKCSI membership)
Staff induction, culture, behaviours and training, DHRC.
Complaints escalated by Members to DGs – is there a better route?
13. Our independent approach is evident to the customer, through inconsistency of tone and performance, compared to an organisation such as Virgin Atlantic, which puts a great deal of effort into ensuring that all interactions are consistent. Examples forwarded during the review show that for Members who interact with many services throughout their working day, what they remember is their emotional reaction to a communication from a part of the Service which strikes an inappropriate tone or seems out of touch with them. Similarly, especially when staff do not communicate well enough, Members get frustrated when an apparently simple request becomes difficult to place, or to action.
14. There are a number of cultural traditions which may have led to this. They include working in small teams, in our own way, and putting things in writing rather than picking up the phone to a Member’s office. And, as the service has grown and workloads increased, a natural tendency to get one’s head down and process work rather than interact with customers or see the bigger picture of what we are all here for.
KMPG-Nunwood – It’s about understanding – and staff understanding - what your customers are trying to achieve and why, and how you can help them achieve that.
15. Often, at present, Members' difficulties get forwarded to the DGs of departments for resolution. This may be an effective way to get problems addressed in the short term but issues are not logged, shared and considered in the round, so there is no guarantee of addressing the causes underlying such symptoms.
16. This ‘complaint route’ may be adopted in the absence of any well-advertised first port of call or troubleshooting team, or a simple complaints system. It is hard to find out how to complain on the intranet; although the Members’ homepage links to a page of feedback routes, these are little used. www.parliament.uk has no link to feedback or complaints from the ‘home’, ‘contact us’ or ‘get involved’ pages.
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17. An alternative might be setting up 'account manager' roles, but this review found little appetite for this approach, which was also explored by the evaluation strand. It could be resource-intensive, and experience has shown that the ‘buddy’ network has become less used by Members since the General Election. Clearly signposted customer managers and a central customer team may be better, at least initially.
18. A ‘one stop shop’ for feedback and chasing issues could usefully run a complaints system, offer a route of access when in doubt, and troubleshoot. One corporate number is currently being piloted by the Library and has been little used as yet, but it has not been advertised widely. The team could be flagged on W4MP and around the building, and would need to be multi-channel, including a drop-in point. Transport for London (TfL) found that after setting up such a team and complaints system, the number of complaints to management and the managing director fell. The same team could develop standards around customer satisfaction measures, offer advice, and compile and publish complaints and feedback reports.
19. This team could also collate the kind of customer intelligence around recent interactions with the service that a senior manager would expect to have before going to visit a Member, or any member of staff should know before making a constituency office visit. Different service areas currently have their own customer databases, but a dedicated team might interrogate the main ones as needed.
Customer service vs stewardship
20. A small number of those consulted wanted to discuss the concept of customer service vs stewardship. These staff were generally reassured by hearing that the DG has identified ‘stewardship’ alongside customer groups. This asserts the right and indeed duty of staff to balance the will of the individual customer (usually an MP) against the public interest and that of the House as a whole. These concerns are usually associated with a misconception of what customer service means. It is not simply saying ‘Yes’ to customers but involves far more, including service design, empowering staff, and the ability to have honest, adult, and hopefully frequent, conversations.
Getting the right customer-focused performance measures
21. The House of Commons Service is by no means unusual in sometimes losing sight of what is most important to customers. TfL found that bus drivers would drive past a queue of passengers if they were focused on getting their bus to the depot on time, and had lost sight of what TfL customers valued - getting around London for their daily lives. This is exacerbated if performance indicators drive the wrong behaviours. We do this ourselves:
Respondent to as-is survey – “The KPIs that we [in our Department] are measured on are driving down the customer service we are trying to offer because the stats seem to be more important than customer satisfaction. For example, if a case is breached because it wasn’t resolved within the ‘correct’ amount of time, yet the customer fills out a feedback score of 7/7 that goes unnoticed because the case breached. This is frustrating because although the customer may be pleased with the service, it goes down as a negative in the monthly reports for [my Department].”
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22. The Pass Office, which is the first personal touch point for many customers of Parliament, does not yet have customer satisfaction measures. Similarly, the switchboard, which interacts with 600,000 customers of Parliament each year, currently relies on time-based and not quality measures. It receives little backup from the Commons service to help it respond to complex enquiries, because the hours of the Commons Enquiry phone service do not match those of the Lords Information Office, and it is reliant on a frequently buffering visual feed as its main source of what is going on in Parliament.
23. Ocado, whose business model involves acting on feedback in real time, has removed response time measures from its call centre employees and asks them to resolve issues instead.
24. If performance indicators are reviewed to focus more on customer satisfaction, then these will help us continually improve services in real time. Together with the evaluation strand’s longer term outcome measures of customer satisfaction, over time we will be able to validate whether this approach is working.
25. A suite of measures should be implemented, including encouragement of a complaints process, giving a more systematic approach. Evaluation and feedback at point of service could be used much more widely and more consistently, given that feedback measures are currently designed and acted upon by different departments with little sharing. While these should continue to be collected by operational areas, there needs to be more standardisation of quality, and use of results across the House. We could include more user analytics obtained by the evaluation or the Customer Service team. The approach will need to include contacting customers proactively, to get feedback that has not provoked extreme reactions, but is still important.
Ocado: We couldn’t make the business case in numbers, but we just knew we needed extra staff to call back customers to find out the things they wouldn't have felt moved to call us to complain about, like wilted lettuces.
26. We also need friendly challenge on why measures such as mystery shopping cannot be adopted by more parts of the business. Benchmarking should also be conducted, using well established systems such as net promoter scores or performance against accepted facets of customer service. In addition, departments could be set less formal benchmarking objectives such as visiting and learning from others.
27. The Customer Service strand should learn from other organisations, and implement this consistently via champions in each functional area. In this way we will begin to build up measurable customer satisfaction levels, with action plans for improvements.
What private and other public sector organisations do
28. A House-wide system might include some of the mechanisms that organisations with excellent customer service commend:
A corporate customer strategy and system
A single accurate source of customer information
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A ‘living’ central complaints procedure, welcoming feedback
A consistent ‘tone of voice’, experience or brand throughout all interactions or ‘touch points’
Benchmarking against same sector organisations, or in the best companies, against customer service leaders, irrespective of sector
A team to quality assure the objective, systematic gathering of customer insight and feedback, and to relate this back to the business and customer
Not just relying on reactive feedback but seeking feedback pro-actively
Clear access to services making it ‘less effort to do business’.
29. Including, perhaps less obviously, elements around staff, not just the customer:
Feeding back to staff in real time, and involving them in service design
Empowered staff who feel able to put things right and have appropriate objectives and performance measures to help them do this
A staff recognition scheme
A staff innovation scheme
Carillion: “The Head of John Lewis Customer Service gave an inspirational talk which really influenced our approach. Managers’ jobs are to support their staff, who are much closer to the customer than managers can be. So you have to look after your staff, and involve them in service design.”
Developing a customer service strategy
30. The biggest challenge is that of culture change, to become an organisation where all staff feel able to have conversations with and pick up the telephone to customers, suggest improvements and expect to see these suggestions addressed, and see themselves as one team supporting the work of Parliament, wherever they work.
31. To do this we need to make the customer experience, and any customer strategy, ‘real’ to staff. A proven approach, which we could adopt and learn from in the mid-term (by summer recess) would be to capture customers’ experiences in real time, using apps. The customer groups could include Members, their staff, our own staff, and the public. Customer journeys could include a day or week in the life of a Member or of a member of their staff, public or contractor visits to Parliament, or setting up a new member of staff. The app would capture ratings and emotions at key touch points.
32. By playing these back to staff in workshops, staff can identify, and tell us how to address, customers’ key pain points, and equally learn from the positive experiences that customers have. A strategy, of urgent actions and longer term work needed, will come out of the customer journey mapping work, alongside staff engagement while helping them to better stand in the customers’ shoes.
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33. This work would validate and build upon what seems the obvious course of action arising from this work to date, set out below.
Implementation of recommendations
Short term – start April
a) Establish customer champions in each area.
b) Through them, review all communications for tone of voice and begin to develop customer maps and satisfaction measures in each area.
c) Establish a corporate customer team or implementation team. Through this, set standards around service, satisfaction measures and access routes. Start to collate customer feedback, act as a troubleshooting team, and collate customer interactions or intelligence on demand.
d) Adopt requirements and start procurement for an interim customer relationship system.
e) Start to procure consultants for customer journey mapping and strategy
f) Consult with key stakeholders on a two-tier complaints policy and procedure and its scope; develop and adopt this.
g) Ensure that the new staff induction process includes hearing from customers.
h) Develop proposals for a staff suggestion scheme.
i) Develop proposals for a staff (non-monetary) recognition scheme.
j) Support HR training proposals around working as ‘one team’ and with HR start developing further customer service training for staff.
k) If Lords are content, bring switchboard under the management of a customer service function, review performance measures and better integrate that team.
l) Review service of Commons Public Enquiry Line in providing backup to the switchboard throughout the working day.
m) Work with the switchboard and Pass Office to introduce quality measures around customer satisfaction and use these to pilot ‘what works’ here for customers, as a model for other teams.
Mid-term (September 2016):
n) Customer champions have reviewed customer performance measures and their quality, and use of different methods is widespread and consistent, as appropriate to services.
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o) Champions have reviewed access routes and numbers, unifying where appropriate with a primary service point and number for each significant functional area.
p) Introduce an initial benchmarking survey of internal customers.
q) Staff recognition scheme established.
r) Central complaints system established (widely advertised, feedback being collated, recorded and acted on).
s) Results of the customer journey mapping work ready for staff workshops to improve customer focus, and to develop and adopt a customer service strategy.
t) Ensure regional constituency staff events embed feedback being recorded, disseminated, and a corporate commitment to act on this feedback.
u) Implement actions prioritised through strategy work, which may involve different customer groups and what they value, prioritisation of different customer groups, work on brand, or more work with staff.
v) Establish online staff suggestion and innovation system and embed fully, with the culture change work to make it a well-used system valued by staff and managers.
w) Establish second tier of complaints system with local logging by all staff.
x) Work with HR teams to ensure that customer skills are reflected in competency framework, recruitments, in talent management and staff moves.
y) Customer service fully integrated in staff training and induction programmes.
z) Support work by DIS, CI and PDS on improving corporate information management systems, to give trusted sources of customer information and, over time, alignment or access to different customer databases.
aa) Having established baseline measures for customer satisfaction, start to get outcome measures from the evaluation strand, to show trends over time in outcomes/adjust outcome evaluation measures as necessary.
bb) Move to business as usual – determine need for a corporate customer team and lead, customer champions aligned with a Head of Customer Service for functional areas.
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Annex 5: Performance Measures
Amanda Colledge
Background and objectives
1. The Performance Measures workstream has considered how performance measures can be developed and used to increase the focus on manging performance in line with the agreed strategy.
2. The workstream has considered:
a) Design of a Performance Measurement Framework
b) Performance Measures reporting to Executive Committee
i) Operational Key Performance Indicators: approach to designing operational performance measures based on best practice
ii) Evaluation framework: overall framework for the evaluation of the strategy’s success, setting strategic outcome measures and methodologies for measuring.
3. The objective of the workstream was to:
a) Increase focus on management of performance in line with the agreed strategy
b) Ensure that Executive Committee has more meaningful performance data that allows the Committee to:
i) focus on things that matter in line with the agreed strategy
ii) understand and agree on what the organisation needs to do to deliver its objectives
iii) understand business performance
iv) take well informed decisions
c) Agree a protocol for what is reported and managed at Executive Committee and what is reported and managed departmentally/ by other boards.
Methodology and process
4. The workstream:
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a) was aligned to the Strategy workstream to ensure that the question of how the strategy would be measured was considered alongside the development of the strategy.
b) worked with the Head of Strategy, Planning and Performance to understand current processes and reporting to both Executive Committee and departmental boards
c) worked with the Customer strand on the evaluation framework and how measures could be used to drive performance.
d) consulted with the EPMO strand to understand how the framework would work for developing KPIs for programmes and projects.
e) appointed KPMG to advise on the design of a Performance Measurement Framework and approach to designing KPIs.
f) appointed a research consultant to design the Evaluation framework
g) undertook research into what other parliaments do.
What other parliaments do
5. A review of what other parliaments do has been conducted.
6. The majority of parliaments in the ECPRD network do not use key performance indicators (defined as performance indicators “connected to the strategic objectives of an institution”). 3 Parliaments that do not use KPIs include, but are not limited to, those of Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, and the USA.
7. Those parliaments that use qualitative measures of performance in addition to counting outputs largely use surveys of Members, Members’ staff, and visitors to Parliament. Countries that use such surveys include Estonia, Australia, Wales, Ireland, Poland, Northern Ireland, New Zealand, and Sweden.
8. Other measures of performance used by parliaments that may be of interest include:
a) The Welsh Assembly uses a range of measures to assess performance against its KPI relating to the external profile of the Assembly. These include, but are not limited to, the percentage of committee reports promoted by the media; research service blog views; engagement with the Assembly’s Facebook page and Twitter accounts; number of viewers of its YouTube channel; and number of Senedd.tv viewers.
b) The Irish Parliament measures performance against its objective to increase public awareness using independent market research; media monitoring of parliamentary proceedings; measurement of the number of
3 ECPRD request 2863, 5 June 2015.
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webcasting viewers and TV audience reach; and by tracking the press coverage of committees etc.
c) The Swedish Parliament in part uses the number of visitors to its website and followers of its Twitter account etc. to measure public knowledge about the Riksdag.
d) The New Zealand Parliament used a number of surveys to measure performance. This includes “a survey representative of New Zealanders”.
e) The Scottish Parliament conducts quarterly face-to-face interviews with Members, which are programmed on a rolling basis and are undertaken by senior staff. In addition, the Chief Executive delivers a quarterly performance report that measures performance against the priorities for change identified in the Parliament’s strategic plan. The Parliament also collects data on a range of output measures.
Findings and Recommendations
9. Set out below are the findings and recommendations for:
a) the design of a Performance Measurement Framework and approach to designing operational KPIs
b) an evaluation framework
Design of a performance measurement framework and approach to designing operational KPIs
Findings
10. A review of current arrangements concluded:
a) There is no overall framework for performance measures which sets how measures should be designed, reported, escalated.
b) Current reporting to Executive Committee is a mix of performance indicators and key performance indicators, with no clear link between what is being measured and how it relates to the strategy.
c) Executive Committee currently either does not review performance measures, or reviews a large quantity, without it being clear which are the critical items to be focused on.
d) Measures for projects are defined based on narrow project criteria of time and budget, with no clarity on how this impacts on overall strategic performance.
e) Some key activities aren’t monitored at Executive Committee, this links in part to how we define projects (which the EPMO strand is considering)
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f) Executive Committee is not being presented performance measures in a way that allows it to determine whether it is on track for delivering the strategy
g) Measures are reported with variable explanation as to the significance of underperformance; with corrective actions often being developed at Executive Committee.
Method and process
11. KPMG were engaged to consider the principles for and development of a Performance Measurement Framework. The framework takes account of
a) The shape of the existing service
b) The likely shape of the future service, given the new strategy
c) The vision and objectives of the services as defined in the strategy
d) The views of key stakeholders
e) Likely areas of criticality and focus given the nature of the service
12. KPMG reviewed existing materials, interviewed key stakeholders, and validated the framework with DG review team members, stakeholders and Executive Committee.
Recommendations
a) Adoption of the Objectives Goals Strategies and Measures (OGSM) Framework to ensure there is clear alignment between how the business is measured and what the results are they need to deliver. The strategy has set the objectives and the strategies by which the House Service will seek to achieve its objectives.
b) As a next step in developing the OGSM framework goals need to be developed from which measures can be designed, taking account of the following:
i) the need to make a clear distinction between performance indicators which are used to manage the performance of the service and key performance indicators which are used to check whether the House will achieve its strategy.
ii) the need to ensure an appropriate balance between leading indicators, which track problems before they incur, and lagging indicators, which are reactive or descriptive of actual results and provide performance measures.
c) The adoption of the following design principles for reporting within the framework:
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iii) delivering relevant and focused information to successive governance layers
iv) traceability of information through the levels; allowing performance issues to be isolated
v) clarity at each level on how and what to both report and escalate
vi) this gives rise to a pyramid structure of performance information and escalation:
d) the following principles are to be adopted for reporting to Executive Committee:
a) Strategic Measures to be reported, being limited high level information presented to focus discussion on strategic matters. The information will allow Executive Committee to consider: Is the organisation on track to meet plan?, updates on the progress of critical path items, and critical failures that impact Strategic areas. Information presented will allow trends to be identified / underlying causes to be explained.
b) Aggregated key operational measures (using weights to denote importance) should be reported to provide clarity of progress against goals and identify thematic issues. Departmental operational measures should be escalated to Executive Committee where the performance is indicative of a wider issue, a critical failure or major strategic/reputation impact.
c) Reporting to Executive Committee should follow an agreed format with commentary on the cause of under-performance, action taken and/or decisions required. This will help Executive Committee to focus on key questions of progress against plan and how to address critical issues.
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Evaluation Framework
13. The development of strategic measures for measuring customer satisfaction, impact and reputation have been considered.
Method and process
14. A research consultant was engaged to undertake this work. Their assessment and recommendations are based on an investigation of current and past measurement approaches, conversation with a range of stakeholders and discussion groups with key internal customers.
Findings
15. Customer Satisfaction: There is currently a diverse approach to measuring both customer satisfaction and the House’s ability to meet its objectives. There is also relatively little sharing of intelligence about customers between departments.
16. In the past there have been some cross-service measurement tools such as the Members survey between 1999 and 2012 for example. This provided useful quantitative data but was discontinued following low response rates for Members and an ongoing perception that findings were not resulting in change.
17. More recently the Members interview project and regional constituency staff events have sought to understand customer perspectives across the House. This work has been successful in providing a forum for Members and their staff to discuss their experience of House services and as an opportunity for staff from across the Service to engage with and understand Members’ roles and their needs as customers; but data quality and analysis is not consistent and tracking of actions has lost some impetus.
18. Reputation: Currently a core measure of House reputation is the Hansard Audit of Political Engagement which includes a number of variables focused on perceptions of Parliament. It provides a view on how engagement with Parliament and democracy are shifting over time; and its methodology ensures that harder to reach groups are included in the sample. But more could be made of the survey and the data it provides.
19. Impact: There is an ambition to be in a position to measure and evaluate impact across a range of House activities including, but not limited to, chamber, committee services and engagement. It has not been possible as part of this stage of the review to explore the current approach to impact in any detail.
Recommendations
20. Adoption of the proposed evaluation measurement framework to measure the reputation, impact, and customer satisfaction objectives in the strategy. This will ensure that a more robust and comprehensive set of data will be available by which the House can determine the extent to which it is delivering its strategic objectives. It is as far as possible applicable to all House services and therefore reduces the need for additional
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strategic or corporate measurement at a departmental level, while not precluding operational measures at departmental level.
a) Customer satisfaction:
i) That a new Members survey be set up
ii) Interviewing project is continued but that this is professionalised either though bringing more qualitative expertise in-house or through the use of external experts who could help to advise or capacity build.
iii) Staff survey should be explored as a means to measure services available to staff.
b) Reputation:
i) Hansard Audit of Political Engagement should be reviewed to ensure that it is being used to its full potential.
ii) Use of online panel surveys surveying both the general public and specific groups such as teachers, opinion formers or the more politically disengaged.
iii) New quantitative work would allow the House to understand more about what drives people’s views of the House as well as what more it could do to help reach these groups. Such data could be used in the design of our services.
c) Impact:
i) A full analysis is needed to understand what work is currently undertaken in this area already, what impact questions the House should be answering and how it could go about doing that in a way that recognises both the work that the House already does on this and the inherent difficulties there are in measuring impact.
d) In order to ensure the successful delivery of the framework it is also recommended that:
i) a team is created to provide the internal expertise and capacity to design, manage and analyse the various measurement tools, or to manage contractors to administer evaluation projects effectively;
ii) budget provision is created to fund the suggested tools.
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4.0 Implementation
TimeStart: 26
April30 June 30 Sept
KPIsSet Goals
and Assess Measures
Agree KPIsAgree
Thresholds and Esclation
KPIs being reported to
weekly board
Test and Refine
Strategic Measures
Consult, test and refine
Improve current measurement
tools
Commision new measurement
tools
Form evaluation
team
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Objective Measuring Approach Mode Frequency Resource Notes
Facilitating effective scrutiny and debate
Satisfaction with a range of services
Satisfaction with advice and information received
Views on ability of House services to help MPs make an impact
Survey of Members’ Offices
Paper and online
Twice a year
Internal: Could be run in-house but would require additional specialist evaluation resource External: An external contractor could be used to deliver but it would also require internal resource to manage the contract
Aim of getting a high response across offices rather than from Members
Members’ staff would act as a proxy for Members
More than one response per office would be possible
Services measured would be rotated based on business interest/need
Deep dive satisfaction data with range of services
How the House services enable MPs to do their job and make an impact
Views on quality of information and advice
Experience of how
Interviewing project: Qualitative work with Members and Members’ staff
Focus groups and depth interviews
Rolling as necessary with different focus each time.
Internal: Staff to carry out interviews/groups. New qualitative specialist capacity in-house External: If no new internal resource, use specialist consultant to build internal capacity and improve quality
Main route for direct contact with Members
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Objective Measuring Approach Mode Frequency Resource Notes
joined up House services are
Customer satisfaction with/experience of specific service
Immediate response quick poll after service received
Email sent or call made when service complete
At end of service – definition to vary
Internal: Central CS team to quality assure, receive and disseminate feedback
This function is being explored further in the CS element of the review
Experience and satisfaction with range of services at point of use
Ensures joined up working and that services are fit for purpose
Central feedback function for all services
Online or phone
Available when needed
Internal: Central CS team to receive and disseminate feedback
This function is being explored further in the CS element of the review
Experiences of providing a joined up service
Experiences of using services as internal customers
Barriers and enablers to providing best
Internal staff survey
Online Annually Internal: Experienced staff to manage contract External: Specialist staff survey provider as now Cost as now
As now but to all staff rather than just a sample
Worth exploring whether other variables could be added to measure experience of some House services
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Objective Measuring Approach Mode Frequency Resource Notes
service
Involving and inspiring the public
Understanding of role of Parliament
Reputation of House of Commons among public
Views on impact of House, MPs and Parliament on democracy
Hansard Audit of Political Engagement
Face-to-face Annually – provides ongoing time series
Internal: Experienced evaluation resource to actively and effectively manage audit External: Requires an external contractor to deliver. Costs as now or higher if spec changes
Prevalence of engagement with House of Commons to measure change over time
Satisfaction with House services by different groups
Perceived impact of Parliament and MPs on government and public debate
Online panel survey
Online As needed, potentially quarterly
Internal: Experienced evaluation resource to effectively manage the contract External: Online panel provider required costs depend on size, scope and frequency
Different customer groups could be included depending on need, for example, teachers, people on low incomes, or particular stakeholder groups
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Objective Measuring Approach Mode Frequency Resource Notes
Views of those groups not engaging with House
Effect of engagement with House on perception
Reasons for, levels of and satisfaction with engagement with House
What encourages/ discourages engagement and impacts on views and reputation
Qualitative work with general population
Focus groups and deliberative workshops
As needed / every one to two years
Internal: Experienced evaluation resource to manage contract External: Specialist qualitative research contractor. Cost variable depending on scope
Could be used to help design new services and engagement strategies
Could include harder to reach groups (not accessed by online poll)
Satisfaction with and experience of specific activities (such as outreach events, visits and tours, catering)
Potentially the impact of an
Evaluation/ feedback forms and before/after measures
Paper/ online Before and/or after each activity
Internal: Experienced evaluation resource to design, analyse and disseminate findings from forms
This function is being explored further in the CS element of the review
Need to consider how ‘ghost visitors’ are captured
Capturing the views of school children needs
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Objective Measuring Approach Mode Frequency Resource Notes
activity on customer’s views and knowledge
further thought
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Annex 6: Boards and Groups
Internal Audit
Boards, Groups and Committees – what good looks like
1. This paper provides initial guidance for current boards, groups and committees (“groups”) operating in the House of Commons. This paper describes an outline of “what good looks like” and should be read alongside the “basic checklist” which all groups should self-assess themselves against.
2. If a group answers “no” to any of the criteria on the checklist, consideration should be given as to why this is and the implications that this has. Unless the group is exceptional, and requires an unusual working method, a “no” answer should require the group to consider changing its practices in line with general guidance, merging with a similar group, or disbanding altogether.
Objective / Remit
3. Each group must have a clear objective as to why it is needed and what it will achieve. All members should be familiar with this and can identify that the work of the group is directly related to the achievement of that objective. This objective should be clearly set out in the Terms of Reference.
4. One element of this objective is to determine whether the group is “decision-making” (and therefore decisions are binding on the group and the House Service), “consultative” (and therefore can express views but decision-making – and responsibility - rests elsewhere), or “communicative” (purely to disseminate down – or up – information). Many groups may have an element of each, but should consider how clear is the demarcation – especially between decision-making and consultative.
Responsibilities
5. Each group should set out, in broad terms, what it will do to achieve its objective. Generally this will be linked to a set of Responsibilities and, within these, a set of actions that should inform the agenda / work plan of the group.
6. Clear responsibilities are essential to prevent duplication and omission, but also to ensure accountability. It is possible that some groups’ remits will overlap – in these instances the merit and need for each group should be considered carefully and groups should work together to ensure that they are providing an efficient and required service for the House. Delegation of authority, where appropriate, should be explicit in all groups’ terms of reference.
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Reporting Lines
7. Reporting lines for each group must be agreed, clear and functioning. Every group should report to either an individual or another, more senior, group. Evidence of this should be found in the minutes of that more senior group.
8. If a group expects to receive regular information from a certain source, there should be a record that this relationship is in place and operational. Similarly, it should be clear who the group reports to – be that an individual or separate group.
Outcomes
9. Some groups will be decision making, others consultative – some will be both – the important fact is that the group is clear as to what type of group it is and why. Outcomes should be monitored and actions or impact checked at each meeting. The Chair (or equivalent, suitable individual) should be responsible for ensuring that actions are carried out in a timely way and the work of the group reported.
Terms of Reference
10. Formal Terms of Reference should be available and agreed by either a central body or the committee/individual that the group reports to – but not the group itself.
11. The basic checklist details a minimum set of areas that the terms of reference should include.
12. Whilst there are some elements of process that are important to establish (membership, frequency of meetings, quorum, etc.) these are a means to an end, and focus should be on the objective and responsibilities.
Structure
13. The number, remit and reporting lines of groups in the House should complement the structure of individual delegations and responsibilities. It should then seek to work with the departmental structure. For example, a group could support the decision making process of a Director General, or offer a place for consultation to a more senior decision making group.
Membership
14. Membership should reflect the needs of the group, for example bicameral membership if decisions or discussion impact on both Houses. It should also consider the knowledge, skills and expertise that the group needs, and avoid representation for the sake of representation.
15. There is a difference between members of a group and attendees, particularly if the group is a decision-making one. Standing invitations to other (non-member) individuals can have the effect of making them de-facto members, which must be avoided. Extra
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attendees of the group should be invited on the basis of their necessity to explain or contribute to the business. Extra attendees should be invited on an ad hoc basis and in general are more appropriate for consultative groups, rather than decision making groups.
16. The number of members of a group should be considered. Generally, “decision making” groups should be, wherever possible, made up of eight members or less.
17. Each group should have suitable secretariat support. The nature of that secretariat support will vary depending on the group; minimum support required would include taking minutes and providing administrative support. Senior management committees, such as the Executive Committee, require a deeper level of secretarial support including a more formal Secretary who is competent to help (and indeed steer) the committee to adhere to its terms of reference, focus on meeting its objectives and follow up on agreed actions.
Adding value
18. Recent work has shown that around 18,500 hours are spent each year in attending meetings by House of Commons staff. Groups should regularly ask themselves:
Is there evidence that the benefit of the group and its work outweighs the cost / time of running it?
Does the group regularly carry out an effectiveness review and act on the results?
Does the group still sit in an appropriate position within the House structure?
19. Regular self-assessment and review of working practices helps to identify improvements for efficacy.
Alternatives to having a group?
20. Groups should not be afraid to ask themselves whether they are still needed and if their objectives could not be achieved in a better way.
21. Groups should not provide the same service as an individual, already working with that remit, nor should they repeat work already completed in a department.
22. If a group is purely for decision making, it should have first considered that the same decisions couldn’t be made as effectively using a different method. An alternative method would, for example, be via email – this could reduce hours spent in meetings and allow greater flexibility to staff if they are not required to physically be at work for a certain time (meetings are often scheduled for mornings).
Effectiveness
23. Groups should consider whether they are effective, not just by design but also in practice. Some common issues to consider, and the root cause for them:
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Do meetings over-run in time without good cause?
Do one or two individuals dominate discussion? Do some members contribute very little / add nothing to discussion?
Do papers get tabled at the meeting or without sufficient time to read and consider them?
Are papers long and unwieldy, taking too long to prepare for the value they add?
Do actions agreed at a meeting not get implemented the first time around and get extended?
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Checklist Self Assessment
INSERT GROUP NAME HERE
Objective / Remit
The objective of the group is clearly set out in the Terms of Reference?
The group is “decision-making” (and therefore decisions are bindings on the group and the
House Service), “consultative” (and therefore can express views but decision-making – and
responsibility - rests elsewhere), or “communicative” (so purely to disseminate down – or up –
information)
If you have chosen "a mixture" or "none of the above", please explain in more detail the split
between the different objectives of the group
Responsibilities
Delegation of responsibilitiy is explicit in the group's terms of reference?
The group has confirmed their role cannot be carried out more effectively by a different group
and/ or an individual?
The group's agenda is always linked to it's Responsibilities?
Reporting Lines
The group has clear reporting lines to an individual or another, more senior group?
Evidence of reporting lines can be found in the minutes of the more senior group?
Incomplete actions are escalated through the normal reporting lines.
Outcomes
The Chair is responsible for ensuring that actions are carried out in a timely way and the work
of the group is reported?
Outcomes are monitored and actions (or impact) checked at each meeting?
Terms of Reference
Do you have formal, complete, agreed terms of reference?
Have the terms of reference been agreed by a central body or the Committee/ individual the
group reports to?
Do you terms of reference include (as a minimum) :
frequency of meeting?
membership?
quorum?
circulation method (number of papers, date, mailing list)?
process for selection of Chair?
formal delegation of authority?
reporting lines?
statement of group objectives?
Structure
Number, remit and reporting lines of the group complements the structure of individual
delegations and responsiblities?
Please explain in more detail where the groups sits more widely in the departmental and
House structure?
Membership
Is membership of the group formally agreed?
Are maximum membership numbers enforced?
Please explain in more detail how membership of the group was decided and the maximum
membership agreed?
Are meetings are only held when a quorum is present?
Does the group have a secretary/ secretariat support?
In what circumstances are additional attendees invited to the meeting?
Adding Value
Is there evidence that the benefit of the group and its work outweighs the cost / time of
running it?
Does the group regularly carry out an effectiveness review and act on the results?
Can you give an example of a time an effectiveness review has been carried out and acted
upon?
Alternatives to having a Group
Do you have evidence that this group is not providing the same service an individual or a
different group is already carrying out?
Have alternative working methods been considered? (For example: stand up meetings,
decision making via email, paper sharing using SharePoint?)
Why was it deemed necessary to create a group to carry out this function?
Effectiveness
Do meetings over-run in time without good cause?
Do one or two individuals dominate discussion?
Do some meembers contribute very little to dicusssion?
Are papers tabled at the meeting or without sufficient time to read and consider them?
I confirm this information is correct and complete.
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Annex 7: Programmes and Projects
Charlotte Simmonds
Background and objectives
1. The Programmes and Projects workstream was established to ensure that the Director General’s Review was aligned to already commissioned bicameral studies and reviews focusing on the way programmes and projects are prioritised, planned, executed and resourced.
2. The House of Commons Governance Committee report recognised a set of future challenges for Parliament, including political and constitutional change, public engagement, efficient use of resources, and restoration of the Palace of Westminster. Further, it recognised that none of the challenges can be tackled in isolation. The Programmes and Projects workstream, building on the establishment of the Joint Investment Board, aimed to look at how programmes and projects are managed across Parliament, and to ensure that the right information supports investment decision making and investment objectives are fully realised and coordinated in the most efficient way possible.
Methodology
3. An Enterprise Programme Management Office scoping study, commissioned by the Joint Investment Board, is seeking to develop proposals for a corporate and strategic portfolio and programme office to support the Joint Investment Board and professionalise programme and project management across Parliament. Supported by WSP consultancy a discovery phase has included 68 staff interviews (30 from the House of Commons, 11 from the House of Lords and 18 bicameral staff), nine external interviews, a review of internal and external programme and project practices and documentation, benchmarking with government departments and a review of actual delivery performance (comparing final delivery dates, expenditure and benefits realisation – cost, time and quality – with original statements made in business cases) for a sample of recently completed programmes.
4. Utilising the Government’s five stage P3M3 maturity model for portfolio, programme and project management a route map for corporate programme and project management at Parliament and establishment of an EPMO has been developed. Recommendations will be presented to both Houses in April 2016.
5. The concurrent Joint Investment Board Capability and Capacity Review was undertaken by Actica Consulting to identify whether Parliament has enough of the right people with the right programme and project management skills to deliver its investment plan. The review was undertaken using a three stage approach including interviews with key stakeholders and review of in-house documentation, analysis and recommendation, and final report to the Joint Investment Board in March 2016.
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Outcomes
6. A final report, incorporating findings and recommendations from both reviews, is due to be made to the Executive Committee and House of Lords Management Board in April 2016.
Implementation
7. Subject to the approval of the Executive Committee and House of Lords Management Board, work to establish an EPMO will begin during the DGR implementation phase but will be conducted separately.
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Annex 8: Process Improvements
Martin Trott
Introduction
Background
1. The concept of rolling process improvements began to be introduced incrementally across both Houses in 2014. The then Commons and Lords Management Boards agreed that this should be done quietly without fanfare, and should be ‘light touch’ with staff in business areas identifying the processes for improvement. It was badged as ‘continuous improvement’, and some 240 ‘practitioners’ have been trained in-house in techniques to identify inefficient processes and improve them as part of business-as-usual.
The effect of the DGR
2. The Process Improvement workstream of the DGR was introduced as an enabler for the other workstreams, to test the present and proposed future organisations and to sponsor reviews of processes identified as inefficient. In parallel, during the review, the ‘light touch’ approach to process improvements in business areas has been strengthened, for example by the introduction of ‘Leads’ and the inclusion of objectives in departmental business plans.
3. In addition ExCo has agreed to a step change in ambition from the present low-key approach. Workshops have identified ways of introducing more cross-cutting process improvements and the House of Lords has agreed to join in a bicameral efficiencies programme, firmly encompassing process improvements within it and giving further impetus to them.
Methodology & Process
How work was carried out 4. Work was carried out as part of this workstream under three categories:
Planning for enhanced cross-cutting process improvements 5. Planning is in place for an increased level of improvements across the House, enhancing the cross-cutting nature of the reviews and suggesting ways to do so. For example by holding workshops looking at the barriers and potential solutions to carrying out improvement work and in parallel by introducing an efficiencies programme creating an incentive to become more efficient.
6. The present approach to improving processes can now be stepped up. A new structure with fewer silos would encourage more improvement of cross-cutting processes and ExCo will be asked to support a more robust approach than the ‘low key’ launch of continuous improvement. The efficiencies programme will be a key enabler, overcoming the view that improvements to processes are unnecessary.
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Reviewing processes to improve them 7. Suggestions for process improvements and proposals and ideas sent to [email protected] were taken forward by the Continuous Improvement team under this workstream.
Supporting the DGR while strengthening business as usual 8. The workstream supported the review by working with other workstreams while at the same time reinforcing the business as usual approach to process improvements across Parliament.
Increasing the number of process improvements and establishing cross-cutting reviews 9. Four workshops have been run during the DGR looking at barriers and potential solutions to improving processes in Parliament.
Cross Cutting Reviews 10. Staff were asked: ‘As an organisation, how do we introduce wider cross-cutting reviews to prioritise our resources and remove duplication?’ The following issues and potential solutions were suggested:
Issues Silos focus on their own service rather than thinking about what the customer expects
from the House Service as a whole.
Suggestions for changes from staff on the ground have to pass through many layers of management – unclear why/where decisions are made.
Silo working means we are never quite sure of the end-to-end customer journey – trained practitioners come up against barriers to improving processes.
There is no ‘burning platform’ to make the case for doing this – there ought to be an agreed strategy from ExCo.
Solutions ExCo must provide a stronger lead
Working groups – representatives from each department could meet on a semi-regular basis to feed in ideas for cross-cutting reviews.
Rationalise, as a business, which functions we centralise. Devolution of powers and roles to departments may have gone too far.
Having explicit ExCo support and the sponsorship of a senior leader when carrying out a process improvement is key to actually getting the work done.
Ideas box – we need ideas from staff who are directly affected by issues. Highlight staff who are making valuable suggestions.
Give staff dedicated time to focus on improvement work – show that we value this work as an organisation.
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Previous strategies were too vague. Everybody should be following one clear strategy. Business plans all need to follow the same template and CI can contribute to making this happen.
An efficiencies programme would provide the impetus for carrying out larger cross-cutting process improvements.
Examples of improvements to cross-cutting processes
New Starters IT 11. The CI team mapped the current process for setting up a new member of staff with IT access. The main form for requesting a Parliament Network Account was not electronic and the process could involve completing up to six different Word and Excel forms.
12. The main form for requesting a Parliament Network Account is now electronic and online and work is underway to transfer the remaining forms online.
13. The CI team have mapped, with the three HR Departments and the Pass Office, the process of getting a new starter’s pass number – and introduced improvements to the process to avoid delays.
14. HR are producing proposals for a revamp of the induction process and a test-case desk order is being carried out.
Setting up Members’ on the House of Commons Finance System 15. The current process for adding Members’ financial details to the House Finance system sees Members’ details go from DCCS, to DHRC, to DFin, to PDS, back to DHRC, then back to DFin. This is because various individuals have different access rights in HAIS.
16. Following a review of the process, DFin are introducing a solution which will rationalise the system’s access rights and reduce the process to involve only two departments – DCCS & DFin – resulting in a much faster and more efficient service to Members.
Hansard Transcriptions 17. An issue was raised about the time needed to reformat Hansard transcriptions before uploading them to the Parliament website. A new template has been created for use by committee staff and Hansard are working with PDS to resolve the outstanding issues.
Suggestions from staff 18. The workstream has looked into a number of potential service improvement issues raised by staff via [email protected]. A range of issues have been addressed including the supply of bottled water to committee rooms and the current process for lobbying MPs.
MTIP & MTFP processes 19. Two major cross-cutting processes were scheduled for review in late February and early March. Reviews are being carried with the Directors of Finance of both Houses to examine the current MTIP and MTFP processes.
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Supporting the DGR while strengthening business as usual
20. The Process Improvement workstream has undertaken work to support the other workstreams, for example by producing case studies used to support Internal Audit’s work on the Boards and Groups workstream and in examining synergies between this and the Customer Service workstream.
21. To reinforce the business as usual approach to process improvement and to lead into the increase the take up and effect, during the DGR, the following has been introduced:
CI Leads 22. Leads have been established in each department of the House of Commons, tasked with coordinating CI activity within their department and helping to ensure that Business Plan CI commitments are carried out.
Business Plans 23. All departments have been mandated to include commitments to carry out specific CI reviews in their 2016/17 Business Plans and BMDs are being given help and guidance.
Training Courses 24. Regular training courses have continued during the DGR to increase the numbers of staff trained in process improvement tools and techniques to approximately 190 in the House of Commons and Digital Service and approximately 240 across Parliament.
CI Objectives 25. All CI Practitioners have been encouraged to include CI related objectives in their IPRs in the new reporting year and, if they are managers, in the IPRs of their teams.
Implementation
26. Process Reviews begun under the DGR will be completed by 31 March 2016 and implementation of improvements will follow quickly. Ideas from staff will all be followed up and positive feedback given.
27. From 1 April 2016 process improvement will become part of the efficiencies programme, under which it will be one of the tools and techniques that departments of the House can use to meet targets for efficiency improvement, whilst remaining an enabler for other areas such as Customer Service.
28. The efficiencies programme will give added impetus to the concept of process improvement overcoming the impression that there is no ‘burning platform’.
29. Process improvements should become the first step in considering a case for change.
30. Fewer silos in a more efficient House structure will enhance the opportunities for cross-cutting process improvements and remove some of the barriers that have been in place up to now.
31. Under the Director General, ExCo will provide more explicit support for process improvement and the low key approach will be replaced by a more high profile, more cross-cutting approach.
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Annex 9: Shared Services
Martin Trott
Introduction
Background
1. The Shared Services workstream was established to ensure that the Director General’s Review was in step with the introduction of the bicameral Joint Working Programme agreed by the House of Commons Commission and the House of Lords House Committee.
2. The Commission and the Lords House Committee discussed the preliminary report on joint working at their respective meetings in October and November 2015 and during the DGR, and concurrently with it, a Joint Working programme has been set up, a Programme Board established, a team resourced, workstream leaders identified and work has begun.
3. The agreed workstreams for the first tranche of the programme are as follows:
further work to align terms and conditions between the two Houses and the Parliamentary Digital Service
further work on the possibilities for aligning the HR and Finance IT systems
drafting of outline business cases detailing the opportunities for joint working in six business areas:
o Official Report
o Catering
o In-house cleaning
o Diversity and inclusion
o Learning and development
o Internal audit
Methodology and Process
4. The main focus for the programme is to identify where improvements to service delivery or efficiencies can be made through joining up, either through reduced administration, less duplication or better use of resources. There are clear links within this to other strands of the Director General’s Review and as the joint working programme progresses it will be careful to include these within its planning, subject to agreement from the House of Lords. The principles that underline the programme are that increased joint working should:
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a) respect the constitutional position of each House
b) show a demonstrable increase in value for money (including from indirect benefits)
c) unless otherwise agreed deliver at least the same service level as currently exists to Members of each House
d) support each House’s corporate objectives and voice.
5. A Programme Manager and Programme Support Officer form the central team and are running the programme with light-touch MSP methodology reporting to a Programme Board chaired jointly by the Director General of the House of Commons and the Clerk of the Parliaments. The Board includes the two Finance Directors and the two HR Directors. Business Leads have been identified for each of the Joint Working workstreams and the central team will assist them in drafting Outline Business Cases following the Treasury ‘green book’ model. This will mean that a preferred option for each workstream will be evaluated based on cost, benefit and risk.
6. The Joint Working Programme Director has been part of the DGR team and has acted as the conduit between the two pieces of work. This has ensured that the two were harmonious and that the DGR did not inadvertently propose changes that would hinder further joint working between the two Houses.
Timetable for the programme and implementation
7. Outline Business Cases following the Treasury ‘green book’ model will be drafted for each of the six business areas in the first tranche. Those for the less complex areas such as Learning and Development and Internal Audit are expected to be drafted by May 2016 and those for the more complex areas by the summer recess.
8. In order to produce the business cases, business areas will assess a range of options from ‘do nothing’ to a fully merged service. These will be narrowed down to a short list of feasible options and then evaluated against cost, benefit and risk. The business cases will also assess the strategic, commercial, financial, and management case of the preferred way forward.
9. Once the business cases have been evaluated, papers summarising the options with a recommendation will be brought to the Commission and to the House Committee in the Lords. If the executive and member bodies endorse the proposal, then the Clerk of the Parliaments and the Director General will be asked to sign off the business case. The detailed plan and timetable for implementation will depend upon the nature of the recommendations and will be covered in the Outline Business Case.
10. Once the first tranche of business cases are underway the programme will move on to the business areas which were noted as having high benefits but also high barriers in the preliminary report on joint working. The development of business cases for this second tranche will learn from the lessons in the first tranche but it is expected that they will follow the same process and methodology.
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Annex 10: Communications
Marianne Cwynarski
Communications to date
1. The DGR workstream responsible for developing communication and engagement activities for internal stakeholders has to date delivered:
For staff, communication activities including: organising leadership events; holding ten interactive workshops on the key areas of the review (for example, on Customer Service and Strategy); sending out updates on progress (approximately once a fortnight); regular articles in newsletters and the intranet (including dedicated webpages and FAQs on the Review). In addition, all staff were actively encouraged to send ideas and suggestions to the review team via [email protected].
For Members and Members’ staff, communication activities including: intranet news items on the Members and Members’ staff webpages; invitations to surgeries and open door policy; articles in Members’ newsletter (Commons Monthly); ‘What’s On’ promotions; updates to the Administration and Finance Committees.
2. A full list of communications activities so far is provided at Section 2.
Planned Communications
3. To ensure that there is not a communication vacuum between the Commission meetings on 14 March and 25 April, the DGR team has sought the Commission's permission to communicate the broad proposals, during this period, to senior managers, staff and Members, making clear that these are subject to final sign off by the Commission on 25 April.
4. The next stage of the Director General’s Review (Stepping Up) will be launched after the Commission meeting on 25 April, to deliver the Review’s implementation plan. A completion date will be set for this phase. Key communications objectives are:
To ensure delivery of agreed actions.
To ensure regular communications with all audiences.
To maximise opportunities for consultation/engagement.
To ensure consistency of messaging across departments.
To empower colleagues to take responsibility for delivery.
To reduce uncertainty about developments, especially with areas most affected by proposals.
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Communication activities so far
5. Below is a full list of communication activities since November and links to articles where possible.
November
2 November 2015 - Email to all staff announcing the DG's Review ( PDF 435 KB)
18 November 2015 - Email to all staff about the DG's Review ( PDF 620 KB)
Leadership event – 24 November
25 November 2015 - Highlights from the senior leadership event including a presentation on the DG's Review ( PDF 598 KB)
Intranet pages
December
ExCo meeting update (5 December) – summary of key decisions/actions
15 December 2015 - Email to all staff with an update on progress ( PDF 422 KB)
15 December news item – videos
News item for staff: Q&A sessions with the Clerk | Meet the Director General
ExCo update – DGR introduction
CAPS News article – Interview
Managers’ Briefing
January
News item on workshops
ExCo meeting update (15 January) – summary of key decisions/actions
14 January 2016 - Email to all staff with an update on progress ( PDF 269 KB)
Director General's Review - FAQs ( PDF 621 KB)
News item inviting Members for contribution – surgeries
Leadership event – 26 January (updates on DGR)
27 January 2016 - Highlights from the senior leadership event including presentations ( PDF 4.91 MB)
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CAPS News (staff)
ExCo update – general info
February
What’s on in February – Members (surgeries)
What’s on in February – staff (meet the DG)
3 February – staff workshops
12 February 2016 - Executive Committee summary including discussions on the DG's Review ( PDF 402 KB)
ExCo update – update on workstreams
Commons Monthly – Director General's drop-in surgeries (Members) Commons Monthly – key contacts (Members)
ExCo meeting update (12 February) – summary of key decisions/actions
Managers’ Briefing
March
1 March 2016 - Email to all staff with an update on progress ( PDF 493 KB)
News item (Members) – key contacts