At the Offices of the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales

OMBUDSMAN ASSOCIATION

HR INTEREST GROUP

The 21st meeting on Thursday 2 October 2014

at the offices of The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales,

Present

Niki Maclean (Chair) (NM)Scottish Public Services Ombudsman

Carl Gehler (CG)Public Services Ombudsman for Wales

Chris Vinestock (CV)Public Services Ombudsman for Wales

Helen Wilson (HW)Scottish Public Services Ombudsman

Larry Rush (LR)Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner

Margaret Allcock (MA)Adjudicator’s Office

Michaela Hanbuerger (MH)Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education

1. Welcome and Introductions

NM welcomed members to the Group’s meeting and thanked CG, CV and the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales (PSOW) for hosting. Members introduced themselves, their respective schemes and roles and CV introduced himself to the group as the representative for PSOW at the HR group as CG will be returning to his role as Review Manager and handing over HR responsibility to CV.

NM noted that on this occasion there were fewer schemes represented which was disappointing.

1. Overview of The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales

CG and CV presented to the group on the history and functions of PSOW. The office has responsibility for reviewing complaints about public services with the jurisdiction of health services, local authorities, the Welsh government, social landlords and allegations about councillors. There are around 60 members of staff at PSOW with complaint-handling staff working across all jurisdictions either in the Complaints Advice Team providing the frontline service, managing new complaints and signposting with two investigations teams which are responsible for producing reports.

On the 1 August 2014, Nick Bennett joined as Ombudsman and is prioritising projects around innovation and influence. Innovation is to consider complaints coming to the office, examining processes, structure and how the office meets increasing demands on services in the face of limited resources. Influence focuses on promoting good complaints handling practice externally and ensuring that complaints that come to the office are correct and not a result of failures in external complaints handling.

There is no specialist HR department but PSOW have an ongoing contract for HR services with Capsticks and an HR Advisor provides onsite support primarily for managers for one day per fortnight. The majority of HR activities, such as policies, procedures, etc. are managed internally but PSOW will take advice from Capsticks. The group discussed the benefits of a HR shared services provision for smaller organisations and the advantage of an on-site HR presence which can diffuse situations, allowing staff as well as managers to air any issues before they escalate to a formal process such as a grievance, disciplinary, etc.

1. Minutes of previous meeting

Some members hadn’t seen the minutes of the meeting held at the Legal Ombudsman in April so NM summarised some of the points made around health and wellbeing, resilience, HR metrics, performance management and recruitment of secondees.

1. Staff Survey – Employee engagement and satisfaction benchmarking, outcomes and learning from strengths

HW presented the findings of the SPSO staff survey carried out in February/March this yearin conjunction with the review of Investors in People (presentation attached). An internal survey was conducted using Survey Monkey and the 2008 SPSO survey and Scottish Government 2013 surveys were used as a benchmark. The return rate was high, at 96% of the sample responding. The analysis of the survey and IIP findings were used to gauge staff engagement, to work on areas for immediate improvement and to help design the people management plan for 2014-15 and a focus on health and wellbeing and learning and development.

The overall findings were very positive with SPSO staff having a strong engagement in their role, the organisation, leadership and management,internal communications, learning and development opportunitiesand a positivity around the policies and practices that support equal opportunities, diversity and work-life balance. On the whole, the survey results were much more positive than in previous years, and compared to the Scottish Government survey however there were still some important areas for improvement. This included organisational resources, consistent management approaches, working practices and moresupport to manage difficult customers. There were some responses that were difficult to evaluate and the evidence appeared to be conflicting, such as in attitudes to leadership and management which were generally positive but some comments in the survey and findings from IIP highlighted specific areas for improvement. There were also concerns where some staff indicated that they felt unable to report instances of bullying and harassment without it having a negative impact on them.

MH discussed the findings from the OIAHE survey which was carried out in June/July this year by the Institute for Employment Studies and noted some similarities to the SPSO survey. There were some concerns over the anonymity of Survey Monkey and IES carried out the Housing Ombudsman survey and the OIAHE 2012 previously. Questions were developed based on the previous survey and included 86 attitude statements which were linked to key indicators relating to work such as learning and development, equal opportunities, etc.. The questions were also narrowed down from the previous survey to gain more specific results, for example bullying and harassment was defined between manager and service users. In this second survey, they were able to benchmark against previous data. The response rate this year was 92% which was down from the previous year.

Externally facilitated focus groups were also carried out after the survey and these focused on morale, motivation, organisational change and consultation; targets, workload and people management practices; and internal and external communications. The messages from the focus groups were a useful way to understand some of the more specific issues leading to the particular engagement levels in each area. It also helped staff to feel that their concerns were being addressed and the issues raised directly fed into things like the service improvement group, the staff liaison group. The previous staff survey also raised a number of concerns about management which led to a bringing together of casework approvers and managers.

Some members of the group were considering carrying out a survey or hadn’t conducted one for some time so the discussion centred around approaches, questions, timing and how surveys can be used to develop individuals as well as the organisation.

The group discussed approaches to surveying and the benefits of using a combined survey and focus group approach which helps to qualify responses. The discussion also focused on using external organisations or conducting surveys internally and the benefits and difficulties in these approaches. An external organisation has the knowledge and specialism to design the survey and analyse the results whereas this can be a costly exercise. On the other hand, there are significant cost savings to be made by managing the survey internally, however analysis takes a lot of time.

There was also some consideration of the questions used in surveys and the way that staff interpret and answer questions. For example, SPSO received a number of ambiguous responses to some questions and similarly OIAHE experienced this but this year were able to create more specific and relevant questions to improve the interpretation of staff attitudes. It was also considered important to establish the right questions the first time to be able to benchmark effectively and a survey which has been designed by an external specialist is a good way to achieve this.

The timing that surveys are sent out was also deliberated, where a survey might not have been carried out for a long time or organisational changes have taken place, it can be difficult to anticipate what the results will be. However this was also viewed as a positive as it provides a very useful benchmark for the future and helps the organisation to focus on important areas to make improvements.

The group also discussed actions after a survey has been carried out and the importance of planning around this. NM explained that following the SPSO survey, the findings were presented to staff and recommendations from the survey helped to form the people management plan and actions for the year. The survey data was also split into team results which was shared with managers as part of their performance reviews and which helped managers to focus on areas to improve. As this related to personal performance information, managers were left to decide how much of the survey they shared with their team. The survey would not form the basis of capability or performance issues but it helps to build development planning around improving the scores. The group discussed performance measures and their importance in challenging behaviours.

The group also considered the importance of sharing findings and learning from other schemes’ surveys. There may be some benefit to the OA group sharing some survey questions so that the analysis can incorporate and benchmark against other similar schemes.

1. Employment Law Update – a summary of current changes plus tips and advice for sharing

See Appendix 1

1. Open Forum

Disability needs assessments and adjustments to targets

MH introduced the discussion on approaches disability needs assessments and in particular what to do in circumstances where an individual doesn’t disclose details of their disability. The difficulty of non-disclosure of disabilities and whether an employer can be held accountable if it isn’t known. Some individuals might not consider themselves to have a disability and it is therefore not for employers to decide. The group discussed the adjustment of targets, whilst maintaining quality and that managers should ensure that in their discussions with all staff, that they are aware of anything that affects performance.

Review of appraisal process and targets

MH was interested to hear the group’s approaches to performance management which include annual and interim reviews and monthly on to ones. Not all schemes work to monthly targets, although annual targets may be discussed at monthly meetings with any problems achieving annual targets would be addressed half way through the year. NM referred to David Lowrie who has recently requested information from the group to carry out a review of performance management systems.

Office move and HR impacts

MH to liaise with LR and the Legal Ombudsman about office moves.

Grading and job evaluation

MH to liaise with Legal Ombudsman about their recent job evaluations

Recruitment

LR described the difficulties OISC have been experiencing to recruit an IT developer. The group considered using agencies or secondment opportunities however others have experienced similar issues recruiting and had to upgrade junior IT roles to senior positions and pay a higher premium to attract candidates.

Service delivery review/complaints

LR was interested to hear how other schemes manage service delivery complaints as they are considering a review of the process at OISC. CG described the process at PSOW which is managed in-house although they are also considering and external review process. Currently the Corporate Services Manager who is removed from complaints handling and who would interview staff on the circumstances of the case. MH confirmed that at OIAHE the Chief Operating Officer would also interview their staff. NM confirmed that the SPSO process is noted on their website and an independent service delivery reviewer considers complaints.

1. Matters for discussion at future meetings

Resilience

1. Any other business

MA referred to the training project commissioned by the Ombudsman Association Executive Committee which is currently considering principles and standards, accreditation and skills and knowledge.

1. Date and location of next meeting

To be confirmed

Appendix 1 – Employment Law and HR Interest Topics – Oct 2014

Recent EL Updates/Last 6 months

• Employment Tribunal Reform

-Covered in previous employment law update but worth mentioning that there have been significant drops to the number of ET cases since fees were introduced (April to June 2014 saw a 70% fall in individual claims compared to the same period in 2013)

-UNISON’s judicial review, challenging the introduction of fees, lost case but mainly because the case was considered premature without there being enough evidence of the impact of the new fees. They sought to challenge the introduction of fees on the basis that it discriminated against protected groups (lower incomes), contravenes EU law (difficult to exercise rights covered by EU directives) and a breach of the public sector equality duty (differential impact of fees on people with lower incomes). UNISON are appealing case and possibility of a fresh challenge (judgement required Lord Chancellor must review/adjust if a discriminatory impact found).

• June 2014 Right to Request Flexible Working

-From 30 June 2014 right extended to all employees with 26 weeks’ service and employer duty to consider all requests “in a reasonable manner” but requests can still be refused under existing “business” reasons. Decision period of 3 months.

-ACAS code of practice covers balancing requests where some are for protected groups, approved requests change business context so review against current business context, volunteers to change existing arrangements.

• Illegal working penalties

• Civil penalty for employers who employ overseas immigrants unlawfully has increased from £10k to £20k and revised code of practice (checking at beginning of employment and at permit expiry, replacing requirement for annual checks and new duty to retain copy of University timetables to ensure work doesn’t exceed legally permitted weekly hours)

• Oct 2014 increase to National Minimum Wage

Standard adult rate £6.50

Development rate 18-20 £5.13

Young workers 16-17 £3.79

Apprentice £2.73

• Oct 2014 Right to time off for ante-natal appointments

Fathers and partners of pregnant women and intended parents in a surrogacy case (meeting conditions) are entitled to unpaid leave to attend 2 ante-natal appointments

Future EL Developments

• General election in May 2015 means there is limited scope to introduce new measures in employment law
• Shared parental leave from Dec 2014

52 weeks’ leave and 39 weeks’ pay entitlement but parents can opt for Shared Parental Leave and Pay if they meet qualifying requirements. Leave must be in complete weeks and can be taken in a continuous or discontinuous period and can be taken separately or concurrently. ACAS are currently drawing up guidance.

• Zero Hours Contracts

Provisions in the Small Business, Enterprise Bill which has been laid before parliament to ban exclusivity clauses. Development of code of practice by end 2014.