appendices to final report

Version 1.0 Strategic Workforce Development Review – HR and Training - Appendices of 74

Essex County Fire & Rescue Services

Strategic Workforce Development Review

HR and Training

Appendices

to Final Report


Table of Contents

Appendix 3.1 – List of EFRS interviewees...................................................................................3

Appendix 3.2 – List of key documents.........................................................................................4

Appendix 3.3 – List of organisations contacted..........................................................................8

Appendix 3.4 – Minutes from Benchmark meetings ...................................................................9

Appendix 3.5 – Table of 8 core documents ...............................................................................37

Appendix 4.1 - HR Service Assessment ....................................................................................38

Appendix 4.2 - Proposed Customer Groups, HR ......................................................................42

Appendix 4.3 - Current HR headcount and FTEs by role..........................................................43

Appendix 4.4 - Current HR Budget .............................................................................................44

Appendix 4.5 – Training and Development Process.................................................................45

Appendix 4.6 - The TASK Book ..................................................................................................46

Appendix 4.7 - Training courses.................................................................................................49

Appendix 4.8 - Possible Customer Groups - Training ..............................................................50

Appendix 4.9 - Training Department FTEs.................................................................................51

Appendix 4.10 - External Training Spend 2010 .........................................................................52

Appendix 4.11 – ECFRS 2010/11 Training Budget ....................................................................53

Appendix 5.1 Evaluation of HR and Training measures...........................................................54

Appendix 5.2 Definition of KPIs used for Benchmarking.........................................................55

Appendix 6.1 – HR Effectiveness Scorecard – Definition of Key Services.............................67

Appendix 6.2 – Training Effectiveness Scorecard – Definition of Key Services ....................71

Please note that all appendices are numbered to reflect the chapter they support within the Final Report ‘Strategic Workforce Development Review – HR and Training’.


Appendix 3.1 – List of EFRS interviewees

Face‐to‐face interviewsFace‐to‐face interviews provide a rich source of evidence and allow for dialogue on key issues as they emerge throughout the review. The CMC team have interviewed the following from across the Service:

SMB• David Johnson, CFO and CE• Adam Eckley, DCFE Service Support & DCE• Gordon Hunter, DCFO Service Delivery• Mike Clayton, Director of Finance• Mark Wilson, T/ACFO and Director Workforce of Development (interim up to 15th Jan 2011)• Paul Bowers, T/ACFO and Director Workforce of Development (interim from 15th Jan 2011 onwards)• Paul Hill, ACFO Service Delivery• Roy Carter, Solicitor

Training• Alan Martin, DO and Training and Development Manager• Steve Hart, BA Training Manager• Wendy Marshall, e‐Learning Manager

Human Resources• Victoria Crosby, HR Business Partner (interim Head of HR up to 15th Jan 2011)• Sally Froment, HR Business Partner (interim Head of HR from 15th Jan onwards)• Wendy McGuinness, HR Business Partner

Service Delivery (in addition to SMB)• Ray Skinner, Community Commander, Braintree & Uttlesford• Tony Clark, Station Manager, Orsett• Danny Fearn, Community Commander

Command and Control• Val Pluck, Control

Support Services• Jan Swanwick, Head of ICT


Appendix 3.2 – List of key documents This chapter includes the list of the key documents we have been provided and used as part of this review. Ref Source Document

name Summary of contents Application (chapter in report) ECFRS

Comment 1 Mark

Wilson, e‐mail dated 1/12

WFD Structure ‐ Support & Client Interface + Function Structure. PPT doc

Four slides headed: 1) Workforce development service support / client interface pyramid 2) Functional structure 3) Proposed new HR structure 4) Proposed structure ‐ summary of changes and benefits

Provides an understanding of the current OD for Workforce Development. (Current state definition) Provides recommendations for changes. (Recommendations and action plan) Defines the financial benefits from those changes. (Recommendations and action plan)

2 Victoria, e‐mail dated 29/11

HR Structure and staffing Costs – budgeted and interim Word Doc

Four slides headed: 1) 2010‐2011 Budgeted (Actual) HR Structure 2) 2010‐2011 Budgeted HR Structure Staffing Costs 3) 2010 Interim HR Structu+D6re (following departure Dir. WFD and pending completion of review) ‐ 4) 2010 Interim HR Structure Staffing Costs

Provides an understanding of the current OD for HR and the costs associated. (Current state definition)

None


HR Vision, Values and Behaviours PPT Doc

Fourteen slides setting out the vision, mission, values and behaviours of the Human Resources function. Defines 6 core values in a wheel

Provides an indication of the future for Human Resources and stresses the importance of values and behaviours. (Current state definition)

Victoria: This is an ......."initial proposal to inform the development of a departmental vision, mission and values for the HR service. "


Change Readiness Report Word Doc

Basic questionnaire showing results from engagement with the HR team. Response are rated on a scale of 1 to 10, aligned to "strongly

Provides basic insight into thoughts and feedback from HR team. Questions are vague and need to understand the application and usefulness of the answers.

Results of Alexander questionnaire distributed to team


Ref Source Document name

Summary of contents Application (chapter in report) ECFRS Comment

agree" through to "strongly disagree"

No richness or qualitative feedback included in this document, only quantitative.


HR Training Business Plan ‐ Part 1 Word Doc

Business plan for HR and Training ‐ dated September 2010, written by Victoria and Alan. Sets out: ‐ Service Strategy ‐ Ambition ‐ Performance ‐ Business Plan and Activity Breakdown ‐ Risk Register ‐ Staff Plan ‐ Financial Plan

Provides plan for both HR and Training functions. Align, challenge and supplement these ideas. (Current state definition, Recommendations and action plan)

Victoria ‐ "Draft Business Plans – the first part covers five‐year vision,etc.). Part two breaks this further"


HR Training Business Plan ‐ Part 2 Excel Doc

Sets out the business plan activities against a number of corporate criteria ‐ including strategic objectives, statutory requirements, dependencies, constraints, capital and revenue costs etc. Should be read in conjunction with the plan narrative set‐out above.

Provides plan for both HR and Training functions. Align, challenge and supplement these ideas. (Current state definition, Recommendations and action plan)

See above.


Transformation Board Paper – HR Performance 2010 Word Doc

Written by Victoria/Mark Wilson for the Transformation Board, dated 21st July 2010. Summarises the performance of HR from 2007 to 2010

Provides an assessment of performance by ECFRS. Align, challenge and supplement these ideas. (Current state definition, Recommendations and action plan)

Paper purpose is described as: This report has been prepared to inform the Board of the work undertaken in the transformation of Human Resources Dept.

8 Alan, e‐mail dated 29/11

Organisation structure for Training and Development. 2010. Word Doc

Sent through by Alan Martin, this is a single page showing the Training and Development organisation structure as at October 2010. Includes names and volumes of FTEs

Provides current state definition for Training and Development. (Current state definition)

In addition to this structure there are documents on Career progression




9 Mark Wilson, e‐mail dated 29/11

URL ‐ linking to online benchmark data

This is a URL which links to online consulting benchmark HR data for UK Government.

Provides a source of secondary research for qualitative benchmarking. Data needs challenging and outliers removed (e.g. There are some organisations with less than 0% of their cost on HR.) Once challenged and refined, this data provides examples of best practice and upper, median and lower quartile performance. Good source but need to supplement with richer benchmark data. (Benchmarking)

Discussed with Mark Wilson.


HR and T&D Review ‐ draft report 25.10.10 Word Doc

Draft of the final report by Alexander. Limited to no use.

None. CMC will work from source data.

None.


HR Data and Analysis by Alexander, Sept and Oct 2010. Excel Docs

A total of four excel workbooks with multiple worksheets within each file. Base data and analysis.

CMC will work from base data. None.


Retained SLA 2011 (2) SLA Draft Oct 2009 Copy of SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT BP's 2007 word docs

Four documents outlining current SLA for Retained recruitment, for BPs and an old BP SLA. BP SLA outlines the services and ad hoc support to managers Recruitment SLA describes the activities that should be done by whom and key timelines for 2011

Will be referred to in the current state definition


Link to the survey monkey survey

Results from a survey monkey survey of HR performance, done with 21 selected line managers

used as a reference in the performance assessment section

HR team felt that this proved that the business




URL link

appreciates and values the HR service


People Strategy 20100004 Word doc

Sets out the key priority areas of WfD over the coming period:• People – how we will make best use of our resources • Knowledge and skills – how we deliver our services • Reward – how we recognise everyone’s contribution • Employee Relations – working together • Fitness and wellbeing – how we stay well Within each of them describes the ambition and way of working

Used as a reference in commenting on the strategic business requirements

This was developed by Richard Hopper a while ago and now needs to be re‐developed


Retained Recruitment summary 2010 Excel doc

Tracking sheet for all candidates for the induction training, and their results from tests.

used as a reference in the current state definition

RDS recruitment is very difficult and time consuming

16 Paul, link from email 4/1

IRMP_2010_FINAL_LOW_RES_1 pdf Doc

Vision and strategic objectives, actions, risks, concerns for the next three years ‐ mention of the support service reviews, finished with a survey.

Will inform the strategic business requirements

None


Appendix 3.3 – List of organisations contacted This appendix lists the organisations visited as part of the benchmarking element of the review.

# Organisation Contact Visited Data included in Report (notes or KPIs)

Responses ongoing

Judith Doran, Head of Human Resources (including non‐operational training)Chris Ennis, DCFO Service Delivery (including operational training)

2 Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service Judi Beresford, Head of Human Resources Yes Yes YesJan Burns, Director of People and Organisational DevelopmentKeith Brooks, Head of Policy, Improvement and

4 County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service

Stuart Errington, Director of Organizational and People Development

Yes Yes Yes

5 Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service Bob Warren, Director of People & Development Yes Yes Yes6 East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service Cheryl Rolph, ACO People and Organisational Yes Yes7 South Wales Fire and Rescue Service Phil Haynes, ACO and Head of People Services Yes Yes Yes8 Cleveland Fire and Rescue Service Carol McCletchie, Director of Business and

Workforce DevelopmentNo No

Head of Human Resources (TBC)Simon Routh‐Jones, DCFOLynn Swift, Head of Human ResourcesJason Thelwell, ACFO Support ServicesAdrian Crook, DCFOAndy Beale, DCFOTracy Crump, HR ManagerRichard Heffer, Training Delivery ManagerDavid Wallace, Director of HRStephen Buck, Head of L&DPaul Walker, DCFO & Head of Community Safety

Steve Brown ‐ AM ‐ Dept Head, Training & Gayle Seymour ‐ CFRS HR Business Consultant (CFRS Des Tidbury ‐ CFOTed Simpson ‐ ACFO ‐ Head of Service Delivery

14 West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service Bob Anderson, Senior Training and Development Yes Yes15 Kent Fire and Rescue Service Ann Millington, Chief Executive Yes Yes16 Avon Fire and Rescue Service Maggie Harte, Director of HR and People Yes Yes Yes17 Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Anita Wainwright, Director of People and Yes No Yes18 South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service Mark Shaw, ACFO and Director of Service Yes Yes19 Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue Service

(County Council governed)Debbie Yeates, HR Yes No Yes

Chris Anderson, DCFOAndy Trowsdale, ACFO

21 Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service CFO No No22 Dorset Fire and Rescue Service CFO No No23 Humberside Fire and Rescue Service CFO No No24 Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service CFO No No25 Shropshire and Wrekin Fire and Rescue CFO No No26 Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service CFO No No27 Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service CFO No No28 Beds and Luton Fire and Rescue Service CFO No No29 Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue CFO No No

Andrew Warren, Director of ResourcesNeil Newbury, ACFO

31 Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service CFO No No32 West Midlands Fire and Rescue Service CFO No No33 London Fire Brigade CFO No No34 Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service CFO No No35 Lothian and Borders Fire and Rescue

ServiceCFO No No

Yes

No No

No Yes

Yes Yes

No Yes

Yes Yes Yes

Yes

No No

Yes Yes Yes

20 North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service

30 Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

3 Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service

Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service

Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service

Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service

Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service

Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service

Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service

13

1

9

10

11

12

Where responses are still ongoing, the KPIs from the remaining organisations will be included in an updated version of the report.


Appendix 3.4 – Minutes from Benchmark meetings This appendix lists the organisations visited as part of the benchmarking element of the review. This appendix contains all the anonymised meeting notes from the Benchmarking interviews conducted with mainly the heads of HR and Training from within 11 Fire and Rescue Services in the UK. The organisations are:

1. Avon and Somerset FRS 2. Cheshire FRS 3. Cornwall FRS 4. Derbyshire FRS 5. Durham and Darlington FRS 6. East Sussex FRS 7. Kent FRS 8. Lancashire FRS 9. South Wales FRS 10. Staffordshire FRS 11. West Yorkshire FRS

3.4.1 CFA FRS – 18 Feb 2011 Info and Best Practice HUMAN RESOURCES

Director People and OD

Employee Relations

Employee Services L&D

HRIS project

(COA) –

mid Mar ‘11

• XXX used to be HR Director and on the Board of County CC • She knew the CFO from there, and when she retired he asked her to come in for a few

months, as they had some “issues in HR” • The organisation used to have little control, structure or management in place


• There was low morale, bullying, ran as a transactional centre. No processes were defined. Even employee relations were transactional.

• Payroll and pensions were disasters, with hundreds of errors • Contracts were not managed at all (e.g. after a few weeks someone told her that the

payroll contract was running out in three weeks, and nothing had been done to replace it.) • She reviewed HR and redesigned it to its current structure, including the two HR

professionals to lead the two departments and L+D remaining untouched-seemed to work. She put in an HR competency model and used a robust assessment for people to get the new jobs, everyone had to go through assessment centres, role plays, psychometrics, etc, and she appointed people accordingly. Some people then parted company.

• She has put in many components, including Values/behaviours, HR strategy, performance management, etc.

• She will leave the organisation in March, when an interim will take her place, whilst the chief will decide what he wants to do with HR.

• Employee Services: o Payroll has been retendered and given to Mouchel who runs it on SAP out of

Middlesbrough, with a year’s extension, as she does not want to lock herself into a long term deal, as ideally you would get an integrated system. SLAs are being developed now. The HR/people data is therefore never the same in the two systems.

o COA – the new systems provider. We went live in October with the Basic HR data module, and have spent the last few months implementing ESS/MSS for this – with a pilot on sickness reporting. We have also bought modules for recruitment, appraisal and training, however the budget has run out, so we cannot implement them at the moment.

• We have 3 FTEs on Payroll and Pensions (outsourced) • We also have 3 people in resourcing, deployment, acting up, including RDS recruitment • We also have 2 FTEs on workforce planning, PIs, HR business processes, and 1 temp who

float between them all. • Employee Relations: Developing new approach to Business Partners. Structure planned in

April, with 2 BPs. Today HR holds the hands of LMs a lot. In the future the managers will drive the actions more. We are developing some toolkits for managers, starting with a toolkit for how to handle grievance. These toolkits will be available electronically.

• ER has 2 FTEs who do HR policies, pay policies, etc. They also support Organisational changes, restructuring, job design and evaluation. They support the key IRMP projects and do case work- discipline and grievance. Line Managers should lead on this but need a lot of hand holding at the moment.

• Consultation. There are informal meetings, etc. which complements the formal consultation committees:

o Joint Consultation and Negotiation panel (JCNP) for FBU and FOA – XX chairs o Joint Consultation and Negotiation panel (JCNP) for Unison – XX chairs o Joint Consultation Panel (JCP) : less formal – XX chairs

• Attendance management Meeting – XX chairs – All cases are discussed with key managers, Occ Health, Doctor.

• Performance management is robust, individual or team targets are used. Twice yearly formal meetings:

o Beginning of year: set targets for what to do and how (behaviours) Development plan

o Mid year review, check progress o End of year review + set targets for next year.

• Culture and values behaviours (not competencies). Has been developed by XXX and


incorporated across all key HR processes. • Resources and Development meeting (XX Chairs and the Chief will run this from now).

Looking at a few areas: o Resources, KPIs, sickness, numbers, Turnover, No of appraisals, Proposals for org.

change/roles, etc. o Development. Policies re ADCs, planning. Allocation of the £650K corporate training

pot (XX), used for statutory training that affects the whole organisation. The summarised Training Needs for the organisation is brought to this group, which will set the Training and Development priorities for the year.

• Regional Network for HR. Very useful in exchanging ideas and solutions. • County HR network (with council, police, etc. also helpful. When I came here they were

very isolated, i.e. did not reach out to HR colleagues in other organisations • There is a three year HR strategy with annual review, to align properly to the IRMP. The

annual plan is signed off by the Exec Board. • Targets are organisation – wide. All the plans are on the activity Database. XXX does a

Quarterly review with her team to assess progress to targets, etc. • Performance and Overview committee is concerned with overall performance. • Pay & Performance committee. Top management pay review, and big strategic changes.

There is a Staffing subcommittee which focuses on recruitment to the top team • Workforce planning is done by default, it is not written down, but XX(ER) is currently

defining what it should look like and how it could work. Skill set, turnover, projects are key parameters which drive the workforce requirements.

. As we are a people business, we have to have a people professional at the top table, that ‐ knows and understands the grievance/Tribunal process, and employment law. ‐ Knows how to deal with the unions and can manage that process ‐ Can assess people and organisation impact of changes ‐ Can take the overall organisational perspective in strategic decisions

TRAINING

Operational Training Group

GM

SM

WM

10 Trainers

Driving trg*1 + 2 ext’l ad

hoc

ICT training *10 part time

ICS – systems management

Incident planning

Policy Other

• The 10 Trainers to RTC, recruitment training, etc • 5 years ago they realised that they needed more softer skills, management skills and set


up the LDC in parallel to the Operational training. This was run by external people, and they analysed and specified the need, and then commissioned external suppliers to deliver. That did not work, they were not ready for that so that went in to HR. They are now reviewing the whole Training area, and may now be ready to merge it all, as most people now have a good foundation in the softer skills.

• The softer skills include time management , conflict management, computer skills, all Identified through the appraisals

• L&D collate all the training needs, and commission training to meet the needs • We need to ensure that operational people have development plans • Driver Training is run by one non-uniformed person, with ad hoc support by two ex fireman

driving instructors. They have tried using non-uniformed LGV driving instructors, however found that it was not great as they did not understand the added pressures on the driver with the radio going off, people getting changed at the back, etc.

• The MIC team coordinate the Incident command, and run the system • Res unit. Training plan for the year is split in quarters, and after 2 quarters a

comprehensive review is made, both of the quality of training, and of the outcomes, to see what can be improved. Perhaps we need more/different material or equipment, position the appliances in different places, or maybe the course needs to be changed. Maybe the people were not great at sectorising the building or in house management, so need to increase the emphasis on these.

• Policy and planning – internal planning including risk records (72D as per the ACT). • Medical Doctor advises on First Aid Training (part time) and also attends incidents

sometimes. • Transport management – fleet management • IMC team not full time (60% training and 40% on incidents) • SM and above are assessed against the EFSM2 profile (role map) • The PAS system (Training) record who is receiving what training, and the individual training

record is also extracted from here – what training is done and when • TNA – responsibility with Station commander. Review which will define what training is

compulsory every year or every few years, and what should be needs based. E.g. if you work in a station close to M6 you don’t need training in RTCs as you do it every day.

• They do Annual BA refreshers, RTC and height safety. They focus a lot on height safety, including harnesses for working with ladders.


3.4.2 County FRS – 16 Feb 2011 Background and Context • County Fire Service is part of the County Council, Community Safety Directorate. • County FRS therefore don’t have a separate HR dept – they have business consultants, run

by CC • In Dec 2008, DCLG intervened as County FRS performance was so poor. This is a major

intervention and something County FRS have had to deal with. It’s a sensitive area – they believe they are on the path to recovery.

• The CLG intervention has now been closed and the improvement board which was appointed has now been terminated. (see CMC letter dated July 2009)

• Principal Officers at FRS are leading on sector led improvements on behalf of CFOA. FRS (with others) submitted a proposal to the RIEP and has received funding for sector led improvements. Xxx is leading on Sector led improvement together with Susan Johnson (CE from County Durham and Darlington.) xxx believes that sector led improvements can be informal as well as formal.

• FRS team believe the pace of change now is a positive and much improved from 4 years ago. Info and Best Practice HUMAN RESOURCES • FRS has business a single consultant (not business partner) who leads on HR and is the

connection to the County Council. This role is fulfilled by xxx (ex head of HR prior to it being provided by the CC)

• It was the CC decision to centralise HR, not the FRS. Budget was transferred to the CC. • HR centralised last year –started in April - therefore FRS have both sets of data – historic

figures on costs and estimates of the current costs as part of the wider CC. FRS has 2 sets of figures for comparison and benchmarking – non-centralised figures and centralised estimates.

• FRS gave their HR budget to the CC. The only direct expenditure the FRS now has is the £40k on salary.

• Payroll is also centralised.

TRAINING • FRS do a full TNA • 4 Area Managers. • Rent a disused airfield as training location. • “go out” for basic recruit training • FRS link to centrally provided courses – especially good for Health and Safety and E&D

courses. FRS in return share courses with the CC so #s on courses and attendance is higher. • FRS support executive leadership programme via Warwick Business School. Paul has

attended and is staying on to cover additional modules. He enjoys it as the latest modules are not only for FRS but other public sector organisations.


3.4.3 CFA FRS – 1 Feb 2011

Info and Best Practice ORGANISATION FRS has a £5m cumulative deficit over the next 3-4 years. (Possibly £1.5m per year). This all comes back to number of staff, and it will involve Business Change activities. She has worked in FRS for four years. It used to be part of the County council (there is a split council – City Council and County council), and have had political stability over the last few years. XXX was CFO until April -09, when Sean Frayne took over. At that point, he had taken the Service from a poor performer to “performing well” and had achieved an awful lot, including focus on culture, people excellence, and plenty of progress in Equality and Diversity (he was the CFOA lead on E&D, and was heavily involved in the shift from the LG E&D Framework to the new FRSE&D Framework). Xxx took over and we then got a change in political leaders (Cons Chair and lib dem vice chair), so there are now lots of drivers for change. They have established a vision for excellence, they could have gone down the route of aiming for mediocrity now that they will have reduced funds, however they did not want to, and they see that they can use the situation as a catalyst for change. They have 18 members of the Fire Authority and there is more drive and influence from the CC now with the cons/lib democrat coalition. They have set off on a significant Business change programme, challenging the back office in particular, and XX has put up HR as one of the guinea pigs for change, agreeing to take out 5 posts (incl. one vacancy). Decisions are managed upwards, i.e. people delegate upwards when there are difficult decisions and conversations to have, e.g. one individual had very strong Body Odour, and xxx was asked when “HR was going to come and sort it out”! She responded that it was the responsibility of the Line Manager to have the difficult conversation, not for HR to do his job. They have always held a Corporate Planning event, inviting politicians, etc.

• What do you and the workforce want us to focus on o Effectiveness programme. We have some young stars who will deliver the changes

to staffing o Evaluate the ideas now 15 key projects over 3-5years o Area manager, what should the structure be, are there natural synergies?

The Senior Leadership Team (SLT) has CFO,2*DCFO, 5 AMs, ACO(Dir of Finance) Trade Unions: FBU and Unison (Consultation rights) and then we have RFU and FOA. XX takes lead role on constant negotiations. The FBU chairman (WM) is seconded on to the efficiency programme. We did have a very bad relationship with the FBU, but it changed through COT 3 (Compromise of Terms), i.e. he left the organisation through a compromise agreement.


HUMAN RESOURCES

• The current HR department has 25 staff, and it includes the following: o HR Data (workforce) o HR services, including 2 senior Advisors, 4 HR Advisors and 2 admin staff o Policy and Equality is now incorporated under HR services o Occupational Health, Safety, wellbeing and fitness. The Doctors are outsourced to

Queens Medical Centre, and the same doctor is used by three County FRSs. The occupational Health provision is reviewed across these three Services, confidentially

• The vision for HR is to move away from the transactional services and add more value, working side by side with the line managers in the business.

• To respond to the challenge on the HR department, she will set up a “Service Centre” which will drive the changes to ways of working through a good HR service, supported by an online service.

• They use Snowdrop today, a system that was, in true FRS style, bought and made available, but was not integrated properly, the correct data was not put in and it was not maintained. Thus, people started to mistrust the information coming out and the system and it fell into disrepute. Now they have cleaned up the data, and set up the processes and roles to make it work.

• The want to free up time for HR advisory work for HRBPs. Will support the changes but move to drive them over time. HR is to sit alongside the business

• HR Reports to the DCFO for resources • HR is perceived to be a barrier/blocker. Have had a lot of Grievances/people cases. • Tried to encourage HR to say "where do you want to go?” • Key challenges are the working arrangements and organisational change • Recruitment- regional solution (ADCs). Regional recruitment has been done 4 times.

Success? Also using agencies. • IPDS – we use ADCs (through ADC Limited), this is a national assessment. • East Mids Region used Water for Fish. • Employee forum - Nervous about watering down consultation process, and reducing level

of Trust.

TRAINING

• We have an Incident Command Suite where we run Virtual Reality situations. DFRI, share with other FRS.

• Learning and Development has gone to xxx, who currently has 20 instructors (CM/WM), 1 GM, and 2 SM. There is a non uniformed Centre Development Manager and a Group Manager and some Admin people. In total, L&D has approximately 35-40 people.

• The training is Watch based. • New measure: contact time (for trainers)


3.4.4 CFA FRS – 14 Feb 2011

Notes We are mid transformation now, when we are radically changing HR and Training. Presentation – We had a service transformation project to balance the budget 11/12. FRS got badly hit from the CSR settlement – 9.71% year 1 and 2.6% in year 2. Our funding is balanced- 52% LG Grant and 49% locally raised. We are therefore going into a significant restructuring project. We anticipated this and kicked off a project team 14 m ago, where we looked at PP(?) and value chain:

‐ Gather data, benchmark (FRS(Public Sector, Private sector) ‐ Identify opportunities and change

We also had a BPI team which picked up all the proposed opportunities and implemented them. For example in finance, we want to be as lean as possible. For the CSR we built up a number of scenarios, with up to 40% savings, simulated with front loaded or back loaded savings. We still don’t know what is going to happen in yrs 3-4. At that point we will look at sharing, outsourcings of HR as one of the key areas. Training is OK. We had 9 people in HR which will go down to 6 after restructuring. XX FRS has a similar WDS/RDS split and is small and close, so we look to them for sharing. We also share with Police and County Council (which has gone from 10 ish District Councils to one county council – got rid of the DC CEOs, etc. and generated lots of changes. IT was a complete nightmare). For us, payroll and Treasury are run by the CC. Oracle was implemented at DC. We had to change many of our processes to fit with the system, which crippled us. We are now going away from Oracle and looking for another solution. Other county is politically insular. We have SLAs with the County worth about £300K. Will procure new Control System for FRS, we have to look after and protect ourselves first. XX has been 18years in CDFRS, 2 of which he was seconded to ODPM. He has been temporary in this post since July, and is waiting for his promotion into it as a substantial role in March. In the re-structuring we will remove the Head of HR post and another Head of Service, which is a slight challenge as they are both female postholders, however we have reviewed this closely and it is purely for a business reason, so we are OK. We will also go from L&D to pure Training so will have three functions

‐ HR will do the transactional stuff ‐ Training will do the training stuff ‐ OD will do the Organisation and people development, including assessment, plans,

strategies, etc. ______________ We have provided Equality and Diversity training to WDS, but struggling to get BA training for RDS, so hopefully the new structure will be able to prioritise better on priorities, and down prioritise the less critical items.


We need to be much more risk focused (within training). We tried to merge the organisation together, but it got us into a hole. It we can align we will, if not we won’t. Personnel team: Transactional, not HR. Want HR to do personnel. OD will do the process, structure, etc. to focus on that from a risk/uniformed perspective. OD/org design will sit with Directors. Get an HR expert in to support Directors. Services: Recruitment and AD is done regionally across the x FRS in the region. However, we have recently withdrawn from the SLA (run by Other FRS) as it did not work for us. E&D officer, (Regional strategies, CLG report) and Positive action role will both go. We are looking for a Robust Simplicity. FF(RDS ) selection is slow. Used to take 18m. Now we have designed our own process. We get 7-8000 applicants for 100 posts (70-80 per post) in region. SLA with Legal Dept at County – SE role is the oversight of Dismissals (AM/GM/principal officers work in a team. Settle out of court for certain cases, based on cost and reputation. Systems: Bought an add-on package to AssetCO system for HR. Tyne and Wear had bought it and it worked for them. Checked with the CFO. The system was an AssetCO MIS system which we added to the core asset management system. Also, we added another package for staffing. This system, e.g. RDS availability has never worked. We have got compensation for that now The system is not intuitive. The future: Back office ICT. Possible Firewatch system or use Oracle? We have outsourced ICT to a private organisation (2 people on site) called KnowledgeIT. Good relationship. We have a new ICT manager. Training: We have a big training team with 30 people in total. We had 2 people doing training evaluation, this was nice to have but it is not a priority going forward. We have in our training dept:

‐ 7 WM trainers ‐ 6 District trainers (RDS) who support development plans. These roles have been very

successful but expensive so will be taken out SMA Corporate development. We have an appraisal policy, service team development; this is also nice to have rather than essential. Red Kite system: we record competence against role map in the system. It has taken a lot of time. In the future only operational staff competence will be recorded in RedKite. Max 1 hour/wk. The other staff will be done in appraisal. Now will move more to a tick box system on Red kite.


EFSL1? We put trust in WM judgement, and make them accountable for the skill levels. The cost for training has been just over £1m per annum. In training dept we retain people for3 years. We also accredit the training and providers through BTec. We spend £150K per year with the Fire Service College. Differ to do internally, e.g. SM training course including SMMI development course. Fire safety for the region is run from there. FSL do management development. Corporate – CIMA etc for Finance people. Staff 80/20 and budget 90/10 internal/external. Appraisals devt needs to section heads, who put their case for training to the head of T&D. The head of T&D will look at all the cases and decide what can be done. Pilot with succession planning. Who will be promoted: what skills do they need? GMs do the AM course. We have had 20 promotions to AM and 15 to next level. One of the lowest H&S incidents as a lag indicator. The lead indicator is how many people are competent. What are our risks – this will drive the Training priorities. Learn Pro: Repository for learning presentations. We also have new input to the training (new risks):

‐ Counter terrorism ‐ Building construction ‐ A1 road traffic incidents

RMP – breakdown per station District managers are responsible. PB views are available in the PM software. Service managers (AM) go through OM to look at performance. Individual: get targets and development plans Red Kite system: 805 of organisation, 40% of RDS use it. Leadership message has gone out to set the behaviours need over the next year. This has not quite worked. We have job descriptions for all non station based staff. We have annualised hours in the station. Sick days:

‐ WDS 3 days ‐ RDS 11 days ‐ Combined 6.5 days

SMAQA = NVQ + 2 evaluators. All people promoted go through management development programme.


3.4.5 County FRS – 8 Feb 2011 Info and Best Practice HUMAN RESOURCES • Very focussed on the needs of the business • HR Business Partner model has been well received. • Single OD strategy for HR and L&D • Appraisals are not optional • Personal Development Records for Support Staff are being introduced • ‘’Equality of access’’ – breaking down the barriers between uniformed/non-uniformed staff • WDS retention rates are improving • Recruitment applications a challenge • A specific HR system has been chosen and will be integrated onto SAP • Payroll is outsourced to SERCO • Sickness rates are running above average – and have increased by 50% since last year • The use of Agency Staff has decreased – due to a spend freeze and a focus on requirements

TRAINING • Majority of Command and Operations Training is conducted in house • Use Fire Service College • 32 training FTEs • Training in softer skills and IPDS compliance • 2 WD Business Partners for OD – use of universities, colleges • A risk based approach is adopted • A training Needs Analysis is conducted through the appraisal system. This then informs

Commanders who prioritise before passing to L&D. This then feeds the master L& D bid which supports the budget.

• Firefighter safety training takes priority and this was ring-fenced from CSR • Historically, Training and HR did not communicate – this has now changed and he enabled a

greater focus on the business needs. • A skill survey of all staff has just been completed • They use a competency based framework and have a hierarchy of training needs – at the top

of the hierarchy is the option to go for external courses


3.4.6 CFA FRS – 1 March 2011 Info and Best Practice ORGANISATION

• XXX was promoted to Chief Exec after XXX who retired recently. • The deal was that she removed the post of the DCFO and the post of the HRD (both of

which she was playing before) and took the Chiefs role herself but at a pay £15K below her predecessor

• The current Board is CEO, Director of Operations, Director of Community Safety, Director of Finance and Corporate Services

• She had effectively been operating as the CFO over the last 18 months, when xxx had been seconded in to a national role.

• County is moving towards an integrated workforce, away from the old fashioned WDS/RDS split (with RDS becoming part time staff)

• When she started as Chief she found out that the car was being cleaned on a weekly basis, and that she was always presented with her favourite newspaper in the mornings, she had a big office, etc. We are in a different era now, we need to focus on the right thing for our citizens instead of these old fashioned and costly traditions. The culture was overly respectful. We have now changed it all, and I have worked very closely with the team, to give them the skills, confidence and enable the new way of working together when we challenge each other and question recommendations, which leads to much better decisions

• We (the Fire service) don’t have the right to be here, our role could feasibly be split up between the Council the police and other organisations, and it will be done if we don’t prove that we are doing all we can to deliver value to the community, not by complacently decorating and underutilising the time we are paid.

• We have worked hard to ship out administration through automation, smarter working, etc., and are now much better than 3 years ago.

• We pick up stones to find out what is underneath, try to analyse and address situations to remove waste and unnecessary activities

• 4 people died at Warwickshire, and we try to learn from that. There have been training issues with our RDS staff, not all RDS do the drills, so we have decided to address it, not waiting for the view from the CLG committee, who is dealing with a demand to equalise the pay, as it is recognised that it will not be able to do it with the current contractual arrangement.

• Managers do a lot of admin, and we are trying to reduce this. • There is traditionally a big Task focus in the Fire service, but how do we get them to do it

the right way? • She is now developing her 5 year strategy, with consultation from staff, and that will guide

them through the following years • She has an excellent Finance Director, who paces up and down the room, concerned to


get things right, and he comes in to tell me what I need to do- superb!

HUMAN RESOURCES • As the CEO, she will also play the HR Director role, sponsor and challenge all change

initiatives, and ensure people aspects are taken into account at all times. • There is a Head of HR services, including

o Transactional HR o HR change management

• Head of HR policy – has 5 people to set the rules, the grid o New services o Equality and Diversity o Change

• OD and a head of HR Transactions • There used to be a lot of maverick behaviours, people changing the structures, recruiting

people without signoff, etc. • We have now put pack in: good operational training (we had missed out on that a bit) and

significant management development • We have gone out of national programmes as they did not work for us, e.g. the ADC. • FRS are good at doing things properly, all people that wanted to went through the ADC

process, with the result that we got many people who should not have been promoted who was. The manager was not making judgements around who should or should not go through, it was perceived as everyone’s right.

• Performance Management. ITOP cannot go into it if LM has not signed it off. All people have now got objectives and appraisals.

• We have decided to push a lot of the decision making down the line, and hold people accountable for making the decisions.

• One story was about an individual that was not putting his hand up to attend a disciplinary panel, as the employee was good friends with an Area Manager. The manager thought that by being harsh around the individual would affect his career prospects. XXX said that by not volunteering you are jeopardizing your career prospects as you demonstrate that you are not prepared to challenge inappropriate behaviour

• XXX put in a Workforce Strategy when she arrived 3 years ago, and this has now run its cause so will be updated. The WS combined H&S, Training, HR, development of the organisation, the managers, listed data, internal benchmarks and what was going to happen

• We now have good PM and succession management. We do lots of development of people in the pool. People observing meetings, shadowing me, etc., to get experience of situations and decision making.

• There is a lot of energy about the place. • The Station managers were largely an administrative position, so we have taken the

Station Managers off the stations in to 19 response Clusters with 5 stations each. These clusters are managed through 5 groups (4-5 clusters each), with each group having an operational lead, planning person, risk lead and an HR lead. The SM’s used to be the kings of their respective castle, so for them not to run a station will be a big change, we have spent some time with them to get them out of their old way of thinking.

• The Crew managers now have more to do, and more of a proper job, as they are the most senior manager on the station. The move has also helped to break down the Station Borders.

• RDS will now go onto a part time contract which means that they will have improved training, guaranteed pay and have local management.

• We are looking to have fewer FFs but all of them doing more work. XXX has told them that


the Fire Service have got good Public image now, but in this day and age public opinion will fall if it becomes clear that there is so much unproductive time, so she has advised them all that they need to get busy, and it is their responsibility to go out in the community to find out what is going on, understand risks and issues and work with other bodies to build a safer place. They should not do their own home decorating on work hours. People are not working hard enough. People are bored, and when they are bored they sometimes get involved with silly, unproductive things. One crew manager had said that he sees himself as the entertainment manager, trying to find entertainment for people.

• Some people have not been taking the Firefighter job seriously. I expect you to understand the risk in your area.

• We are also using the induction to do more. • AFA is laborious • We have developed a Career document, which for the Green book was more difficult so 39

people volunteered to take VR. • We used to have a big administration team, with people who had been there for a long

time, with little qualifications, and with a lot of bitching and reluctance to change. Now all people have a role descriptions, so the definition of value and contribution is clear

• We are desperately trying to avoid CR, and even though we have to save money we are still investing in our people (XXX opened the renovated canteen that morning).

• She challenged much of the paperwork and processes after I came in, we had many processes which had been there for a long time and were no longer necessary, but had not been challenged. We have now stopped doing things we don’t need, eg the recharging of coffee (!!) between departments.

• She has a “death list” of 12 people who still don’t measure up from the perspective of managing people, either not complying with processes, or bullying, not cooperating, etc. This list has shrunk with people leaving through the years, however there is still a dozen there.

• There has been a funny culture of bullying people and not dealing with the difficult issues (brushing things under the carpet), e.g. one person attempted suicide in a station, and this was not reported up since the station manager “did not want to get him into trouble”!!

• I have spent a lot of time on Industrial Relations (as HR Dir), with many dinners, discussions, etc.

• I have instated a post as a head of OD, which is a non traditional role in the fire service. They will deal with competencies, succession planning and run the change programmes

• I have now two heads of HR • We had to change the PQSA system as it did not work for us. • I now have lots of ownership of the changes at different levels in the organisation. • We are also changing the way we set out our policies, with more guidance rather than the

traditional detailed service orders. • We have identified the Talent in the organisation, and we have some bright sparks at the

lower ranks, but it is not great at the mid manager level. • There is now too big gap between GM and AM. • Every senior manage is now a leader of a project. • Professionalism – she doesn’t employ Fire fighters into support roles, if they don’t happen

to have the particular skills, experience and qualifications that I would be looking for in the role, e.g. HR qualifications.

• She has seen Firefighters hopping between expertise areas, assuming that they would pick up the skills when they get there, but that does not happen anymore in County. You have to know your trade.

• I have two excellent HR managers – who do a great job.


• XXX is head of Training and ops services, i.e. including the procurement of new kit, to ensure that the appropriate training is built in around getting new kit to be operational.

TRAINING

• We are all professional people and we all need to learn how to manage staff, decisions, etc. This is an area that has been neglected, and we are putting much effort into now.

• We collate and analyse the TNA which have been generated through the appraisal process.

• We have been providing the same drills to all staff, irrespective if they have been here for 18 months or 27 years, surely that can’t be right?


3.4.7 CFA FRS – 17 Feb 2011 Info and Best Practice THE ORGANISATION We are the only FRS audited to be Excellent. The audit was very interesting, as they focused more on the thought processes behind what we had done. Managers in the FRS don’t think about consequences of decisions on the rest of the organisation, they just look at the issue, make a decision and then put it in the “Out Tray” Essex has some issues with FBU, Merseyside is very confrontational, and xxx has some issues, too. We have an excellent FBU relationship. It is down to personality [Håkan’s comment: it must also be how you treat the individual]. They are very ill-disciplined, i.e. they all think it is OK to escalate issues to a higher level if you are not satisfied with the answer. A FFR can go all the way up to the chief, or until you get an answer you like. People are worried about saying no, afraid of upsetting people. E.g. a manager had decided to dismiss someone, and no one wanted to chair the hearing of the case, since they did not want to be part of a career defining moment, and since the individual concerned knew the ACO. They thought if they managed to avoid that decision, they would have an unblemished record for the promotion board. XXx had told them that by avoiding the decision, they were actually getting a black mark by showing that they were not prepared to address inappropriate behaviour. FRS challenged CLGF on the regional Control Centre, claiming that they had built in too big supervisory staff. Since the cancellation of the regional control project, we have taken over the project and are running that with our regional partners. We will be able to get it for a cut drown price – perhaps 25% of cost, however that is still a significant cost. FRS can be archaic and that has its impact on HR. It depends on the individual – some people can use both the “Command and Control” and the “Coaching/Developing” managerial styles There is a Uniformed/Non-Uniformed split. FF can sometimes be a bit nasty in their treatment of non-Uniformed staff. I judge the value of a training course by how easy it is to get on it and how difficult it is to finish it. The Gold Command course not advanced enough, and it is not always relevant to require that the person should have attended a range of courses before doing the GOLD one – the practitioners know their stuff anyway. They have implemented a new crewing system – Day crewing Plus, which has halved the number of staff on the stations. This was based on a change in the AFA (Automatic Fire Alarm) policy based on risk, i.e. if it was an industrial property in the night they took it easy, however a residential property (e.g. high rise) required the full response.


The decreased number of incidents meant that the reward model for RDS did not pay enough and they therefore changed it to a straight salary system, where they paid for a number of hours on call (key training and possibly incidents). They included some additional cash to attract them to it, and they also allocated a pot of money for additional training or for Community Fire Safety work. This has worked well with more women being interested and has improved the Fire Safety work in the communities. It may also have helped the Equality and Diversity measurements. They have also changed the term “A Firefighter is a Firefighter”, as XXx did in a talk to the RDS guys, recognising that RDs have different objectives and circumstances, although providing a valuable contribution, so they will try to provide attractive services to them. A PM process is in place but is not applied consistently. As a manager you should not have to have an annual meeting to communicate how someone performs. The core corporate targets are cascaded down to lower levels:

‐ No of Home Fire Checks ‐ Sickness stats (Mgrs responsibility) ‐ Key KPIs are managed on a RAG basis ‐ Very robust absence management system ‐ XXx is confident that we manage performance

XXx thinks that they will have a big problem for years 3 and 4 We must not reduce cost too quickly; this will create pressures on the Council to reduce Council tax. USAR team are glorified carpenters, they don’t have to be Firefighters. They shore up buildings to secure entry. When an RDS wanted to squeeze into a WDS role through the backdoor, the Station Manager wanted to create a Crew Manager in Development post. He came to me and I rejected it and spoke to the AM and we both agreed. The SM ignored both of us and went straight to the Deputy who agreed it, and I then got an application on my desk for this new post. I then brought the guy in and challenge him, and said this is very close to a disciplinary matter, and then spoke to the Deputy who revoked it and apologised. HUMAN RESOURCES • There was no HR there when he arrived 2001/02, only Personnel • 13 people plus Occupational Health • XXx a full member of the Exec Board for 8 years • In latest Exec Board meeting (today) there were a number of HR related issues, including

Talent Identification, Mid manager development programme, staff comms, consultation process, Organisation reviews – for years 3 and 4, Headquarter move, Job Evaluation.

• Struggle to recruit from other services, I either get the ones who can’t hack it in The big city, or who want a change

• HR has to decide whether they are part of the decision process or not – they need to give advice that can be used, i.e. linked to the issue first rather than the legal position

• A senior delivery manager sees HR as support, but I know that I am here to support the organisation rather than a department or an individual

• Some people perceive HR as a barrier, and some as being helpful, depending on whether


they want to do things which are not good for the organisation as a whole • They have emerged from the County Council, and some processes and systems are run from

there, e.g. Oracle • They have got Red Kite and want to migrate onto that now, for managing learning and

competencies TRAINING • £4.2m budget, whereof £2.5 external, to other FRSs in the UK and abroad, and to the wider

public sector • The biggest FRS training centre in the UK after the Fire Service College • Both HR and Training is under XXx • Our Incident Command Training contains some management development elements • They have amended the ADC process to be set in an FRS environment and changed the

psychometrics to be more suitable to them • They have split the training function in Training delivery and training development


3.4.8 CFA FRS – 4 Feb 2011 Info and Best Practice HUMAN RESOURCES • .Reduced HR Officers by 4 posts • 7 HR officers – CIPD • Transactional HR in 1 unit • 1 Manager who runs the unit • 4 Business Partners • Full organisational awareness of HR and it is actively promoted • Proactive chair – full visibility of HR issues at Monthly meetings

TRAINING

• Use Fire Service College • Run courses for RB FRS and the 2 other Wales FRS • Use of VT • Not outsourced but PFI • Scenario planning that encompasses Gold, Silver and Bronze Command • Deliver all competency based training for Gwent • Training facility - PFI Project – £1.5M p.a. grant from Government • Get use of Babcock sites • Soft skills training provided ‘’break down barriers’’ • Shared training causes political tensions and slows down decision making.


3.4.9 CFA FRS – 20 Jan 2011 Info and Best Practice GENERAL

CFO

DCFO

Head of Response Head of prevention

TrainingEquality/DivHealth & Safety

ACFO

Head of HR

Non op trainingHR

Catering Occ Health

Comms

Head of Assets & Resources

FinancePayroll

ICTProperty and assets

The Leadership message has been very successful, produced through focus groups. It includes the vision, mission and objectives of the organisation. BTP is their Business Transformation Programme, based on Lean Systems approach. They are trialling new ways of working. Northern Service Delivery Group is trying out new shift patterns. Target to find more efficient ways of working. Vanguard has been engaged to support us. There is a 50/50 split WDS/RDS. RDS payment scheme on a contractual time basis, not per incident. We have a very stable workforce with low turnover. Agency staff – not a lot, but want to reduce still. There are some in ICT as we can’t find people. HUMAN RESOURCES

Head of HR

HR Manager

HR Business Partner

Admin

HR Business Partner

Admin

HR Business Partner

Admin

Pensions support (p/t)

• Equality and Diversity was moved away from HR on 1st Jan.


• They have a new cultural framework, indicating behaviours, which is being rolled out now. • Pensions – majority of them are delivered by Northgate. • SAP-HR. A bit unwieldy. Looking to develop single point of entry • Payroll is integrated and Learn Pro/HR Pro is also used. No MSS or ESS is used. Our systems

could do with an overview • Regional e-Recruitment. • Some (very little) Management Information exists, but it is not perfect • Moving towards a BP model • Reputation of HR not great 1-2 yrs ago. Did a review of HR and it is not better, more experts

and depth of expertise • 7 people in HR plus Occ Health + pensions p/t • We purchase Occ Health from County police but this is now under review. Admin plus Nurse. • BP Backgrounds one of three. A. Long time in organisation B. External C. Recruitment

background. • We do a fair bit of handholding of Line Managers for Complex Cases, although HR is in charge

of them. This takes a lot of time. We now have 2 outstanding cases plus 1 going to ET. • HR runs recruitment: 2-3 campaigns per year * 20 RDS. It is hard to get candidates. • The JE system is not fit for purpose. It is inherited from the County Council • Appraisal process done once a year. Happening more in ops (70%). How effective? Does

support staff do it well? They have the same system. We don’t push or enforce it. • We use ADCs (Centrally/CLG defined Assessment and Development Centres)for Firefighter

recruitment but they are not running at the moment • There is no updated HR strategy. • The workforce management subject is emerging TRAINING • Operational training is with Operations. T&D review suggested that they should move towards

FF safety, not operational training • The Fire Service College is used a lot • We do a lot of in-house training, and there is a freeze on all non-essential training.


3.4.10 Metropolitan FRS – 24 Feb 2011 Info and Best Practice ORGANISATION

• They had quite a tough settlement, leading them to save around 25% headcount across the board, with 9% for year 1, They started with the support functions, to impact service delivery last, as HR and Training are there to support the business

• There is an internal change programme based on the retirement peak, to find ways of providing the same service with 300 fewer people.

• There is a service delivery board, change management board and an Establishment Team that informs line managers where we are relative to the establishment, for the manager to take action. There is also an overall Restructuring group that deal with any new roles/structures

• Mgmt team is not decision making, structural changes is decided by the Exec Board, sanctioned by the Fire Authority.

• They were a bit reluctant to give me material as they feel that they keep on giving things away to others and don’t get anything back, apart from with Kent. Ann Millington has done some great stuff in Kent, xxx admired her for her work, and she has shared that with the FRS.

• They estimate that 98-99% of staff get an appraisal every year. This is driven by the CPD payments available, so the Firefighters want to do it. Support are good at it, too.

• One of the biggest uncertainties is around the future of the pension scheme. • They have managed to identify 25% ish of staff in HR and Training to leave before end of

March through retirements and VR, no compulsory redundancies. • Every role has been assessed as to its people requirements, and if we don’t need a

uniformed person, we will put a non uniformed person in, e.g. Fire Safety does not need Firefighters in it, we need different skills.

HUMAN RESOURCES

• HR run the Operational resource pool through their Central Staffing team– 60 Firefighters, based in the 5 districts, which offset the Sickness, Annual leave and Training from the watches. The people in that group are sent to the respective watches to ensure the appliance is kept available. This has supported the tearing down of barriers between areas/stations, when new people pitch up. They have also reduced the standard number of people per appliance with the sickness/leave factor. Smart move. All leave requests go to this team, which has improved the MI, the availability of appliances significantly. They have an SLA with Operations for this.

• SAP is covering overtime payments, sickness, leave, etc., and improving to predict the required establishment.


Area Now Apr 1stOcc Health Occ Health 4 4

H&S 7 7Total 11 11

HR Employment services 10 8Equality and Diversity 6 2Employee Resourcing 6 4Central Staffing 67 73Total 89 87

Training Command Training 13 13Training Delivery 36 36Development 18 18Total Training 67 67

HR Directorate Total 167 165

less Central Staffing ‐67 ‐73

Net HR 22 14training 67 67Occ Health 11 11Total HR+T 100 92

• Equality and Recruitment. Some outreach work – ensuring better diversity of applicants, although this has stopped with the recruitment freeze and the abolition of the national targets. In Dec 10 they were awarded “excellent status for their Equality and Diversity [by DCLG?]. They are the first fire service that got that status. One of the reasons for that was the equal status of grades and roles between uniformed and non uniformed staff. There are now two people left in dept so they will abandon the department and mainstream the activity, leaving it to LMs to maintain the E&D status.

• Employee Resources deals with transfer and movement of staff from and between stations. Finding placements for staff after they have been promoted. They deal with temporary promotions and produce lots of MI re staffing of stations and vacancies, working closely with XXx (Training) re development needs. They also do projections re retirements – 300 people will retire over the next 3-4 years, and they are not planning to backfill, i.e. operations need to find ways of dealing with fewer staff, including changing the duty system, shifts, etc.). They keep the establishment up to date.

• Employee Services is the transactional service centre, which does all the HR transactions, contracts, pensions, recruitment admin, annual leave and provides advice on grievance and disciplinaries.

• Payroll is run by the council. Pensions are run by the Pensions Fund, administered by the other Council.

• They have SAP as the HR database, and use if for time reporting and leave (sickness, annual etc). They bought an e-Recruitment system from WCN, who manage the application.


• They are reviewing the HR strategy (including Training strategy) at the moment to be much smaller, as all the activities are driven by the IRMP, so they just need to set the direction, scope and ways of working in the strategy (and perhaps have some long term activities.

• Industrial Relations need to be mentioned. They have a number of formal committees, but do most consultation outside of that (apart from the H&S committee which works very well). Specific consultation is done by the experts/line managers in respective areas. They key to good IR are:

o Good reps who understand the concept of working in partnership o Transparency of communications o Intent to work together and seek their views o Getting them involved early and really seeking their views o Build a good way of working, which is not confrontational

• The CFO is very keen on communications so they have done a lot of that, station visits by senior teams, etc.

• They have managed to do a lot of changes to duty and rota systems (however they are putting up some money for people changing), without any strikes or industrial unrest, in contrast with xxx, London and many others. One example is fitness tests for all staff including the Chief, which has been implemented well, coupled with new Occ Health arrangements and capabilities.

• HR also does the induction of new staff.

• The business view of HR is not quite clear- some people have challenged the transactional bit, when things have not been done in time. Other people are pleased with the support they are given.

• They have implemented a Grade Structure for Support staff which is comparable to the Fire Fighter one: Supervisory manager, Middle Manager and Strategic Manager. This was one of the factors in the Equality and Diversity scoring

TRAINING

• They are developing a training and development framework for all staff, indicating the training each grade will get to become competent in the grade, one sheet for uniformed and one for non-uniformed staff. Three categories for Operational staff: operational skills, xxx and management skills. Non operational staff split in Support, Fire Safety and prevention?

• Training has developed Job Descriptions for all staff, station and non station based, this work is soon finished. They JDs include some behaviours, but they don’t have a competency model.

• Training collates all the training needs through the training records. Every year they get 2,000 appraisal forms, which are keyed into a system. The total TNA is then analysed and fed into the system. They don’t get too many unnecessary training requests (outside the training framework), however there is a big demand for coaching and mentoring, which Training organises using internal coaches/mentors. They have a 4 month window for reviews, during which time they are all done. They don’t demand a mid-year review, only to set and review objectives.

• The trainers focus on scanning the market and developing new training courses when they are not delivering training.

• SAP TEM is used for managing courses, attendance and qualifications. They transferred


15,000 training records into it from various sources, so now it is all in one place. • Command Training: new section of the last 4-5 years. IPDS will not deliver all for us, e.g.

lost the statutory examinations. The staff does the normal Incident Command Training, e-Learning and horizon scanning

o E-Learning: (2 people building new modules focusing on Knowledge, policies and procedures, and started in high rise incidents).

o Horizon scanning- scan the market for new ideas and solutions for Incident command. They also look at own incidents to see if they should adapt the training

o ICM training use the Hydra technology (one of14 services that use it) • All staff has an individual competency record. Elements of BA are assessed every month. • There is an assessment at the Training Centre of all Crews, testing the competence in BA,

RTC and Incident Command. Every Crew is taken up there, one by one, to be assessed over the next 2-3years. People are given an individual development plan if they are not competent, and may be taken off the run if things do not improve.

• We prioritise the training on the basis of risk • We bought into IPDS but if elements are not working for us, we are not doing it. • Basic HGV driving training ( for 40 people) has recently been outsourced, however we

have kept the DSA approved testing staff in house, and will easily be able to check the quality of the training

• We provide some training for other organisations, i.e. Crew management for FRS1 & FRS2, and some commercial/industrial training around basic fire Safety to private firms

• Workforce Development : o Career Development / assessment centres for promotion (Grey and Green). 400

people were promoted over a 4-5 year period which stopped with recruitment freezes the other year, and now reductions. All principal officers are male and we have a flat structure, so not much career progression. More non-uniformed roles however mean more career opportunities for them.

o Performance Management process, gathering the paper appraisals and inputting TNAs into the system

o As and when succession planning, e.g. we need to fill two AM roles by the end of the year, and have 8 potential candidates for the posts.

o We have two people in our Talent pool – did once but not continued


3.4.11 County FRS – 24 Feb 2011 Info and Best Practice THE FIRE SERVICES

• The Fire Services is personality led – it is very much up to the values and beliefs of the chief. This makes a huge difference to what is happening in the organisation. Some chiefs believe that they can do all our jobs, ie no particular skill or experience is required other than being a Firefighter.

• There are 47 Fiefdoms of Fire Services in England and Wales, with many CFOs operating like Feudal Lords

• Who is the man, the mouthpiece of all the Fire Services in the UK? The president of CFOA used to make statements about certain things, but some of the chiefs deliberately went in the press to deny or reject these statements

• After the Hill End fire in London, the IPDS were developed for London. The PODG (People and Organisational Development Group, now defunct) in CFOA picked this up and changed it to be the standard for all Fire Services.

• However, we should not be surprised that what was right in ORGANISATION

• We really should start to cooperate more with other FRSs, or we will be run by AssetCo. • Director of HR reports to an Exec Director, who is the Deputy Chief. This person has

however been seconded to the National Resilience Project, so there is a gap at the moment.

• We really are a Benevolent Socialist employer. • We have the strongest FBU in the country • The Chair of the FA meets with the FBU before any FA meeting. The Chair of the FBU is

as powerful as the FA chair. • The FBUs issue now is two-fold:

o The size of the board-in saving money, it needs to start at the top o Operational Training is being run by Xxx, a non uniformed person (she will fight

tooth and nail to retain that, and she knows more about operational training than anyone else anyway)

HUMAN RESOURCES

• She would like a uniformed member of staff in HR, to support the • This region has a very active HR group (which xxx Chairs) which get together to share

knowledge, policies, approaches, etc. • To make changes happen we need to find the WIIFM (What Is In It For Me) • We have worked hard to reduce the sickness down from 18 days (!) to 7 days. • The FBU do not like that Hr is too heavily involved in managing attendance • She has been explicitly told by the FA chair that she is not allowed to go out and talk to

people in the stations, presumably as requested by the unions, to retain the image of HR being the villains and can’t be trusted?

• The HR and PD org structure is shown below


Director of Human Resources & People

Development

HR Manager Service Support/Casework

HR Admin Team HR Officers

Hr Manager Policy Development

Recruitment Coordinator Welfare Officer

HR Projects/RCC People Development Manager

T/GM People Development

Customer services & Training Admin

Manager

Occupational Psychologist

TRAINING

• The ideal situation for a training function is where training professionals and firefighters work together to develop and deliver the training required.

• We run most of the ADCs for the region • All people are in the people development function, ie we are not separating operational

training from the rest • The operational training has been done in the same way for a long time, we have trained

people as a group on the technical bits - It is now crucial that we train the brain at making the right decisions, too.

• She things that we are moving into a new era, where we can’t split out the Technical from the cognitive training

• She wants to develop her PD function as an example of how to do things in the new era before she retires in 18 months.

• In Hertfordshire it was 13 minutes from the crew leaving the station until two Firefighters and a member of the public were dead. One firefighter did not find his helmet and did not have time to find it, the other also made the wrong decision/judgement under pressure, so that is what we have to train people in

• We do GOLD COMMAND assessments here for non uniformed staff for other Fire Services.

• I would like to establish and Officer Development Group here, to expand Incident Command Training and to expand the non technical training for Fire Fighters

• We are only 120 support staff, so not a lot of training is provided to them. We tend to recruit them with the right skills instead.

• There are many fewer incidents now, so we can not rely on Firefighters maintaining their skills on the job.


Appendix 3.5 – Table of 8 core documents The below table lists the 8 key external documents we have used as part of this review.

Organisation Source Document

Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) Standard HR and Training Performance Indicators

Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) Fire and Rescue Service Statistics 2010‐11

Cabinet office ‐ Efficiency and Reform Group Commentary to Back Office Benchmark Information 2009/10

Glass Bead Benchmarking the Back Office: Central Government

Saratoga Standard HR and Training Performance Indicators

Mercer Key HR and Training Benchmarks

Legacy organisations HR and Training Effectiveness Survey (2008)

National Audit Office Value For Money in public sector corporate services (2007)


Appendix 4.1 - HR Service Assessment The following tables describe the HR services typically found in each category, and indicate whether they exist in EFRS at all, who delivers them, to whom, through which delivery channel and the role HR plays within it. Each service is colour coded as per below. HR delivers this HR service today

This HR service is delivered by another department

This service is delivered by HR but usually sits within another

department

In a separate table is highlighted which HR services ECFRS is not delivering in today but may wish to consider for future HR Service Delivery. The key roles that HR may play in each of the key services are: Role Definition

Owner Accountable for the design,management and effective delivery of the process. Accountable for ensuring the outcomes are delivered

Part Deliverer Responsible for delivering parts of the processDeliverer Responsible for delivering the processSupport Responsible for supporting the owner and deliverer of the process


1. Transactional Services

Key HR Service

Customer groups Definition Method of delivery HR role

Administration All staff Maintenance of HR Data

HR Team updates HR records into SAP, and the HRDM system will remove paper part of record. ESS will move resp to employee

Owner, Part Deliverer

Payroll All staff

Adjustments of overtime and salary, payment of salary and bonus, reconciliation with finance, employee data maintenance

Many key payroll calculations are done in HR, the system is updated by Payroll team in Finance, and there is an external firm printing the payslips Part Deliverer

Pensions

All pensionable staff

Pensions management, statements, liaison with Pension provider, employee data maintenance Outsourced to ECC. Owner

RecruitmentLine managers

Specification, provision and management of recruitment services

Manager specifies with advice/challenge from HR, Senior manager signs off, HR manages process, sifts, arranges assessments,

Owner, Part Deliverer, Support

Job EvaluationLine managers

Evaluation and grading of new/changed jobs. Training and QA of evaluators

JE and grading is done by HR, recently taken back from ECC. Hay is used above P01, NJC below. Department have identified a need to fully review JE process to assess fit with organisational needs (business plan).

Owner, Deliverer

Enquiry handling

Line managers, staff

Logging, managing and addressing enquiries to HR

Employees should go to line managers first, and then (if necessary) the line manager goes on to HR (The HRBP's/AHRBP's). The new website may provide ongoing support. No call centre exists . Support

Simple caseworkLine managers

Management of performance and absence cases

Line managers (Crew managers and above) lead on all case work with HR providing support Support

CrewingLine Managers

Allocation and planning of the Duty crew availability per individual and day over the coming weeks

The Crewing department receives all the absence requests and sick leave forms and maintains the Duty Rota Book spreadsheet for the lower grades Deliverer

HR Reporting – Management Information

Line Managers, SMB

Creation and delivery of HR reports ‐ PQs, FOI requests, management and statutory

No regular management reports for HR function performance have been shown, however all statutory and regulatory people related reports are produced by HR. Also, government or internal ad‐hoc request are delivered when required

Most of the Transactional Services are provided by HR, with the exception of Payroll (Finance) and Pensions (ECC). Statutory and ad hoc reports on people performance are produced, however the Management Information on the HR function is not provided regularly and therefore there is little common view of what HR does and how it is performing. The Crewing work is owned by Service Delivery, however the work is delivered by HR.


2. Advisory services

Key HR Service


Complex Casework

Line managers, staff, SMB

Management of disciplinary and grievance cases, LM coaching

Line managers (Crew managers and above) lead on all case work with HR providing support

Part Deliverer, Support

Employee Relations

Line Managers, SMB

Management of the TUS : regular meetings, pay and policy negotiations

Dispute with FBU ‐ handled by SMB. Limited liason of other TUs handled by HR. Consultative committees service‐wide currently suspended with exception of OH committee which is chaired by HR and has proven a productive and constructive committee. Consultation on employment policies also managed by HR.

Part Deliverer, Support

Employment law advice

Line Managers, SMB

Interpretation and provision of employment law advice, liaison with lawyer

HRBPT act as SME's for provision of employment law advice to service managers, however occasionally managers go straight to Lawyers. In case of Tribunal claim. Employment lawyers engaged and managed by HR (and sometimes managers). HR work in partnership with inhouse solicitor, who may play a bigger role going forward

Part Deliverer, support

Pensions Advice All staffProvision of advice, secretariat services and general support to the Pension Fund Trustees

One person inhouse still doing pensions, but role will probably need to go.

Owner, Part Deliverer

Succession/ career planning All staff

Development and implementation of an agreed career path for key professions including a process for succession planning

Career paths clearly set out for Firefighters but not for support staff. Succession planning done sporadically, not coordinated

Co‐owner, Deliverer

Performance management All staff

Launch and management of the annual performance management cycle

A performance management system (TASK) has been introduced to all uniform staff. Appraisals for support staff have been introduced but need to be embedded as currently inconsistent application. Owner

Health & SafetyProvision of H&S risk assessments, H&S training and inspections

This team sits under Performance Improvement (reporting to ACO Service Support ‐ Paul Bowers)

Equality & Diversity All staff

Implementation and management of equality and diversity policy and procedures. Provision of equality and diversity advice

Small team including Outreach workers, focusing internally and externally. Should be mainstreamed

Owner, Deliverer

Occupational Health All staff

Design and delivery of occupational Health and welfare interventions, e.g. screening, medical assessment and testing, management referrals, health promotions, DSE assessments, workplace adjustments etc.

Recently in‐sourced (market tested to be delivering service at efficient rate and cost saving to ECFRS against previous providers), providing a full service

Owner, Deliverer

Project work SMB and Line Managers

Design and delivery of key HR projects and programmes, including communications

Many projects and programmes delivered by HR BPs. Also support to organisational projects/programmes e.g. ITTP/SHQ relocation

Owner, Deliverer

Organisation and role design

SMB and Line Managers

Review and re‐design of organisations, structures and roles

The org design is mainly done by line managers, role design is shared between line and HR Part Deliverer

Workforce management and planning

SMB, Line Managers, staff

Workforce reporting, planning, forecasting, analysis, annual bid rounds

The HRIS and Workforce management team provides this service

Owner, Deliverer

Leadership development

SMB and Line Managers Provision of leadership development services

Leadership Development today sits within the Training function, however some coaching is done by HR Support

HR Advice

Projects and change

Business Support

Most of the above Advisory services are provided by HR, apart from Succession and Career planning (some done by Line Managers), Health and Safety (delivered by Performance Improvement/Finance) Organisation/Role design (done by Line Managers) and Leadership Development (Led by Training). Change Management, Capability Development and Business Analysis are not carried out in a coordinated way across the organisation, however some of this is done by Line and Project Managers.


3. Strategic Services

Key HR Service


HR Policy


Develop, implement and maintain Policy – including Reward, Performance management, T&D, Recruitment, Employee relations and all other HR related policies Policies exist for most key areas

Owner, Deliverer

HR Systems Administration


Management of access, authority to system. Quality and data assurance This is delivered by the ICT department

Owner, Deliverer

HR Budgets, forecasts and results mgmt SMB

Establishment of budgets and forecasts of HR costs, headcount, etc. Financial management The Head of HR leads this activity

Owner, Deliverer

HR Management SMB Management of the HR functionThe Head of HR, and department section heads manage the function

Owner, Deliverer

Supplier Management SMB

Specification and management of external supplier performance

No evidence of active supplier management from within HR

Contract management SMB

Specification, negotiation and management of HR supplier contracts. Management of re‐letting process

No evidence of active contract management from within HR

Office Management ‐ internal

The majority of the Strategic Services are provided to the organisation by HR, apart from Culture and values (this is not provided to the organisation), People Strategy (does not exist today) and Supplier and Contract management (which is delivered by Procurement).

4. Services not delivered Service Type

Key HR Service

Customer groups Definition

Talent Management SMB

Attraction, recruitment, identification and nurturing of key talent, ensuring the organisation has a good, strong pool of talent to draw from

Change Management Line managers

Establishment and sponsorship/management of the change management approach and capability

Capability Development


Definition of required capabilities and creating and implementing strategies for building these capabilities

Analysis and Support


Analysis of key business information to discover trends, opportunities, etc. across all HR areas

Culture and values

SMB, Line Managers, staff Definition and implementation of accepted corporate culture and values

HR StrategySMB, Line Managers

Ensure the creation and implementation of a comprehensive HR strategy, in line with SP strategy and direction

People StrategySMB, Line Managers

The development, agreement and implementation of a comprehensive People Strategy,which sets out required capabilities and how to implement them

Adv

isory services

Strategic services

In assessing the services delivered by or through HR today, we have noted that some services that tend to be delivered by the HR organisations are currently not delivered to ECFRS. These services are listed in the table above.


Appendix 4.2 - Proposed Customer Groups, HR HR provides their services to the entire ECFRS organisation. There are however three distinct groups of people, as defined by their respective terms and conditions:

‐ Uniformed staff. These are largely fire fighters or managers thereof, and their Terms and Conditions are regulated in the Grey Book. They can work both in Service Delivery and Service Support

‐ Control room staff. The control room staff are all uniformed and their Ts & Cs are regulated by the Grey Book, apart from the pension.

‐ Non-uniformed staff. People in this group are not trained fire fighters, so they can only work in the service support areas.

‐ SMB. The senior management team, consisting of the CFO, 2 DCFOs, the ACFO Service Delivery, the Finance Director and Treasurer, the Director of Workforce Development and one temporary ACFO - Special projects.

Within the respective groups, the managers have different service requirements to staff, so we have split the three groups in these areas. Finally the SMB is another important customer group, with particular requirements. The following table illustrates the number of FTEs in each of the 7 customer groups, totalling 1,615 FTEs as per Dec 2010.

Customer Category

CustomerGroup FTEs

Uniformed Manager 481 Staff 874 Control room Manager 23 Staff 22 Non-uniformed Manager 95 Staff 113 SMB Members 7 Total 1,615


Appendix 4.3 - Current HR headcount and FTEs by role

Team Role No FTEs Total FTEs

Management Head of HR Operations 1 1 1 HR Business Partner 3 3 Assistant HR Business Partner 3 3 HR Officer 6 6 HR Administrator 1 1

HR Business Partner

HR Co‐ordinator 1 1

14

Equality, Diversity and Policy Manager

1 1

Assistant Equality, Diversity and Policy Manager

1 1

Equality, Diversity and Policy team

Community Outreach Worker 2 1.2

3.2

HRIS & Workforce Monitoring Manager

1 1 HRIS, Workforce Monitoring (Crewing) Team

Crewing Officer 2 2 3*

Occupational Health Manager 1 1 Occupational Health Team Occupational Health Nurse 1 0.8

1.8

Project team SAP Project Manager 1 0.8 0.8 Total 25 23.8

* Plans are in place to remove these roles which will reduce FTEs in HR.


Appendix 4.4 - Current HR Budget

HR Expense budget 2010‐11 (£000's)Original Budget

Current Budget

Firefighters 86 86Firefighters ‐ Retained Duty SystemControlSupport Staff 704 780Total Employment Costs 790 866

Support Costs 503 434Premises & EquipmentOther Costs & Services 33 99Firefighters' Pension Scheme 469 469Financing ItemsOperational income ‐60 ‐60Contribution to/(from) ReservesTotal Other Costs 945 942

Total Budget 1,735 1,808

Less Budget kept for ECFRS‐Occ Health costs ‐503 ‐434‐ Firefighter pension for ill health ‐469 ‐469Total Budget reductions ‐972 ‐903

Net HR related Budget 763 905


Appendix 4.5 – Training and Development Process

1. Define capability targets

•Review vision and strategic objectives

•Analyse capabilities required to deliver the vision

•Define capability targets

•Clear on individual level for Firefighters, not for other staff

•No collation of overall capability requirements or targets

2. Develop Training Strategy

•Define medium and short term training objectives

•Develop Training principles, scope, approach and roles

•Develop Strategy

•No training strategy exists

•No clear overall training targets and plan over the years

3. Assess Training Needs

•Assess current capabilities

•Analyse gap against capability targets

•Summarise training needs

•Not done for FF or Control, apart from V&D, incident mgmt

•Irregular high level analysis done for Support

4. Design Training

• Design training approach and method to meet the training needs and meet objectives

• Training are often asked to do this to cater for new requirements

5. Develop the Training courses/material

• Develop the courses, exercises, software

• Some development done for FFs and for incident managers

• General management courses are bought in off the shelf

6. Deliver Training

• Train the trainers• Deliver the training to users

• Training delivered to FFs and operational managers

• Some training delivered to support staff and leaders

7. Evaluate Training

• Evaluate the training

• Review and change the training method or material

• Some evaluation done, but not always or consistently fed into re‐development

step

activity

ECFRS


Appendix 4.6 - The TASK Book The IPDS (the Integrated Personal Development System) was developed by Skills for Justice and incorporated into the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004. This contained a Role map for each role and the idea was to train people against them. The Line Manager and the individual were to identify the training and development needs, and the emphasis was on the individual to take full ownership of their own training plan and activities, and not force any training on people from the centre. The underlying assumption here was that the fire fighter was already competent and able to identify and complete the training he or she required. Many fire fighters did not like the fact that they were not told which training they would get, which led to a situation where the ongoing drilling stopped, and not all the competency training was asked for. As a consequence, the competence of the fire fighters dropped quite quickly. As a response to this, ECFRS developed the TASK (Technical Activities, Skills and Knowledge) Book. The TASK Book was developed internally, breaking down each role map to the right level of detail and illustrating the steps and requirements for each grade to acquire and demonstrate the competencies required for the role and/or for promotion. It also contains the performance appraisal process and forms for Fire fighters, which is a key component in the progression within the organisation. The below picture illustrates the progression of a WDS fire fighter from Trainee through to fire fighter, Crew Manager and Watch Manager, and the key stages of training that will see him or her through, including the typical time required for each step.


P 1. Acquisition (4m)

P2. Development (12‐18m)

P3. Maintenance (min 12m)

Firefighter in Development

Competent Firefighter

Eligible to apply for Crew Manager (ITOP/APB )

Training Role

Trainee Firefighter

Crew Manager in Development

P2. Development (min 12m)

Competent Crew Manager

P3. Maintenance (min 12m)

Eligible to apply for Watch Manager A (APB )

Etc.

Every fire fighter is given their own TASK Book, which describes which activities they need to do, and how many times, during the year to retain or acquire competence. The activities are signed off by the line manager and will feed into the performance review and the development needs/Training assessment which informs the agreed development plan for each individual. The new system separates operational tasks (what you need to be able to do – covered in TASK) from development (the training you need to maintain and increase your level of technical and management skill). Over 1,100 people in ECFRS now have a TASK Book, which will cover them for 12 months, after which a new TASK Book will be created. The Line Manager will map out development needs on a monthly basis, on the basis of the activities logged and remaining in the TASK Book. A review of the system has shown that there is 95% compliance to the TASK Book. The TASK Book has been rolled out to almost all uniformed staff, with the exception of some RDS staff. We have identified three training categories of Fire fighter training as per below picture.


• Role based, operational competence• Experiential –tasks the individual needs to perform• AKA self service training – delivered @ all locations• Requirement for career progression• Applies to all grades

Task Book

• Training courses to take the individual from “in development” to “competent”

• Applies to all grades

Additional Development programmes

• New equipment ‐ Delivered in most appropriate location for equipment, e.g. BA=Chelmsford

• New type of incidents• New environments• Applies to all grades

Project specific training

These services are provided across all fire stations and other sites, complemented by some externally based training.


Appendix 4.7 - Training courses

The Training department currently provide 140 different recognised courses to the organisation, 48 of which are delivered by external providers. This leaves 92 courses which are delivered by the internal trainers. The internal courses can be divided into 9 categories as per below table.

CategoryCourse Types

No of Courses

Total instructor days

Total student days

Student/ instructor ratio

BA 8 183 889.0 2,323.0 2.61 Driving 24 258 718.0 1,112.0 1.55 Health & Safety 3 19 23.0 200.0 8.70 Incident Command 13 161 278.0 1,572.0 5.65 IT 23 87 84.5 238.5 2.82 Leadership 1 1 18.0 102.0 5.67 Misc 14 255 379.0 1,586.0 4.18 Phase 1 Training 1 4 120.0 280.0 2.33 Specialist Rescue 5 15 36.0 91.0 2.53

Total 92 983 2,545.5 7,504.5 2.95

In 2009/10, the Training organisation delivered 2,545 training days. The BA Training with 889 days had the largest number of instructor days. Driving training is the second biggest category with 718 days, followed by Incident Command training and Phase 1 Training with 278 and 120 days respectively. The largest number of student days goes into BA training (2,323 days), followed by Incident Command training (1,572 days) and Driving training (1,112 days) The ratio of Students to Instructor days was 2.95 on average for all courses, meaning that on average each Instructor had almost 3 students during any day of training in 2009. The lowest ratio was the Driving training with 1.55 students per instructor, and the highest rate was the H&S training with 8.7 students per instructor. In addition to the official courses above, a number of non official training courses and events are carried out, including:

• The feedback of the V&D data to the stations • Spontaneous training • Train the trainer courses • Part time courses


In the absence of a corporate competency model, there is little knowledge of the behavioural competency related development needs with Fire fighters and support staff, and as such no specific training for this purpose is provided. The publishing of courses and the administration/logistics around them are carried out by the Resource Co‐ordinators within the Training department.

Appendix 4.8 - Possible Customer Groups - Training The ECFRS organisation has 1,615 FTEs, split between 606 Managers (WM/S01 and above) and 1,009 Staff. Based on their respective requirements in terms of training, we have identified a total of 8 customer groups, as summarised below.

Customer Group Customer Rank/Grade FTEs

Flexi staff Managers WM and above 64

Control room Managers WM and above 23

Control room Staff FF 22

Fire fighters Manager WM and above 417

Fire fighters Staff FF 874

Support Manager S01 and above 95

Support Staff Scale 1-6 113 SMB Directors BM+SMB 7* Total 1,615 Total Managers 606 Total Staff 1,009

* This includes one temporary post. Each group has its own training requirement, however these requirements have not been specified or agreed with the business. Therefore, there is today little differentiation in the Training services provided to the different customer groups.


Appendix 4.9 - Training Department FTEs

Team Role Trainers No FTEs Tot FTEs

Management Training and Development manager 1 1 1

Training support manager 1 1

STC Manager 1 1

Specialist skills manager 1 1

Fitness Advisors y 3 3

STC Trainers y 5 5

Admin Support 1 1

Cooks 2 2

Driver Trainers y 5 5

Civil Resilience/Trauma Trainers y 3 3

Training Support Manager


1 1 1

Training Support Manager 1 1

Incident Command Training Manager 1 1

SAP TEM SME & TASK Lead officer 1 1

Training Support & Verification 2 2

IT Technician 1 1

IC Trainers ‐ station officers y 2 2

BA Manager 1 1

WTC FB Trainers y 4 4

OTC BA Trainers y 4 4

CTC BA Trainers y 4 4

Fire Ground Staff 2 2

Resource Supervisor 1 1

Resource Co‐ordinators 5 3.6

Admin Support 1 0.6

Training Development Officer 1 1

Business Development Officer

Business Development Officer

1 1 1

Seconded to SAP 1 1

IT Trainers y 2 2

Total 59 57.2


22


29.2

Seconded to SAP 3


Appendix 4.10 - External Training Spend 2010 During the calendar year 2010, ECFRS spent £311K on external training provision, as per the below list.

External Training Providers 2010 SpendPeter Eyre (FIPE) £7,487SFL £7,411John Seymour Associates 0Learn Direct (ILM) 0Peter Stanley (ICV) £12,105The People Development Team £81,702Streets Ahead (Media) £2,800ACER 0Fire Service College/Outreach £135,343Local FE Colleges ‐ Please see ESF & OtherWindsor Leadership Trust £11,800ESF £3,505Keystar £200Regis (CTV) £3,242IOSH Accredited Provider £7,080Anglia Ruskin University (ARV) £6,937Focus for Change £3,800Osteopaths for Industry £1,709Others £26,131Total £311,252


Appendix 4.11 – ECFRS 2010/11 Training Budget

Description Budget 2010/11

EmployeesWhole Time Pay 1,674,087 Whole Time Overtime 52,000 Whole Time Nat Ins 154,949 Whole Time Employer Pensions 348,209 Rent, Fuel & Light Allowances ‐ Compensatory Grant ‐ Firefighters 2,229,245

Support Staff Pay 357,471 Casual and Temporary Staff 50,000 Support Staff Overtime 9,000 Support Staff Nat Ins 27,759 NI Casual & Temp Staff 538 Support Staff Pension 43,612 LGPS Pension Supp/Cont deficit payment ‐ Pension Casual & Temp Staff ‐ Support Staff 488,380

Total Employment Costs 2,717,625

Support CostsTraining Course Fees 410,029 Educational Development 10,000 Assessment & Development Centres 89,000 Training Development & Support 52,000 Training 561,029

Fitness Equipment 45,000 Other Employee Costs 45,000

Support Costs 606,029

Total Net Financing Requirement 3,323,654 The vast majority of the Training budget is spent on Employment costs (82%) and external training courses/assessment centres (15%).


Appendix 5.1 Evaluation of HR and Training measures This chapter sets out the process we went through in evaluating and selecting the HR and Training KPIs used for benchmarking during this project.

Objectives Scorecard

Assess how well HR and Training will

deliver the outcomes

(Effectiveness)

Assess how efficiently HR and Training deliver their services (Efficiency)

Collate comparable information that gives best indication of RAG rating per quadrant• 4 KPIs per Quadrant• 16 KPIs in Total

Leading practice KPIs

Use industry best practice KPIs, complemented by ECFRS specific indicators• 11 KPIs for HR• 10 KPIs for Training• 21 KPIs in Total

No Benchmarking Organisations

Source Document No of indicators

1 ECFRS HR Business plan – WFDPrimary and Secondary Indicators

7 primary and 13 Secondary

2 Cabinet office ‐Efficiency and Reform Group

Commentary to Back OfficeBenchmark Information 2009/10

5 key indicators

3 Glass Bead Benchmarking the Back Office: Central Government

3 key indicators

4 Saratoga Standard HR and Training Performance Indicators

50 +

5 CIPD Standard HR and Training Performance Indicators

20+

6 Mercer Key HR and Training Benchmarks 50+

7 Legacy organisations HR and Training Effectiveness Survey (2008)

50+

8 National Audit Office Value For Money in public sector corporate services (2007)

7 primary and 13 Secondary

HR and Training Benchmarking Scorecard KPIs

Strategic HR/People Management Organisation & People Change

HR and Training Service ManagementWorkforce Utilisation

USE of HR/Training PROVISION of HR/Training

SHO

RT

TER

M

L

ON

G T

ERM SC 1.1: Cross functional HR and Training

governance bodies in placeSC 1.2: Dir of HR/WfD is full member of the BoardSC 1.3: Agreed workforce strategy in place and subject to regular reviewSC 1.4: Approved HR and Training strategies in place and subject to regular reviews

2

SC 2.1: Capability/competency models for the whole organisation in place SC 2.2: A clear, organisation wide change management approach in placeSC 2.3: % of OD projects where HR has been consultedSC 2.4: The extent to which people transition streams form part of large programmes

SC 4.1: The proportion of people processes that are documented, consistent and well usedSC 4.2: An agreed workforce management plan in placeSC 4.3: Processes and roles/responsibilities for managing the plan in placeSC 4.4: A defined set of people/workforce reports, produced on a regular basis

3

SC 3.1: SLAs for all key HR and Training services in place SC 3.2: Customer satisfaction scoresSC 3.3: HR/Training Supplier and commercial management roles and processes in place SC 3.4: An integrated HR/Training systems infrastructure is in place

1

4

No KPI

T1 Training days per FTE

T2 Training days per WDS FTE

T3 Training days per RDS FTE

T4 Training days per non uniformedFTE

T5 Training cost %

T6 Training cost per FTE

T7 Training spread

T8 Internaltraining cost %

T9 Training cost per day

T10 Trainer utilisation %

No KPI

HR1 HR cost (£) peremployee

HR2 HR cost % of total cost

HR3 HR staff ratio

HR4 Staff turnover %

HR5 Sickness days per FTE

HR6 % Cost of Agency Staff

HR7 Cost of recruitment per vacancy

HR8 Complex cases per 1000 employees

HR9 Costof payroll per payslip (£)

HR10 Appraisal %

HR 11 BME %

Leading Practice KPIs


Appendix 5.2 Definition of KPIs used for Benchmarking This Appendix sets out the definition of the 11 HR KPIs and the 10 Training KPIs, with a joint definition of terms.

1. HR KPIs

No KPI Definition

HR1 HR cost (£) peremployee Cost of the HR Function per employee (FTE)

HR2 HR cost % of total cost Cost of the HR Function as % of total operational cost

HR3 HR staff ratio The total numberof staff FTEs divided by the number of HR FTEs

HR4 Staff turnover % FTE Leavers in the last year as a % of the average total number of FTEs employed for the year

HR5 Sickness days per FTE Total number of days absence through sickness divided by the number of staff FTEs

HR6 % Cost of Agency Staff Total cost of Agency Staff as % of total cost of compensationof employed staff (salary, bonus, pension, National Insurance, etc)

HR7 Cost of recruitment per vacancy

Total cost of recruitment (internal and external) dividedby the number of vacancies dealt with during the year

HR8 Complex cases per 1000 employees

The average number of complex cases (grievance, disciplinary) through the year, divided by (FTEs by year end/1,000)

HR9 Costof payroll per payslip (£)

Total cost of the internal and externalcosts of the entire payroll process in relation to the total number of payslips produced

HR10 Appraisal % % of staff (Headcount) receiving an annual performance appraisal

HR 11 BME % The number of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) FTEs in relation to the total number of FTEs


2. Training KPIs

No KPI Definition

T1 Training days per FTE Average Days per year invested in Training per FTE

T2 Training days per WDS FTE Average WDS Days per year invested in Training per WDS FTE

T3 Training days per RDS FTE Average RDS Days per year invested in Training per RDS FTE

T4 Training days per non uniformedFTE Average non‐uniformed staff Days per year invested in Training per non‐uniformedFTEs

T5 Training cost % Costof Training Activity as a % of total pay bill

T6 Training cost per FTE Costof Training Activity per FTE

T7 Training spread Percentage of employees provided with Training

T8 Internal training cost % Percentage of internal cost in relation to total Cost of Training Activity

T9 Training cost per day TotalTraining costs per day of training delivered

T10 Trainer utilisation % Total number of Training days delivered by internal trainers (trainer days) as a % of total available days (excl holidays)

3. Further definitions for the KPIs

• HR = All the transactional, advisory and strategic HR services delivered to the organisation as specified in the attached excel spreadsheet

• HR cost = The annual gross total cost of delivering these HR services, including internal, shared and external (outsourced) cost. If HR charges for some of the services, this income should not be included. Hosted budget for the organisation should be excluded.

• Employee = person employed by the organisation, on a short, medium or open ended contract

• Total cost = Total annual operational cost for the whole organisation, including Service delivery (response and prevention), support services, projects, etc. If capital depreciation and interest normally is part of operational costs, than these items should be included here.

• FTE = Full term equivalent number of staff, including all permanent, temporary and short term positions, calculated as hours worked, divided by the number of standard hours per day per person.

• Cost of Agency staff = the total annual cost we pay to Agencies for Agency staff • Cost of Recruitment = the annual internal (HR only) and external cost of recruiting staff,

including agency fees, starter bonuses, etc. • Vacancy = any vacancy that has been filled or attempted to get filled through this internal or

external process, defined as (vacancies in process by end year, plus filled vacancies for the year, less vacancies in process at the start of the year)

• Complex case = Casework which can not be resolved easily within 2 weeks and which requires HR and/or legal expertise to resolve

• Cost of payroll – the total internal and external cost involved with producing all the payroll runs for the year, including internal payroll team, external payroll costs, printing costs, payroll systems costs


• Training cost = total internal and external cost of creating, planning, managing, delivering and reviewing the training during the year. Does not include the cost of the days given up by the trainees

• Total pay bill = total annual cost of salary, bonus, and other payments to staff. Excludes NI, pension and other benefits

• Internal training cost = the internal element of the Training cost above. • Days of training delivered = Number of instructor (internal or external) led training course

days and assessment days delivered to staff. This will be smaller or equal to the number of trainer days. It excludes self learning days.

• Total available days = number of contractual working days per individual, net of bank holidays and annual leave.

• Trainer days = total number of days that the internal trainers have delivered or co-delivered training , e.g. A 2 day training course requiring 3 trainers per day has 2*3 = 6 trainer days


Appendix 5.3 – HR and Training Effectiveness against best practice This appendix contains a comparison by HR and Training Scorecard quartile of the ECFRS effectiveness against Leading Practice and the best of the Benchmarking organisations. HR Effectiveness An example of the HR Effectiveness Scorecard used is included below.

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USE of HR PROVISION of HR

Strategic HR/People Management

Governance & Financial Management Workforce StrategyHR Strategy & AlignmentReq’ts & Portfolio Management Organisation/Operating modelPerformance Management

Organisation & People Change

Project Management & GovernanceWorkforce PlanningCapability/Workforce DevelopmentOrganisation DevelopmentBusiness Change Management Culture and Engagement

HR Service Management

Service ManagementCustomer Service ManagementCommercial and Supplier Management HR Systems ManagementService DeliveryChannel Management

Workforce Utilisation

Benefits Realisation ManagementPeople Process ManagementWorkforce ManagementPeople Information ManagementCase Management

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4 3

1. Strategic HR/People Management

ECFRS Whereas some key components of the Strategic HR/People management are in place, other fundamental aspects are missing, such as the strategic intent and direction of HR as typically expressed in the HR and Workforce Strategies. No longer-term cross-functional governance of the Strategic HR and People related services exists. Leading Practice Leading HR practice starts with HR developing deep insight into corporate strategy, the strengths and issues of the organisation and importantly insight into the end customer needs and requirements. Based on these insights, HR will drive the development and implementation of comprehensive workforce and HR strategies for the organisation. The Head of HR is recognised as a key player of the Board. HR will anticipate potential issues within the organisation and its staff, and ensure that the Transformation programme is shaped in a way that accelerates and brings forward its benefits, whilst maximising people engagement. These organisations fully understand the value of HR and are willing to invest in it as it ensures that people are committed to the business and its direction, understand their part of it and are willing to go the extra mile to make it happen. Best of benchmarked organisations The Services which excelled at Strategic HR/People Management were those that had Workforce and HR strategies which were clearly and closely aligned to the organisation’s business needs and the IRMP. The strategies were assessed annually and validated and agreed by the Executive Board.


In these organisations, HR and Workforce Development were directly represented at the Board by a Director in charge, most often being a non uniformed HR professional, who had immersed themselves and focused on supporting the business priorities with the best that the profession can offer. The best organisations have a head of Organisational Development / Change Management, which will lead a corporate capability through a common change management framework and good principles for OD and managing change. Lastly, close, trusting and involving relationships with the Trade Unions are managed by the HR/WfD department in the best Benchmarked organisations, ensuring that proposed changes are debated and discussed from the perspective of the common interests of the organisation and its staff.

This area is at the heart of some of the issues we have found with HR and the organisation. It will therefore need some real focused attention in order to move it closer to best practice. There is an opportunity to align HR much better to the organisational strategy, to get commitment to the HR priorities and indeed to re-position HR towards more added value services, including leading the shaping and implementation of the workforce strategy.

2. Organisation and People Change

ECFRS The Organisation and People change services in ECFRS are not currently delivered by HR in support of the business on a regular and consistent basis. Line Managers are carrying out organisation and role design at the moment, without an agreed approach or common tools and techniques. Comprehensive workforce planning and management are not carried out. Change management is not established as a key area within the organisation with HR at its helm. Leading Practice In addition to the above, leading Organisation and People Change practice also involves the following: Governance design and development, where HR is the expert in analysing, designing and implementing fit for purpose governance structures, both for projects and for the ongoing management of aspects of the organisation. Workforce planning, i.e. the assessment and planning of which numbers of workforce resources, with the right capabilities, are required in what place at which time to meet business requirements. Capability definition and development, i.e. the identification, planning and development of key organisational capabilities, required for continuous organisational excellence. Employee engagement, i.e. the set of activities required to build greater levels of engagement and commitment of staff to the organisation, i.e. building the will of staff to go “the extra mile” for the organisation. This involves building trust in the leaders, commitment to the direction and that staff are proud of the organisation and want to be part of it as it represents something important to them. The employee engagement is often measured through an annual employee attitude survey, which importantly the board takes very seriously. The concerns raised through the survey are religiously and officially addressed by the board, demonstrating the value they place on


people’s attitudes. The cultural development is being measured through an employee attitude survey, which will indicate their view of the culture at that point, offering an opportunity for the Board to address any shortcomings. Best of benchmarked organisations The best benchmarked organisations have led the development, implementation and embedding of a common Culture and set of Values within the organisation. This work would help the tearing down of barriers between fire stations, RDS and WDS staff and indeed between the Grey and Green book staff. This work also facilitates the standardisation and measurement of both actions and behaviours. These organisations also have a dedicated OD capability that actively support and drive Organisational Change, including the design of organisational structures and roles around a common approach.

The balance between transactional and more strategic, value adding HR services is driven in this quadrant. There is a great opportunity for HR to position Organisation Development, including organisation Design, Cultural Change and Change management as a core capability of ECFRS of the future, linking to the ECFRS aims to be more flexible, more aware of community risks and issues and translating these into behaviours and cultural attributes that HR could support developing into key organisational strengths or capabilities.

3. HR service management

ECFRS HR Service Management is the strongest area of the Scorecard for ECFRS HR, with a broad range of HR services being delivered to the business, attempts to optimise the service delivery channels, some defined SLAs, customer surveys and with SAP being implemented as the core of a strong HR systems infrastructure. Leading Practice Leading HR organisations have established clear SLAs with the business for the key HR services, the agreed service levels, costs and performance of which are being monitored and managed on a regular basis. These organisations are also very clear of who their customers and customer groups are, and what particular needs they have all got. These needs are then translated into bespoke, flexible HR services to best meet the needs of the respective group, coupled with a customer service assessment, typically through a customer survey, which will identify any lapses in customer service and service provision. They also have clear channel management strategies and objectives, ensuring that each HR service is delivered in the most cost effective way to the respective customer groups. Also common amongst leading HR organisations is to use extensive self service for most HR services, complemented by a multi-skilled, flexible contact centre which the customer can call if the information is not easily available or understood online. Best of benchmarked organisations The best benchmarked organisations have team and individual accountabilities and annual targets, mid-year reviews, regular formal appraisal meetings where staff are held accountable for their performance. The development needs resulting from a meaningful appraisal are


collated to form the bottom up training need. They have also developed individual role descriptions for all staff, from CFO down to Fire fighter or clerk, with a common framework across the organisation. The best organisations have integrated policies for across all staff including training & development, pay, grading, which will improve the E&D scores. These organisations also have delegated much of the transactional HR work to Line Managers and staff, who enter the transaction or request themselves, to be signed off by the line manager as part of his accountability to deliver the departmental targets.

Real customer and service management are however areas of concern, which need to be addressed in order to move towards best practice.

4. Workforce Utilisation

ECFRS The delivery and integration of services with the business needs some improvement, with little evidence of a joint, aligned management of the workforce, capabilities, and little Management Information to back it up. Strong efforts in case management has released line management and HR capacity to focus on building the capability required for the future. Leading Practice Cases are very few and far between in leading organisations, as they are dealt with before they get to the case stage by the Line manager. HR and workforce processes are regularly reviewed and amended to improve their effectiveness and efficiency. Benefits of HR and workforce related changes, projects and investments are defined, planned and managed, to ensure the early and full realisation of cashable and non cashable benefits. The required capability of the workforce (including leaders and managers) is done, and the activities to build them are set out and managed, ensuring that the right number of people, with the right skills are available at the right time and place to deal with any incidents and key requirements as they occur. Best of benchmarked organisations Allocation of resources and workforce management processes are being developed across the best performing FRS and systems are being introduced based on skill set, turnover of staff, individual projects and risk. This will replace what was felt to be ‘’resource planning by default’’. HR departments in the best benchmarking organisations play a key role in crewing and thus managing absence, sickness, etc., to support flexible working and maximise staff and appliance utilisation. In the best benchmarked organisation the grievance and disciplinary cases are managed by the Line Manager, with support from HR. The performance of HR is managed by the board based on regularly produced HR KPIs. Detailed Management Information regarding the workforce is being generated by HR and brought to the Board in order to inform and drive operational and strategic business decisions. The accountability for making changes as a result of this information sits clearly with the Line


Manager, who is developed and accountable for dealing with difficult decisions and situations. Effort needs to be invested in establishing and managing a process for managing the size and competence of the workforce, and on building the capability and confidence with Line Managers to make the right and difficult people decisions.


Training Effectiveness An example of the Training Effectiveness Scorecard used is included below.

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Strategic Capability Development

Governance & Financial ManagementDevelopment StrategyCapability Alignment Requirements & Portfolio ManagementOrganisation/Operating modelPerformance Management

Workforce Development

Benefits Realisation ManagementDevelopment Process ManagementWorkforce DevelopmentManagement DevelopmentTraining Information Management

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Capability Development

Development DesignCompetency DefinitionCompetency Assessment & PlanningCapability DefinitionCapability Assessment & Planning

Training Service Management

Service ManagementCustomer Service ManagementCommercial and Supplier ManagementTraining Systems ManagementService DeliveryChannel Management

1. Strategic capability development

ECFRS The lack of a clear Training and Development Strategy for the whole organisation is a key factor in this quadrant, as is the lack of cross functional governance of the Training & Development activities. Training is perhaps more looked upon as a risk mitigation strategy than an investment in new and sustained capabilities. This may have decreased the general interest in managing and controlling the training and development activities as a cost item. There is very little focus on development outside of the uniformed staff groups. Leading Practice Leading Training and Development organisations actively monitor and manage the development of Workforce Capability. Clear Training and Development Strategies for all staff are in place, aligned to the Workforce Development strategy, and are actively managed to support the building of the right Organisational Capability. Clear cross functional Governance is in place to manage the training priorities in line with the strategic priorities, current risks and the overall training needs within the organisation. The performance of the Training department and its activities are regularly monitored, focusing on the outcomes being delivered. Best of benchmarked organisations The best benchmarked organisations have a Training and Development Framework which covers all groups of staff. They also exploit the opportunity to engage in joint training with other FRSs which enables the cross fertilisation of best practice and realises financial and operational efficiencies. The training is aligned to an agreed strategy that relates to both the professional needs of the Firefighter and the operational requirements of the Service. There are single, joined-up Training frameworks for all staff.


Job descriptions are in place for all staff and accurately reflect the role of the post holder and highlight the behaviours that are required.

2. Capability development

ECFRS The existing Firefighter competencies and definitions have all been developed on a national basis and adopted by ECFRS as they stand. The required capabilities for success have not been defined or assessed, and there are no agreed definitions across the organisation of what Leadership excellence is or what it means to be a good manager/leader in ECFRS. Leading Practice Clear and comprehensive definition of the behaviours and types / levels of competency that both align to the organisational culture of the future and that are required for excellent performance in each role. Clear and defined roles and responsibilities are in place for all staff including the specification of which levels of competency are required for excellent performance in the role. A clear definition of the organisational capabilities that are required for success, where capability means what the organisation needs to be good at to be successful and to achieve its vision and strategic objectives. Level of capability is regularly assessed and comprehensive plans are built to close the gap. Best of benchmarked organisations An established competency framework for all staff is in place that allows line managers to identify the specific individual training and development needs in relation to their role. A timely and accurate method for ensuring that the right personnel are given the opportunity to attend the necessary training and development to meet the individual training needs and support the overarching training strategy. Competencies are assessed regularly by managers, leading to annual development plans in support of the current and potential future role for the individual.

3. Training service management

ECFRS With 32 FTE trainers and a training organisation of 58 FTEs in total, there is an in-house capacity to deliver plenty of training. However, there is a lack of strong, consistent management of the effectiveness or indeed the real business need behind the training activities. No cross functional training service management forums exist, and broad customer service, apart from specific course evaluation, is not measured. The new TEM system will enable more efficient and effective management of training and events. The processes, systems and channels are not being consistently evaluated and managed, presenting opportunities for improved efficiencies and effectiveness. Leading Practice Training needs per individual are logged on line on the basis of the regular performance assessment. Training accounts and individual training records are created and stored online, with incentives to stimulate the individual to develop in line with corporate needs. On line course selection and registration to courses are open for staff with approved development needs and plan.


Corporate Training needs are generated automatically, enabling timely prioritisation of courses and initiatives. A range of competency development opportunities, including job shadowing, films and DVDs, literature, coaching and mentoring. Integrated information systems, linking roles, performance assessments, development needs, development plans, training records and course bookings. Management of suppliers is done comprehensively and is focused on organisational outcomes. A range of deliver channels are used to meet the development needs. Customer service is defined and managed across all Training services. Clear customer groups are defined and bespoke development solutions are delivering the most effective way to deliver the outcomes. Best of benchmarked organisations A Training Needs Analysis is conducted during the formal collation of appraisals. This gives a clear indication of the shortfalls in training and enabled Line Managers to have clear visibility of the overall training requirement. The total view of the Training Needs for the organisation is collated and analysed to inform training priorities. On line updating of records relating to courses, attendance and qualifications. This ensured that accurate and up to date information could be readily accessed. The outsourced training providers that were used to deliver centrally provided training fully understood the additional pressures placed on a Firefighter and adapted their course content and methods of instruction accordingly. Opportunities to do Job Shadowing of Senior Directors exist for key talent in the organisation, as do internal and external coaching and mentoring schemes. Focus on team building to enhance the effectiveness of the Board.

4. Workforce Development

ECFRS There is very little explicit alignment/integration between the capability and competency development activities and the real capability requirements across the organisation. Little management information around Training and Development area is being published and managed, including information about which outcomes are achieved. Leading Practice The benefits from training and development are clearly defined and monitored. Clear ownership and ongoing management of the efficiency and effectiveness of key development processes, including needs analysis, design, development, delivery and review. Competency models are evaluated and updated. An agreed Workforce Management Plan is in place that stipulates what capability is required at a specific time. The capability of the workforce is managed and monitored, ensuring we achieve the workforce strategy and plan. Management competence across the organisation is monitored and any gaps are addressed to ensure the organisation is equipped to meet the challenges of the future.


Regular Management Information is produced and monitored on the performance of the Training and Development function and the capability of the workforce. The information is used for decision making and any identified gaps lead to specified plans for bridging the gap. Best of benchmarked organisations The best benchmarked organisations ensured that elements of the training programme gained accreditation by independent civilian bodies such as BTEC and CIMA. They also encouraged their staff to undertake Continuous Professional Development at recognised civilian centres of excellence. Performance management processes are in place for training and development. Management Information on training and development is available. Management competencies are valued and respected and a range of activities to build it are taken.


Appendix 6.1 – HR Effectiveness Scorecard – Definition of Key Services

Quadrant 1 – Strategic HR/People Management

Scorecard area Definition

Governance & Financial Management

The process and structures used to govern HR performance, investments, budget, etc., ensuring delivery of key results and benefits to budget and time.

Workforce Strategy

The creation, management and delivery of an agreed strategy to deliver the right number of people, with the right capability, working in the right way and in the right place to best support EFRS vision and objectives.

HR Strategy & Alignment

The creation and management of an appropriate HR strategies, aligned to corporate strategy and objectives, enabling maximum leverage of the HR capability.

Requirements & Portfolio Management

The definition, analysis and management of business requirements on HR, which supports the decisions around start, stop or continuation of HR projects and investment.

Organisation/ Operating Model

The continuous review of HR business structure, capability and roles, in response to changed financial, legislative or customer requirements.

Performance Management

The definition, deployment, management and analysis of people performance management processes, supporting increased accountability, new ways of working and values with staff.


Quadrant 2 – Organisation and People Change


Project Management & Governance

The definition, design and delivery of project management and governance activities in support of large changes programmes.

Workforce Planning

The assessment and planning of which numbers of workforce resources, with the right capability, are required in the right place at the right time to meet business requirements.

Capability/ Workforce Development

The identification, planning and development of key organisational capabilities, required for continuous organisational excellence.

Organisation Development

The design and development of the organisation, its structures, roles, and ways of working in a common, coordinated way to ensure that it is optimised to deliver the most value to the business and its strategic direction.

Business Change Management

The design, development and deployment across the organisation of a set of key tools, techniques, methods and skills that will enable the business to evolve and change. A key element of this is the activities involved with transitioning people to the new structure. This is done to enable the delivery of key business benefits as set out in the new strategy, investment case or other key change document.

Culture and Engagement

The design and development of the culture, values, ways of working and open communication and involvement of staff to ensure maximised engagement of all staff in the organisation and its vision. A strong culture, lived each day, is a prerequisite to organisational success.


Quadrant 3 – HR Service Management


Service Management

The timely and effective governance of HR services, including service, performance, commercial and financial governance. The governance should consist of customers, providers, owners and funders of HR services and may be done on the basis of key SLAs.

Customer Service Management

The definition of what good customer service looks like and how that could be measured. Also the actual monitoring (customer feedback and hard numbers) and management of the service, which includes regular meetings between customer and supplier where service is reviewed and deficiencies addressed.

Commercial and Supplier Management

The establishment and management of commercial and supplier arrangements to ensure that the right service and performance is delivered to the organisation at the right time and cost, and that the agreed ways of working are being adhered to.

HR Systems Management

The definition, procurement, implementation and management of HR systems. This includes the requirements specification, implementation and ongoing user management and may include managing the testing, piloting and cleansing of data.

Service Delivery This is the activity of defining, agreeing and delivering the services that are needed by each customer group to support their business objectives. It includes agreeing handover points, outputs, deliverables and service levels with the customers and flexibly delivering to these.

Channel Management

The analysis of volumes and costs of the service delivery per delivery channel, e.g. Self help, email support, call in contact centre, face to face and driving the use of the most cost effective channel through the organisation.


Quadrant 4 - Workforce utilisation


Benefits Realisation Management

The definition of key benefits, timings and responsibilities with HR and workforce services, and the management of their respective implementation. Overseen by Programme board or other governance bodies.

People Process Management

The monitoring and management of key people processes to ensure they are fit for purpose, that outcomes are delivered and that they are as streamlined as possible.

Workforce Management

The effective management of the capability of the workforce (including leaders and managers), ensuring that the right number of people, with the right skills are available at the right time and place to deal with any incidents and key requirements as they occur.

People Information Management

The effective collation, production and analysis of workforce information to identify issues, inform and drive decisions and prompt resolution.

Case Management

The proactive management of individual cases to their successful conclusion, and the identification and resolution of situations of risk to minimise new cases.


Appendix 6.2 – Training Effectiveness Scorecard – Definition of Key Services

Quadrant 1 - Strategic Capability Development Scorecard area

Definition

Governance & Financial Management

The process and structures used to govern Training and Development performance, investments, budget, etc., ensuring delivery of key results and benefits to budget and time.

Development Strategy

The creation, management and delivery of an agreed strategy to most effectively deliver the right number of people, with the right capability to best support ECFRS vision and objectives.

Capability Alignment

The integrated management and alignment of Capability requirements, ensuring that the organisation moves towards the right capabilities, aligned to its strategy to support ongoing success.

Requirements & Portfolio Management

The definition, analysis and management of business requirements on Training, which supports the decisions around start, stop or continuation of Training and Development projects and investment.

Organisation/ Operating Model

The continuous review of Training business structure, capability and roles, in response to changed financial, legislative or customer requirements.

Performance Management

The implementation and management of processes for managing the performance of Training and the Training department, ensuring the effective and efficient delivery of the required capabilities to achieve the corporate objectives.


Quadrant 2 - Capability Development

Scorecard area

Definition

Development Design

The analysis and design of the fit for purpose development approach, method and provider to meet the training needs and objectives in the quickest and most cost effective way.

Competency Definition

The assessment, design and development of the types and levels of competencies that are required with an individual to be able to perform excellently in a role or a set of roles.

Competency Assessment and Planning

The assessment of the existing competencies and analysis of the gap against required levels of competency, thus producing a gap analysis. The design and development of a plan to fill the competency gap.

Capability Definition

The assessment, design and development of the capabilities that the organisation needs in order to be successful in the future and to achieve its vision and strategic objectives. The required capabilities describe what the organisation needs to be able to do better than their competition or reference group in order to be successful.

Capability Assessment and Planning

The assessment of the existing capabilities and analysis of the gap against required capabilities produces a gap analysis. This will inform the design and development of a plan to fill the missing capabilities, now and in the future.


Quadrant 3 - Training Service Management

Scorecard area

Definition

Service Governance

The timely and effective governance of Training services, including service, performance, commercial and financial governance. The governance bodies should consist of customers, providers, owners and funders of Training services and may be done on the basis of key SLAs.

Customer Service Management

The definition of what good customer service looks like for Training and how that could be measured. Also the actual monitoring (customer feedback and hard numbers) and management of the service, which includes regular meetings between customer and supplier where service is reviewed and deficiencies addressed.

Commercial and Supplier Management

The establishment and management of commercial and supplier arrangements to ensure that the right service and performance is delivered to the organisation at the right time and cost, and that the agreed ways of working are being adhered to.

Training Systems Management

The definition, procurement, implementation and management of Training systems. This includes the requirements specification, implementation and ongoing user management and may include managing the testing, piloting and cleansing of data.

Service Delivery

This is the activity of defining, agreeing and delivering the services that are needed by each customer group to support their business objectives. It includes agreeing handover points, outputs, deliverables and service levels with the customers and flexibly delivering to these.

Channel Management

The analysis of volumes and costs of the service delivery per delivery channel, e.g. Self help, email support, call in contact centre, face to face and driving the use of the most cost effective channel through the organisation.


Quadrant 4 - Workforce Development

Scorecard area

Definition

Benefits Realisation Management

The definition of key benefits, timings and responsibilities, and the management of their respective implementation. Overseen by Programme board or other governance bodies.

Development Process Management

The monitoring and management of development processes to ensure they are fit for purpose, that outcomes are delivered and that they are as streamlined as possible.

Workforce Development

The effective management of the capability of the workforce, ensuring that the right capability is available at the right time and place to deal with any incidents and key requirements as they occur.

Management Development

The effective management of the capability of the management cadre, ensuring that the right capability is available at the right time and place to manage and lead the organisation through difficult times and deliver the organisation of the future.

Training Information Management

The effective collation, production and analysis of workforce development information to identify issues, inform and drive decisions and prompt resolution.

appendices to final report

Documents