Agenda item

The Committee will receive a presentation on the draft Organisational Development Strategy, with a focus on the vision, culture and values from day one of the new Council. Members will have an opportunity ask questions and comment on the draft strategy to help inform the Shadow Executive’s decision.

Ms J O’Neill, Head of HR and OD and Consultancy, BCC, provided a presentation and highlighted the following points:

• The values and behaviours were key in shaping the right culture for the new organisation to complement the corporate plan; they would help to align the employees and wider workforce with the organisational vision.
• The method and approach that had been used in shaping the new values had been to start with the existing values in each organisation. 
• The Shadow Executive had been asked what was important to them.
• A paper had been to the Chief Executive’s Implementation Group and shared with various teams, the trade union and employee representatives.
• Respect, pride and ambition emerged strongly as potential values.
• Accountable, collaborate and trusted were the possible behaviours.
• The behaviour statements would be built into performance management.
• There would be four key building blocks in the Organisational Development’s People Framework – work place culture and design, personal development, employee engagement and inspirational leadership and a Bucks management programme.
• The values and behaviours would be woven into the wider workforce e.g. contract managers and volunteers to ensure a common purpose.
• Work would be carried out with the communications team to develop a diagram showing the values and behaviours.

In response to members’ questions the following points were noted:

• A committee member felt that some of the wording in the paper could be better phrased and that the Member role should be given greater emphasis.  It was suggested that the word ‘positive’ be used in place of ‘great’ in the following phrase, ‘leaders who are great role models’. ‘Residents’ should be used instead of ‘people’.  The member suggested that, in terms of equality, everyone should be performance managed, not just staff.
• Another committee member commented that the council would need considerable drive and energy and that the values and behaviours were uninspiring.
• It was suggested that an alternative word be used for behaviour which was mentioned numerous times.
• It would be important to ensure that the Equalities Act came through the work place, that the employees were diverse and that the trade union was involved.  Ms O’Neill commented that the theme of respect captured the point regarding diversity. 
• One of the committee members felt it lacked passion; staff needed encouragement and to enjoy their work.
• A member of the committee felt it underplayed the importance of values; bad values bred complacency and cynicism.  There was not a great deal of focus on delivery.  He felt it was too inwardly focussed and should be about how the organisation was run, the culture and how business was carried out.   Ms O’Neill stated that the intention was to weave the values and behaviours in with the corporate plan which would provide direction and vision.  The corporate plan was being worked on by a different team but they would be pulled together.
• The Chairman added that the corporate plan (called the strategic plan in the work programme) would be presented at the meeting on 25 November 2019. 
• A member of the committee stressed that the new organisation would not be static, it would be evolving continually and should be reflected in the culture of the organisation.  It should be a learning organisation which encouraged staff to move forward but there had been no mention of staff development.  The member suggested adding “fun” under the behaviours.  He commented that he would like to see ownership of problems and one of the biggest challenges would be to ensure that all staff trusted each other; there was a lot of mutual suspicion between the district councils and the county council. The member stated he would like to see good performance recognised and was concerned that many of the executive appointments had been made to people from outside the organisation and the message this relayed to the staff.  Staff needed to know they would be recognised and promoted if they worked hard.  He questioned how the new organisation would develop and align the workforce and how they would know it had been achieved.  Ms O’Neill advised that this was addressed in the draft OD strategy and the draft People Framework, outlined in the paper but she had been asked to focus on values and behaviours in her presentation.
• A member of the committee was concerned that there were staff and members who would think the values and behaviours did not apply to them and would carry on causing offence to people and asked what message would be given to say the council would not tolerate those behaviours.  Ms O’Neill stated that staff would be recruited to the values and behaviours and that research had shown that people applying for jobs considered the values and behaviours culture of an organisation; they would be built into the people framework and people who did not perform would be performance managed using the values and behaviours framework. 
• It was suggested that ‘aspiration’ and ‘learning’ should be included.  If an organisation was a learning organisation the passion would come.
• Another member thought it lacked ambition as a headline.  Members and officers should have the same values.  There was no mention of ‘being real’ to our residents, no mention of ‘courage’ or ‘the environment’.  Partner agencies had to be respectful and co-operative and staff and members needed to have the same values with everyone they came into contact with e.g. parish councils, the police, the fire service etc.  The commitment and passion for diversity inclusion was not shown.  Everyone needed to be personally accountable.  Ms O’Neill said she had considered many of the words suggested but wanted a small number with a clear message which people could focus on. Detail would be woven underneath the key headings and the individual behaviour statements included many of the words being suggested.
• One of the committee members liked the word ‘respect’ but stated it was too easy to say ‘with respect’ and carry on with the sentence.  He suggested the word ‘listen’ should be included as it was important for managers to listen to their staff.  If the new council wanted to perform, it must listen to the members, members must listen to the staff and the staff must listen to the public.
• ‘Open’ and ‘straightforward’ were also suggested.

The Chairman thanked Ms O’Neill for the presentation and stated that previously he had had experience of five values in other organisations.  He felt it was important to capture the drive, enthusiasm and the need to listen to residents.  Mrs S Ashmead, Monitoring Officer for the Shadow Authority reiterated that the Corporate Plan and the Organisational Development Strategy needed to come together and it would be beneficial to see them alongside each other at the meeting on 25 November 2019.

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