Issue - meetings

The County Council is performing strongly.  We are working as “one team” with our partners to ensure Surrey residents receive high quality and value for money services. We are making positive differences to people’s lives every day.

A large part of this success has been the growth in good leaders with exemplary leadership skills and behaviours. This has a direct impact on the morale and well-being of staff who, in turn, become happier at work and can give an excellent service to residents. A Coaching Programme took place between 2009 and 2013.  1,545 people went through the programme and it has played a key role in building good leadership at Surrey. This was Phase 1 of the Leadership Development Pathway. We have now developed Phase 2 - the new High Performance Development Programme (HPDP) – which will take performance to another level. It will be focused on enabling leaders and managers to address the most difficult issues they face at work; the issues which challenge them the most.

After a successful pilot of the new HPDP, carried out between November 2013 and April 2014, a procurement exercise has been completed to enable us to secure a supplier to deliver the full programme. We are now in a position to recommend the award of contracts to the suppliers identified below and set out in Part 2 of the agenda (item 21), starting on 11 June 2014.  

[The decisions on this item can be called in by the Council Overview and Scrutiny Committee]

That contracts be awarded to the preferred bidders of WillisClare Ltd and Penna Plc as agreed on the basis, as set out in the Part 2 annexe.

Reasons for Decisions:

Leaders and managers are going through one of the most difficult phases ever to face the public sector. Surrey has to find £260m savings over the next three years and leaders and managers need to have the resilience to be able to lead and implement unprecedented transformation and still keep services performing well. The previous coaching programme has started to deliver real benefits for residents and the High Performance Development Programme is designed to take performance to another level.  

[The decisions on this item can be called in by the Council Overview and Scrutiny Committee]

The Cabinet Member for Business Services set out the benefits of the High Performance Leadership Development Programme. She said that a coaching programme had taken place between 2009 and 2013.  1,545 people went through the programme and this was Phase 1 of the Leadership Development Pathway.

Phase 2 - the new High Performance Development Programme (HPDP) had now been developed and after a successful pilot of the new HPDP, carried out between November 2013 and April 2014, a procurement exercise had now been completed to enable the Council to secure a supplier to deliver the full programme. (Financial information relating to the award of contracts was discussed in Part 2 of the agenda)

The Cabinet Member referred to Annex A of the submitted report, which set out the Summary of Programme content. She confirmed that much of the programme would be delivered ‘in house’ by senior managers who had already completed the programme. Referring to Equality and Diversity, she confirmed the potentially positive impact on all employed staff through inclusion on this training and development programme.

It was confirmed that the programme was compulsory for the Cabinet Team and would be available to all other Members on a voluntary basis.

Other Members made the following points:

·         The importance of succession planning and ‘growing your own’

·         That this programme would develop the skills to enable Members and staff  to achieve their potential.

RESOLVED:

That contracts be awarded to the preferred bidders of WillisClare Ltd and Penna Plc as agreed on the basis, as set out in the Part 2 annexe.

Reasons for Decisions:

Leaders and managers are going through one of the most difficult phases ever to face the public sector. Surrey has to find £260m savings over the next three years and leaders and managers need to have the resilience to be able to lead and implement unprecedented transformation and still keep services performing well. The previous coaching programme has started to deliver real benefits for residents and the High Performance Development Programme is designed to take performance to another level.