Capability Reviews: Progress and Next Steps - The Civil Service

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Department for Work and PensionsGood progress has been made against all of the areas for action. The boardhas taken the recommendations from the Capability Review seriously andacted upon them in ways that have had a positive impact on the Department.This has been undertaken alongside a challenging business transformationand efficiency agenda.BaselineThese scores are a baseline reflecting the assessment of capability in July 2006 andhave not been updated. The summary below describes the Department’s progresssince then.LeadershipL1 Set direction Development areaL2 Ignite passion, pace and drive Well placedL3 Take responsibility for leading delivery and change Development areaL4Build capabilityUrgentdevelopment areaStrategyS1Focus on outcomesDevelopment areaS2 Base choices on evidence StrongS3 Build common purpose Well placedDeliveryD1Plan, resource and prioritiseUrgentdevelopment areaD2 Develop clear roles, responsibilities and delivery model(s) Well placedD3 Manage performance Development areaThe review team gave the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) three areas foraction to focus on. These were:• ‘Build an effective leadership team’: building a top team that is more collaborative,more visible and engages staff more effectively.10 TRANCHE 1 DEPARTMENTS: A YEAR ON
• ‘Managing for improvement’: supporting middle management to engage front-linestaff and improving strategic HR.• ‘Learn how to learn’: building a departmental culture that encourages opennessand learning, both learning from what it does well and from addressingweaknesses and failures.Area for action 1: Build an effective leadership teamEach member of the executive team is now leading on one aspect of the changeprogramme and therefore operates as a leader of DWP as a whole, not just of theiragency or function. The executive team is now also assessed collectively for theirperformance bonus against the achievement of corporate objectives andcollaborative team working. The leadership team has engaged a board coach, andfeedback from staff suggests that such high-profile initiatives as the ‘Back to theFloor’ programme, in which each member of the executive team spent a weekworking in front-line offices, have been well received and have signalled that theleadership team is taking this initiative seriously. All members of the Senior CivilService (SCS) are now being asked to ‘return to the floor’ themselves. One memberof staff who took part in this programme is quoted as saying:‘There is nothing like sitting right next to staff and their customers to bringhome what an important job it is. How valuable it is, how hard it is and howrewarding it can be… [My] greater understanding of how people are workingand feeling will certainly help me as I do my job.’The review team now wants to see evidence of the executive team being trulyambitious about a future for DWP that makes the fullest use of its capabilities.The Department must find ways to convince staff of the value of and need for thischange, and demonstrate this by improved staff survey results for leadership.Area for action 2: Managing for improvementThe Capability Review found that too many front-line staff did not feel engaged inthe change process, nor did they feel their concerns were listened to or acted upon.In response to this, a lively communication document, DWP Journey, about changein the Department, now comes out regularly. Staff have also been given theopportunity to feed into a review of the Performance Development System, whichhas now been overhauled. A project, called iMatter, designed to engage staff in localdecision making and service improvement was piloted in Makerfield Benefit DeliveryCentre and has now been successfully rolled out to five other locations. Staff havealso been engaged through Lean masterclasses, two conferences for the SCS andan innovative operational managers conference.Good work has been done on building a customer proposition centred around the‘No wrong door’ concept, so that customers will always have their query dealt with,CAPABILITY REVIEWS: PROGRESS AND NEXT STEPS11
Page 1 and 2: Capability Reviews:Progress and Nex
Page 3 and 4: This has been an excellent example
Page 5 and 6: 1. Tranche 1 departments: a year on
Page 7 and 8: Department for Children, Schools an
Page 9: This will act as an innovative and
Page 13 and 14: Home OfficeStarting from a low base
Page 15 and 16: Department’s wider agenda. Develo
Page 17 and 18: Ministry of JusticeThe MoJ was crea
Page 19 and 20: A number of significant programmes
Page 21 and 22: 2. Common capability gaps: progress
Page 23 and 24: later tranches have not been able t
Page 25 and 26: or hinder it:‘lack of leadership
Page 27 and 28: All of these aspects came together
Page 29 and 30: Case study: Collective leadership i
Page 31 and 32: • Engaging the wider SCS. This is
Page 33 and 34: Participants’ comments included:
Page 35 and 36: Consequently, the areas of focus su
Page 37 and 38: Building up the supply and demand s
Page 39 and 40: Case study: Development work with d
Page 41 and 42: Case study: A skills strategy for g
Page 43 and 44: The recent CSR has emphasised the i
Page 45 and 46: At six months after the review:•
Page 47 and 48: Our challenge now is to ensure that
Page 49 and 50: • a more comprehensive approach t
Page 51 and 52: The Tranche 3 report identified the
Page 53 and 54: Case study: The Home Office Strateg
Page 55 and 56: The group is expanding to include l
Page 57 and 58: • The Sunningdale Institute facil
Page 59 and 60: Exhibit 3: Change trajectoriesCapab
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original reviews. The re-review wil
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Departments increasingly have to wo
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LeadershipKey questions that test c
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DeliveryKey questions that test cur
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Capability Reviews TeamCabinet Offi
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