Prospect Trade Union – Written Evidence (FFF0028)
Introduction
- Prospect is the second largest trade union in the civil service, representing professionals, managers and specialists working in the main departments, executive agencies, and non-departmental public bodies. Prospect also has members working in education, policing and for third sector bodies providing services to the public. We represent members with a diverse range of professional, managerial and specialist roles including science and engineering, IT, procurement and surveying as well as policy delivery, environmental and safety regulation, and programme management. Prospect is dedicated to supporting and championing the work our members working in public services do to defend, protect, support and enhance the lives of people in the UK.
- Prospect welcomes this inquiry into designing a public services workforce fit for the future. We have long been concerned by the weaknesses in public service workforce planning and development, particularly with regard to avoiding shortfalls in specialist and expert capabilities and capacity to meet the challenges of the future. We also advocate for the critical importance of employee voice and participation in the ongoing process of designing and developing working roles and relationships that meet the needs of the public.
Recruitment, retention and training
Prediction and planning
- The fact that the future cannot be predicted in every detail should not be used as an excuse for neglecting to take sensible steps to prepare.
- One trend that can be predicted with confidence is the increased need for STEM qualifications and skills in our public services, in an increasingly competitive market for such skills, which are critical for effectively harnessing the potential of new digital and data-driven technologies. They are also key to meeting a wide range of societal challenges, from managing the public health risks dramatized by the Covid-19 pandemic to dealing with the climate emergency.”[1]
- This is a challenge of retention, training and career pathways alongside recruitment. As well as competing with the private sector, public services need to be able to “grow their own timber” by enabling their workers to develop professional skills in response to changing circumstances and public needs. There is some concern that some public employers are not yet good enough at this – a Prospect member in a key civil service agency told us that the current “Success Profiles” process is failing to adequately identify or develop technical abilities, which is “having a corrosive effect on the business and operational delivery”.
- A key dimension is ensuring those with needed skills and experience are recognised, valued and able to contribute. STEM and data skills must sit at the heart of policy development, delivery and evaluation, and specialists must be regarded as integral elements in multi-disciplinary teams rather than the “hired hand” or “technical support”.
- Government and public service employers have too often failed to gather the workforce data or develop the planning tools necessary to identify and prepare for future workforce needs. This problem has been repeatedly highlighted by the National Audit Office (NAO),[2] Public Accounts Committee (PAC),[3] Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee,[4] and Institute for Government (IfG).[5] As a trade union Prospect has often found employers unable to provide detailed or reliable information on their own workforce, and has sometimes found employers turning to the union for intelligence and insight into skills shortages or demographic risks.
- Prospect welcomed the inclusion of key questions around "workforce capacity” in the Treasury’s “Public Value Framework”. We were, however, concerned that a survey of civil service and public sector leaders in the run up to Spending Round 2019 found that many believed the public value framework could be “a powerful tool with profound implications – but were not convinced that it would be deployed with sufficient energy.”[6]
Training professionals
- In the civil service, delegation of employment issues has led to fragmentation and erosion of joined-up thinking across organisations. A weak centre leads to a lack of strategy and implementation, with workforce development left within departmental and agency silos, without enough in-house expertise or capacity to take an intelligent, proactive approach. In the climate of headcount reductions, pay caps and staff shortages that has characterised most of the past decade, the focus has been on short-term management, “muddling through” and firefighting, with longer-term planning and development not a priority.
- Cuts to departmental training funds over the past decade have led to a loss of in-depth and in-person continuous training, and increasing reliance on online delivery (accelerated by the pandemic) which often cannot develop the rapport and open communication needed to build and maintain workforce skills and expertise. A member at a Defra agency told us “I personally think back to the in-depth continuous technical training I received when I first entered Defra and what I see new recruits have been receiving even before the pandemic hit is quite shocking”. A member at the UK Health Security Agency (HSA) told us that “when it comes to additional training, let alone refreshers, to maintain your knowledge and enhance your skills then there is not money or appetite for that and often citing reduced headcount as a reason for not letting staff be away from their desk for training”.
- Lack of investment and prioritisation of planning can have serious long-term costs. Work initiated by the Health Protection Agency before its transformation into Public Health England involved staff in mapping the existing workforce, identifying skills gaps and framing organisational aspirations.[7] But, a member said, “none of this was implemented as basically there was no investment in the workforce and its skills, A totally wasted opportunity and arguably some aspects being contributory factors to the Covid-19 response car crash”.
- The recruitment and development of the expertise needed to deliver public goals must be anchored within professional and functional frameworks that recognise and reward knowledge, skills and experience. Prospect members in the civil service were concerned that the centralisation of training provision in Civil Service Learning would limit focus to generic capabilities and behavioural competencies at the expense of vital specialist, technical and functional skills. We have supported the development of the cross-departmental Professions framework and have worked closely with the Government Science and Engineering Profession in particular,[8] but these approaches have a long way to go to effectively mitigate the structural and cultural forces that prevent the development of capabilities and capacity needed for the future.
- When private and third sector partners are used, a key challenge is enabling beneficial transfer of skills and knowledge. A Prospect member working at a public-facing Defra agency told us “Defra employs significant numbers of contractors in specialisms including IT and project management. Whilst the employer recognises that building an in-house pool of such specialists must be the long-term solution (current public sector pay situation aside) Defra appear to be struggling to ensure that contractors provide skills mentoring to Defra in-house staff.” Another member at an important business-facing agency at a different department echoed this point, reporting that a long-running attempt to modernise IT systems has been “reliant on external contractors at various junctures, with much talk of skills transfer to in-house staff. However this has met with limited success.”
- Joint training that brings together staff from different organisations or services could have a role where roles and skills are closely comparable. However there is a concern that attempting to shift training in a more generic direction – as has been floated, for example, in the agri-environment enforcement sector – risks a dilution or undermining of the deep expertise needed to effectively deliver particular functions or services.
Attracting and retaining professionals
- Pay has been a major impediment to both recruitment and retention. Analysis of data cited by the Government in its latest evidence to Pay Review Bodies indicates that since 2010 civil service pay awards have fallen 15 per cent behind those in the wider economy.[9] Gaps with the private sector are also reported to be widest at professional and senior grades. In 2015 the Hay Group reported that “Civil service salaries lag behind the private sector at all levels” with the gap widest at higher grades: “By senior manager and expert professional level, Grades 7 and 6, the civil service package is worth only about two thirds of that available elsewhere.”[10] More recent work commissioned by the Government itself, which we have seen though which remains unpublished, shows these gaps have continued to widen.
- We see the negative impact of these issues wherever we have members. A negotiator at Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service told us that professional workshop staff and psychologists are moving to the private sector where they can expect much higher pay and less challenging working conditions. A member at a vital public-facing organisation told us that they had accepted a post at a private sector IT consultancy, where they would see a 50% pay increase and opportunities to develop their skills. One of the projects they may be starting on will be with the public service organisation they have just left. Meanwhile a Senior Geospatial Information Specialist at the UK Hydrographic Office, which enables UK maritime defence and commerce, told us that “failure to retain staff who have had a financial motive in their decision to leave puts the teams that they leave behind at a major disadvantage. The majority of the production teams now have crippling backlogs which delay our information promulgation by 3+months; tarnishing our international standing.”
- Some public service employers (Defra is one) have been able to introduce specialist skills allowances for a narrowly defined range of specialisms, but these do not cover the full extent of recruitment and retention affecting the workforce. For example, the Animal and Plant Health Agency is currently struggling to recruit even middle-grade plant health staff, especially in the South East, who are needed to resource the new Border Control Posts.
- A fragmented career landscape that fails to adequately recognise the value of specialist knowledge, skills and experience can also be a significant deterrent to professionals joining, or remaining within, the public service workforce. In the civil service, more senior grades are still largely dominated by policy generalists, reinforcing a sense of limited influence and career ceilings for civil servants with more specialist skills or deep subject expertise.
- Civil servants looking to advance their careers face a system which does not value “specialists” as well as “generalists”, and a “culture which values those who move quickly above those who develop expertise and see through projects.”[11] This pushes specialists and professionals to aim for generalist management jobs in order to gain any pay increase, a perverse incentive which wastes expertise and generates dysfunctional levels of workforce churn. In agencies such as Natural England we have seen people moving jobs as the only way to improve their pay, resulting in a loss of expertise and experience.[12]
- A member at the HSA suggested that some public services were doing better than others on this front, and might be learned from: “a fundamental problem with much of the civil service, particularly for STEM specialists, is the lack of career structure and path. The consequence is differential treatment compared with the admin generalists that access ‘leadership’ tracks, but also ascribes no organisation value to the skills and knowledge attained by the developing specialists … I worked with the NHS in developing their PST and HSST Career paths for Medical Physicists that followed similar arrangements for Biomedical Scientists etc. This described the several ways to access the profession and described the knowledge and skills requirements. This was backed up by a tailored training and development path to assist progression. I don’t see anything similar near me.”
- Building commonality and interchange between specialisms across departmental silos could help build the critical mass needed to balance the influence of cultures and structures that currently favour generalists. We would welcome the development of a more systematic and cross-departmental approach to specialist training and skills development, anchored in the professions and linked to opportunities for meaningful career management and planning.
- Prospect also knows from its membership across the public and private sectors that professionals choosing employers or planning careers put value on the quality of working life; flexible and family-friendly working policies, including support for hybrid working; and effective approaches to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
Consequences of failure
- The consequence of shortages of professional skills and expertise in key areas is poorer policy outcomes, poor value for money for the taxpayer, and an inability to deal with some of the greatest challenges we face as a nation, from “levelling up” the productivity and communities of poorer regions, to defence and security or responding to climate change.
- Evidence that these consequences are mounting is increasingly impossible to ignore, contributing to falling levels of public trust in Government and its ability to deliver on the public’s concerns. The IfG has reported concerns that the aim of supporting regional economic development by devolving power to city regions outside London is being held back by lack of capacity in central departments.[13] Meanwhile the NAO, PAC and IfG have pointed to skills shortages as a key reason for major projects and procurements failing to be delivered on time and on budget.[14]
Recruiting a more diverse workforce
- The underrepresentation of BAME people, people with disabilities, older people and many people who use public services in the public service workforce is not only wrong in principle, it restricts the pool for recruitment and development and so amounts to a loss of talent, ideas, and breadth of perspective and experience. Making faster inroads into the problem requires that we move forward from proclamations of intent to a much more rigorous assembly and analysis of data to better map and understand the inhibiters, as well as sustained outreach and engagement of employees themselves in tackling them.
- Trade unions can play a valuable role in this, by helping to build the trust and confidence needed for employees to contribute their experiences, and by bringing expertise and experience in reforming workplace cultures and career structures. We have sought to work constructively to advance this agenda, for example by publishing guidance for employers on neurodiversity and organisational change,[15] or on improving career options and progression for women working in STEM.[16] Where necessary we challenge employers who are failing to create fair and inclusive working environments. In one case, a scientist with a major research council faced the prospect of early retirement when changes to his role were hard to adapt to as a result of side-effects of medication he was taking. With Prospect’s support he was able to move to a more suitable role in which he has thrived.[17]
Transforming workforce effectiveness
Digital tools and technologies
- Digital technologies have a key role to play in improving the effectiveness and accessibility of public services. Prospect members are often at the forefront of harnessing and driving these developments across a wide range of public services. However, the experience of our members is that new technologies are not always introduced in ways that enable the benefits to be maximised. In a survey conducted in 2020, we found around a third of “public service” members lacking confidence that their employer would provide sufficient training and support to accompany new technologies, and that this put public service employers behind some private sector industries such as energy, aviation and telecoms.
- One member told us in response to this inquiry that “new IT tools are invariably rolled out with absolutely minimal training … Again and again I see the same outcome, new IT tools that are hardly ever utilised properly by staff due to wholly inadequate training. Repeatedly leading to the promised step changes in efficiency and productivity failing to materialise.”
- Too often public services are unable to take advantage of the opportunities for improvement that digital technology can offer because the impact of budget cuts and crude pay controls on skills and staffing leaves no scope for innovating new ways of working. For example, our members working for Natural England – a vital public agency that has suffered severe budget cuts over the past decade – have told us of being unable to make use of the opportunities for more efficient and effective land monitoring and management offered by new drone technologies because of the lack of staff capacity.
Effects of the pandemic
- The requirements of responding to the multiple challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic clearly put public service workers under a great deal of strain. We have seen a great deal of innovation and adaptability in response, some of which has generated lessons or changes to ways of working likely to have value beyond the pandemic itself. However, it is important that complex changes are managed carefully, with all impacts considered and all voices heard. Prospect surveyed members across a number of sectors in summer 2020 about their experience of homeworking during lockdown. Most responses were positive, but it was clear there had been challenges for some people. Comparison across sectors suggested that negative experiences were somewhat more common among public service workers.
- In response to this inquiry we found significant concern among our members about the quality of training and professional development undertaken online, a trend accelerated by the pandemic. A member at the HSA told us, “as a large component of my day job is delivering technical training I would wholeheartedly agree that a return to face-to-face delivery is crucial. Online training… is certainly a very poor relation.”
Transforming existing workforce structures
Transforming service delivery
- All available international evidence points to worker voice and participation as essential to effective transformation.”[18]
- Digital transformations provide repeated illustrations of this. A Prospect member offered the example of a major IT project that is failing to deliver hoped for benefits because staff needing to use it were not adequately consulted and involved in the project management process, resulting in a system that is “difficult to use and much less efficient” than the previous one. This was echoed by a member in a different area of public service, who reported that “there seems little engagement with staff regarding selection of IT tools and then little investment in the rollout. While you have to jump through hoops of fire to get anything on the public facing internet… from my experience there is no analogous process for selection, evolution or deployment of internal systems.”
- Trade unions have a key role to play in encouraging and facilitating staff engagement and involvement, as the OECD has recently recognised.[19] This applies to public services no less than private businesses. This is confirmed by independent academic studies and by our own experience as a trade union working in partnership with members and employers to shape and develop the public service workforce of the future wherever we can.[20]
February 2022
[1] https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/civil-service-skills.pdf
[2] https://www.nao.org.uk/report/identifying-and-meeting-central-governments-skills-requirements/; https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Capability-in-the-civil-service.pdf; https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Reforming-the-civilian-workforce.pdf
[3] https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5801/cmselect/cmpubacc/686/68602.htm
[4] https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmpubadm/112/112.pdf
[5] https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/IfG_staff_turnover_WEB.pdf
[6] https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/public-sector/articles/spending-review-2019.html
[7] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/507518/CfWI_Mapping_the_core_public_health_workforce.pdf
[8] See for example https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/557334/gs-16-17-government-science-engineering-gse-strategy.pdf
[9] Prospect analysis of data presented in https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/954610/Economic_Evidence_to_the_PRBs_FINAL.pdf
[10] https://www.civilserviceworld.com/articles/opinion/why-competitive-civil-service-needs-make-pay-priority
[11] https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/IfG_staff_turnover_WEB.pdf
[12] https://library.prospect.org.uk/download/2022/00137.
[13] https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/4681%20IFG%20-%20Making%20a%20Devolution%20final.pdf; https://www.lgcplus.com/politics-and-policy/devolution-and-economic-growth/devolution-bids-could-stretch-whitehall-capacity-lga-warns/5090256.article
[14] https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5801/cmselect/cmpubacc/686/68605.htm; https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/civil-service-skills.pdf; https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmpubacc/185/report.html
[15] Available at https://library.prospect.org.uk/download/2017/00731
[16] In association with the Institution of Engineering and Technology - Available to download at https://library.prospect.org.uk/download/2015/01582 and https://library.prospect.org.uk/download/2017/00497
[17] https://prospect.org.uk/about/our-members/case-study/securing-reasonable-adjustments-with-help-from-my-rep/
[18] https://socialeurope.eu/successful-transitions-through-workplace-innovation
[19] http://www.oecd.org/employment/negotiating-our-way-up-1fd2da34-en.htm
[20] See for example https://www.bayes.city.ac.uk/faculties-and-research/research/bayes-knowledge/2015/july/helping-not-hindering-productivity-workplace-union-representation-in-the-british-public-sector; https://www.socialpartnershipforum.org/articles/how-we-do-partnership; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/bjir.12417