*Enabling excellence:
people report
B35/11
Agenda item 13
3 March 2011
Issue
1.
An update for the Board on our progress towards the aims of our people strategy for
HEFCE. This includes our 2009-10 equality and diversity data.
Recommendations
2.
The Board is invited to:
a.
Note that we will review our people strategy in the context of the organisation’s new
strategy which will be developed following publication of the Higher Education White
Paper.
b.
Note progress towards achieving our equality and diversity targets and the potential
impact of the government recruitment controls. Agree to revise the gender targets to reflect
the progress made.
c.
Note progress towards achieving the aims in our people strategy and key
developments planned to support continuous improvement in the changing context.
Timing for decisions
3.
There are no timing implications for the Board.
Further information
4.
From Steve Egan (0117 931 7408, [email protected]), or Lucy Pow, Head of
Organisational Development (0117 931 7430, [email protected]).
Background
5.
Enabling excellence is one of the cross-cutting themes in our 2006-11 strategic plan. It
sets out our aim to: ‘ensure that we can effectively deliver our strategic plan, working to the
highest standards in all that we do’1. How we perform as an organisation has a major impact on
how substantial sums of public money invested in higher education is spent and accounted for,
what outcomes it delivers, and how far good value for money is secured. Our performance
affects how universities and colleges understand and respond to the national policies and
priorities for higher education. It also affects stakeholders' perceptions of the English HE system
– including students and employers, both here and overseas.
6.
In May 2010, as part of our annual report and accounts2, we updated the Board on the
progress we had made against the range of work areas in the enabling excellence theme over
2009-10. The Board received an exception report on progress for the second third of 2010-11 at
its January 2011 meeting (B11/18).
7.
This paper focuses in particular on one aspect of our enabling excellence theme: ‘enabling
people at HEFCE to achieve their full potential in developing and delivering HEFCE’s strategy’3 .
It builds on the people report we presented to the Board in March 20104.
8.
In 2009 we developed a People Strategy5 in consultation with staff. The strategy has five
aims and a description of what senior managers, managers, individual staff and the HR team
need to do to achieve them. It also includes a three-year rolling plan of key improvement
activities that will help us to achieve our aims. The overarching principles are that:
‘As a relatively small, knowledge based organisation, our continued success depends on
the expertise, talent, interpersonal skills and proactivity of our people. To be regarded as
effective we need to be responsive to, and trusted by, our stakeholders. Therefore, we all
rely on everyone in the organisation to be an ‘active citizen’, committed to high
performance and continuous improvement. We aspire to empower and appreciate each
other and operate with the principles of fairness and integrity at all times’.
9.
On the census date of 31 March 2010, HEFCE employed around 252 full time equivalent
staff (277 headcount), of which around 242 FTE were actively engaged in HEFCE business6.
People are organised into three directorates for management purposes, with a small number
1 http://www.hefce.ac.uk/aboutus/stratplan/
2 http://www.hefce.ac.uk/aboutus/accounts/2010/
3 HEFCE Operating plan 2010-11, enabling excellence theme, people work area.
http://www.hefce.ac.uk/aboutus/opplan/
4 http://www.hefce.ac.uk/aboutus/people/
5 http://www.hefce.ac.uk/aboutus/people/#peop
6 The figure of 252 is the total number of staff employed by, or on secondment to HEFCE on the census date of
31 March 2010. It includes HEFCE staff working for JISC (16.6 FTE), but excludes HEFCE’s Chief Executive and
Chair. The figure of 242 excludes staff on maternity or adoption leave (6.4 FTE), and staff on outward
secondment (3.5 FTE).
2
working directly to the Chief Executive. Most are based at our head office in Bristol, with a small
number based in London or at home.
Discussion
Context
10. People at HEFCE have been working within a climate of considerable policy, funding and
organisational uncertainty over the past year. There have been some clarifications at various
points, for example by the inclusion of HEFCE in the Government's list of quangos to be retained
'on grounds of performing a function which requires impartiality', the new funding settlement for
higher education (October to December 2010), and policy steers in our grant letter from BIS
(December 2010). The Government plans to set out its overall thinking and plans for HE in more
detail in a White Paper. It says that this, taken together with the grant letter, ‘…will supersede all
previous directions to the Council about policy objectives. In particular, the White Paper will set
out our intentions for the future powers and functions of the Council’7. In the meantime, the grant
letter confirmed that BIS expected the Council to continue to perform its current role on its
existing statutory basis for 2011-12 and 2012-13.
11. During the period of transition to new arrangements, people at HEFCE need to be able to
meet the expectations of our stakeholders by influencing, developing and delivering new
approaches, whilst simultaneously delivering ‘business as usual’. We need to achieve this whilst
also delivering a 16 per cent real terms reduction in our administration costs by 2014-15 on top of
the 11 per cent reduction we have delivered in 2010-11; and managing within the various new
Government controls on recruitment, consultancy, paid-for communications, IT, procurement etc.
12. Based on our past achievements we believe that our organisation and people are capable
of meeting this challenge. Organisational changes we have implemented in the past three years
have put us in a stronger position by improving what we do in a cost-effective way. We have also
recently established a transition group and made changes to the membership and focus of our
Executive team.
13. People have already shown high levels of commitment and flexibility as we have sought to
focus our efforts more rigorously on our (changing) priorities and to stop doing some things. They
have supported the introduction of more flexibility into many roles and the extension of our
resource management system across the whole Council. Many people have changed
assignments or roles and some have joined our small ‘strategic response team’ whose members
engage flexibly with short-term projects sometimes in a consultancy type role. This ‘adaptive
capacity’ we have developed is helping us manage the impact of reducing staff numbers and
restrictions on consultancy spending, and will continue to do so as long as we can continue to
invest time and money in developing people’s knowledge and skills and recruit talented people to
front line and business critical posts when we need to.
14. Despite the levels of commitment people are showing, we acknowledge that there are risks
to morale and engagement. These may arise from, for example: uncertainty about our future role;
7 http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/hefce/2010/grant1112/
3
changes in policy and roles that people have invested themselves in; the two-year pay freeze for
staff earning more than £21,000 (resulting in real terms pay reductions); reducing staff numbers
leading to fewer opportunities for progression; the knock-on impact for existing staff of the
restrictions on the talent pool we can currently recruit people from (including the fact that staff on
fixed term contracts with us are unable to apply for vacancies); and public perceptions of the
value of public sector work that is not 'front-line'. These risks may be exacerbated by people
potentially finding it harder than normal to get other jobs in the current economic climate if they
want to leave.
15. All of this makes continued emphasis on the principles and aims of our people strategy
even more important. We believe it is key to enabling HEFCE to meet the challenges ahead and
mitigating the risks to morale and engagement. We do of course expect the specifics of the
people strategy to change as we understand more about our future role and responsibilities. We
plan to review it in consultation with staff once we have developed our overall strategy following
publication of the HE White Paper.
16.
Our full people report for March 2011 is attached.
Recommendation: The Board is invited to note that we will review our people strategy in
the context of the organisation’s new strategy which will be developed following
publication of the Higher Education White Paper.
Equality and diversity
17. We maintain our view that we will be in a better position to achieve our aims as an
organisation if we have a more diverse staff. We would benefit from a greater range of
perspectives and styles, not least because this would enrich our decision making and help us
understand better the potential impacts of what we do. In support of this, in 2008 the Board
agreed a set of realistic, but demanding, equality and diversity targets for HEFCE.
18.




In summary, by March 2013 we are aiming for:
At least 48 per cent of employees at pay bands 9 and above8 to be women.
At least 27 per cent of employees at pay bands 1-89 to be men.
The average annual proportion of employees with a disability to have been at least
4 per cent.
The average annual proportion of employees from an ethnic minority to have been at
least 6 per cent.
19. These targets are set out in full at Annex A to the attached people report with details of
our progress to date.
20. We are particularly pleased to report that by March 2010 we had achieved the first one:
49.4 per cent of our employees at pay band 9 and above were women. Indeed, the most recent
8 £41,461 and above
9 £11,845 - £36,781
4
data we have shows the proportion of women at this level has continued to increase through the
year, and that there are now more women than men at this level (51.1 per cent).
21. However, a breakdown of this summary gender data shows that there are significant
disparities within the higher paybands. In particular, the proportion of women at payband 910 is
high at 68.2 per cent, yet it is much lower – 35 per cent – overall in the paybands above this
level.
22. We did not make progress in increasing the proportion of men at pay bands 1 to 8 in
2009-10. However we have made some progress since (the proportion increased from 22.9 per
cent at the end of March 2010 to 24.7 per cent at the end of December 2010 – largely because a
higher proportion of women have left). Our concern about representation of men now covers
paybands 1 to 9.
23. As a result we propose to revise the gender targets to focus on increasing the proportion of
men up to pay band 9, and increasing the proportion of women at pay bands 10 and above. We
propose stretching targets for March 2013 of:

At least 40 per cent of employees at pay bands 10 and above11 to be women.

At least 29 per cent of employees at pay bands 1-912 to be men.
24. Our proportions of disabled staff and staff from minority ethnic groups are increasing, but
not currently at a rate that will enable us to meet the targets. We recognise that, going forward,
reducing staff numbers and the Government’s recruitment controls will make it harder for us to
achieve our ambition to have a more diverse staff profile. Our targets – which only cover some
aspects of diversity - will become even more challenging to achieve in the timeframe (progress
will be more dependant on whether staff not in these target groups leave at a higher rate than
those in these groups). A full report of our equality and diversity data for 31 March 2010 is
attached at Annex B to the report in line with our commitments in the single equality scheme.
25. Our focus on improving the diversity of our staff is embedded into our people strategy. We
will be creative in finding new ways to promote the value of having a more diverse staff profile to
our existing staff, and make other changes to ensure that we continue on our path to make
HEFCE a more attractive employer to staff from diverse groups. Further reflections on our
equality and diversity data, and actions aimed at continuing to improve the position are discussed
within our people report.
Recommendation: The Board is invited to note progress towards achieving our equality
and diversity targets and the potential impact of the government recruitment controls.
Agree to revise the gender targets to reflect the progress made.
10 £41,461 - £47,681
11 £50,936 and above
12 £11,845 - £47,681
5
People strategy progress
26. Our people report for March 2011 includes the context and equality and diversity
information set out above, as well as the progress we have made against our people strategy
aims (including further reflections on our equality and diversity data, actions aimed at continuing
to improve the position and the implications of the new public sector duties).
27. Some of the key messages relating to progress against the aims of our people strategy
are:
a.
The results from our 2011 employee survey13 have enabled us to maintain our
one-star accreditation for ‘first class’ employee engagement14 and have led us to be
ranked in the top 100 'Best Place to Work in the Public and Third Sector' by the Sunday
Times (n.b. this is embargoed until publication in the Sunday Times on 6 March 2011). We
are pleased to have maintained this level of satisfaction in the current climate. Although the
results were reported in 2011, the survey itself was carried out in October/November 2010
- the period between the publication of the Independent Review of Higher Education
Funding and Student Finance (the Browne Review) and the Spending Review.
b.
Unsurprisingly in the context of a two-year pay freeze for the majority of our staff,
satisfaction with pay levels has fallen. Our average satisfaction rate for the ‘fair deal’ factor
in the employee survey has fallen by 5 per cent; it is 4 per cent higher than our ‘peer
benchmark’ organisations, but 3 per cent lower than our ‘stretch benchmark’
organisations15. To help mitigate the potential impact of this, we are continuing to promote
and develop our non-financial benefits. Pensions are likely to be a high profile issue for
people in the coming year with Lord Hutton’s report on long term structural reform options
due to be delivered in time for the 2011 Budget.
c.
The numbers of staff leaving HEFCE has dropped significantly. In 2009-10 our
turnover decreased from 14.3 per cent to 7.6 per cent. Turnover for the year to 31 March
2011 looks set to be at around the same level, but we expect it to be lower in 2011-12,
partly due to the continued economic environment and partly due to us having fewer staff
employed on fixed term contracts that are coming to an end.
d.
As a result of reductions in our administration costs and the restrictions on
recruitment activity and spend (including advertising) introduced by the Government in
June 2010, our recruitment activity is falling. Overall we expect staff numbers to reduce by
the end of the spending review period. When we do need to fill a business critical post we
13 We had a 76 per cent response rate to this survey run by Best Companies™ (workplace engagement
specialists).
14 70 per cent of the 1165 organisations that applied received accreditation. Of the accredited organisations: 320
achieved 'one to watch' status, 256 achieved 1 star status ('first class'), 158 achieved 2 star status ('outstanding'),
and 84 achieved 3 star status ('extraordinary').
15 Our peer benchmark organisations are mid-sized organisations also accredited with 1 star (‘first class’) by
Best Companies™. Our stretch benchmark organisations are mid-sized organisations accredited with 2 stars
(‘outstanding’) by Best Companies™.
6
are generally restricted to recruiting people on established contracts internally and within
the Civil Service.
e.
We have completed two connected projects that looked deeply at HEFCE’s
organisational culture (the way we do things), and performance management and reward.
We burrowed deeper than the employee survey so that we could get a fuller understanding
of people’s experience and identify ways to unlock potential and creativity to help us all
meet the major challenges that lie ahead. As a result we are focusing on a number of
cultural shifts aimed at enabling people to perform at their best in a way that is natural to
them.
f.
Related to this, we are concentrating our attention on improving people management
and particularly the quality of the discussions between staff managers and those they
manage. We are also planning to reduce the number of staff managers across the Council
to enable us to focus on improving skill levels and ensuring more consistency in the way
people issues are dealt with. We will consult staff on how best to go about this.
g.
Wellbeing is one of our highest ranking factors in the employee survey and
satisfaction has increased slightly since last year. Within this context though there are
mixed indicators about the levels of pressure and stress experienced by people at HEFCE
which give us cause for concern. We are following issues up with teams.
h.
We have carried out a review of our HR function and are making changes to help to
ensure that the HR function can meet the Council’s changing needs. We are also engaging
with Government HR initiatives.
Recommendation: The Board is invited to note progress towards achieving the aims in our
people strategy and key developments planned to support continuous improvement.
Financial implications
28. Our total staff costs in 2009-10 were £12 million16. There are no immediate financial
implications arising from this paper.
Risk implications
29. We have clear legal responsibilities relating to employment practices, personal data, and
particular statutory obligations arising from our equality duties including the public sector duty set
out in the 2010 Equality Act. The activities set out in the report are designed to mitigate the risk
of failing to meet these obligations. Breaches could lead to legal action, financial penalties and/or
could damage our reputation particularly with current and prospective employees, Government
and the HE sector.
16 HEFCE annual report and accounts 2009-10
7
30. There is a risk that managing the implications of any substantial organisational change
arising from the White Paper could draw HEFCE staff and the HR team away from continuous
improvement activities related to the people strategy. As people are our key asset – failing to
enable them to achieve their full potential in developing and delivering HEFCE’s strategy could
have implications for achieving any or all of our strategic aims. The risks relating to staff morale
and engagement are set out in paragraph 14 above.
31. The Government’s restrictions on recruitment and pay, combined with the prevailing
climate of uncertainty, also raise risks for our performance. We have already had some instances
of not being able to attract suitable candidates from the restricted pool of candidates to business
critical administrative roles. There is very serious risk that we may not be able to recruit suitably
talented and experienced staff to our most senior roles.
32. The Human Resources team has recently completed a control risk self assessment to
further embed ownership of, and support continuous improvement in, the controls needed to
manage risks in this area.
Sector impact assessment
33. We completed an impact assessment on our approach to banking and selling annual
leave. Wherever possible, we have aimed to take opportunities to promote diversity and equal
opportunities. The people strategy is also part of our approach to corporate social responsibility.
Communications and engagement
34. We are committed to putting the people report – including our equality and diversity data –
in the public domain. The report and its annexes will be published on our external web-site
following the meeting. It will be publicised internally through our HR bulletin and discussed with
our local branch of the PCS Union. We are also holding an open meeting with staff in March to
discuss the results of the employee engagement survey.
8
Annex A
HEFCE people report: March 2011
Background
1.
This report focuses on our approach to people at HEFCE: our progress in ‘enabling people
at HEFCE to achieve their full potential in developing and delivering HEFCE’s strategy’ 17 .
2.
In 2009 we developed a People Strategy18 in consultation with staff. The strategy has five
aims and a description of what senior managers, managers, individual staff and the HR team
need to do to achieve them. It also includes a three-year rolling plan of key improvement
activities that will help us to achieve our aims. The overarching principles are that: ‘As a relatively
small, knowledge based organisation, our continued success depends on the expertise, talent,
interpersonal skills and proactivity of our people. To be regarded as effective we need to be
responsive to, and trusted by, our stakeholders. Therefore, we all rely on everyone in the
organisation to be an ‘active citizen’, committed to high performance and continuous
improvement. We aspire to empower and appreciate each other and operate with the principles
of fairness and integrity at all times’.
3.
On the census date of 31 March 2010, HEFCE employed around 252 full time equivalent
staff (277 headcount), of which 242 FTE were actively engaged in HEFCE business19. People
are organised into three directorates for management purposes, with a small number working
directly to the Chief Executive. Most are based at our head office in Bristol, with a small number
based in London or at home.
Context
4.
People at HEFCE have been working within a climate of considerable policy, funding and
organisational uncertainty over the past year. There have been some clarifications at various
points, for example by the inclusion of HEFCE in the Government's list of quangos to be retained
'on grounds of performing a function which requires impartiality', the new funding settlement for
higher education (October to December 2010), and policy steers in our grant letter from BIS
(December 2010). The government plans to set out its overall thinking and plans for HE in more
detail in a White Paper in the Spring which it says taken together with the grant letter ‘…will
supersede all previous directions to the Council about policy objectives. In particular, the White
17 HEFCE Operating plan 2010-11, enabling excellence theme, people work area.
http://www.hefce.ac.uk/aboutus/opplan/
18 http://www.hefce.ac.uk/aboutus/people/#peop
19 The figure of 252 is the total number of staff employed by, or on secondment to HEFCE on the census date of
31 March 2010. It includes HEFCE staff working for JISC (16.6 FTE), but excludes HEFCE’s Chief Executive and
Chair. The figure of 242 excludes staff on maternity or adoption leave (6.4 FTE), and staff on outward
secondment (3.5 FTE).
9
Paper will set out our intentions for the future powers and functions of the Council’20. In the
meantime, the grant letter confirmed that BIS expected the Council to continue to perform its
current role on its existing statutory basis for 2011-12 and 2012-13.
5.
During the period of transition to new arrangements, people at HEFCE need to be able to
meet the expectations of our stakeholders by influencing, developing and delivering new
approaches, whilst simultaneously delivering ‘business as usual’. We need to achieve this whilst
also delivering a 16 per cent real terms reduction in our administration costs by 2014-15 on top of
the 11 per cent reduction we have delivered in 2010-11; and managing within the various new
government controls on recruitment, consultancy, paid-for communications, IT, procurement etc.
6.
Based on our past achievements we believe that our organisation and people are capable
of meeting this challenge. Organisational changes we have implemented in the past three years
have put us in a stronger position by improving what we do in a cost-effective way. We have also
recently established a transition group and made changes to the membership and focus of our
Executive team.
7.
People have already shown high levels of commitment and flexibility as we have sought to
focus our efforts more rigorously on our (changing) priorities and to stop doing some things. They
have supported the introduction of more flexibility into many roles and the extension of our
resource management system across the whole Council. Many people have changed
assignments or roles and some have joined our small ‘strategic response team’ whose members
engage flexibly with short-term projects in team member or consultancy roles. This ‘adaptive
capacity’ we have developed is helping us manage the impact of reducing staff numbers and
restrictions on consultancy spending, and will continue to do so as long as we can continue to
invest time and money in developing people’s knowledge and skills and recruit talented people to
front line and business critical posts when we need to.
8.
Despite the levels of commitment people are showing, we acknowledge that there are risks
to morale and engagement. These may arise from, for example: uncertainty about our future role;
changes in policy and roles that people have invested themselves in; the two-year pay freeze for
staff earning more than £21,000 (resulting in real terms pay reductions); reducing staff numbers
leading to fewer opportunities for progression; the knock-on impact for existing staff of the
restrictions on the talent pool we can currently recruit people from (including the fact that staff on
fixed term contracts with us are unable to apply for vacancies); and public perceptions of the
value of public sector work that is not 'front-line'. These risks may be exacerbated by people
potentially finding it harder than normal to get other jobs in the current economic climate if they
want to leave.
9.
All of this makes continued emphasis on the principles and aims of our people strategy
even more important. We believe it is key to enabling HEFCE to meet the challenges ahead and
mitigating the risks to morale and engagement. We do of course expect the specifics of the
people strategy to change as we understand more about our future role and responsibilities. We
20 http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/hefce/2010/grant1112/
10
plan to review it in consultation with staff once we have developed our overall strategy following
publication of the HE White Paper.
Equality and diversity
10. We maintain our view that we will be in a better position to achieve our aims as an
organisation if we have a more diverse staff. We would benefit from a greater range of
perspectives and styles, not least because this would enrich our decision making and help us
understand better the potential impacts of what we do. In support of this, in 2008 the Board
agreed a set of realistic, but demanding, equality and diversity targets for HEFCE.
11.




12.
In summary, by March 2013 we are aiming for:
At least 48 per cent of employees at pay bands 9 and above21 to be women.
At least 27 per cent of employees at pay bands 1-822 to be men.
The average annual proportion of employees with a disability to have been at least
4 per cent.
The average annual proportion of employees from an ethnic minority to have been at
least 6 per cent.
These targets are set out in full at Annex A with details of our progress to date.
13. We are particularly pleased to report that by March 2010 we had achieved the first one:
49.4 per cent of our employees at pay band 9 and above were women. Indeed, the most recent
data we have shows the proportion of women at this level has continued to increase through the
year, and that there are now more women than men at this level (51.1 per cent).
14. However, a breakdown of this summary gender data shows that there are significant
disparities within the higher paybands. In particular, the proportion of women at payband 923 is
high at 68.2 per cent, yet it is much lower overall - 35 per cent - in the paybands above this level.
15. Our recruitment data at Annex B shows that overall the proportion of men we appointed to
posts fell to 17 per cent in 2009-10 (down from 31 per cent in the previous year). This contributed
to the fact that we did not make progress in increasing the proportion of men at pay bands 1 to 8
in 2009-10, however we have made some progress since (the proportion of men at this level
increased from 22.9 per cent at the end of March 2010 to 24.7 per cent at the end of December
2010 – largely because a higher proportion of women have left). Our concern about
representation of men now covers paybands 1 to 9.
21 £41,461 and above
22 £11,845 - £36,781
23 £41,461 - £47,681
11
16. As a result we propose to revise the gender targets to focus on increasing the proportion of
men up to pay band 9, and increasing the proportion of women at pay bands 10 and above. We
propose stretching targets for March 2013 of:

At least 40 per cent of employees at pay bands 10 and above24 to be women.

At least 29 per cent of employees at pay bands 1-925 to be men.
17. Our proportions of disabled staff and staff from minority ethnic groups are increasing, but
not currently at a rate that will enable us to meet the targets. We recognise that, going forward,
reducing staff numbers and the government’s recruitment controls will make it harder for us to
achieve our ambition to have a more diverse staff profile. Our targets – which only cover some
aspects of diversity - will become even more challenging to achieve in the timeframe (progress
will be more dependant on whether staff not in these target groups leave at a higher rate than
those in these groups). A full report of our equality and diversity data for 31 March 2010 is
attached at Annex B in line with our commitments in the single equality scheme.
18. Our focus on improving the diversity of our staff is embedded into our people strategy. We
will be creative in finding new ways to promote the value of having a more diverse staff profile to
our existing staff, and make other changes to ensure that we continue on our path to make
HEFCE a more attractive employer to staff from diverse groups. Further reflections on our
equality and diversity data, and actions aimed at continuing to improve the position are discussed
with other people developments below.
Other developments
19. A number of developments are underway in support of the aims of our people strategy.
These are set out below under the aim in the people strategy they relate most strongly to, along
with key issues and results.
Aim 1: To promote an organisational culture that embodies the public service
ethos and values
We want to be an organisation that provides the highest levels of public service by embodying
high ethical standards and engendering mutual trust and respect amongst our stakeholders.
Ethical standards
20. Academics from Leeds University26 reviewing HEFCE’s ethical culture in 2008 commented
on ‘an overridingly positive impression of a strong ethical culture in which staff throughout the
organisation exhibit a strong commitment to, and shared conception of, key ethical principles that
bear significantly on the successful implementation of the Council’s mission’. This year we have
held discussions with our senior management team and three sessions open to all staff to
promote discussion relating to the Nolan principles, how they apply to all of us at HEFCE, and
what the particular issues might be during the transition period. In addition, we have initiated an
24 £50,936 and above
25 £11,845 - £47,681
26 Funded as a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) on ethics in HE
12
internal review of our ethical policies and guidance for staff, which will draw on the work of the
2008 ethical review as well as evolving ethical standards.
Stakeholders
21. We know from previous surveys of our stakeholders and partners that they value the high
quality of HEFCE staff and their skills and commitment. We reported specific results in our
people report to the Board in 2010 and identified that sustaining this level of satisfaction in a
much tighter funding environment would be a strong test of our approach. Unfortunately we have
not been able to run the HEIs and further education colleges’ satisfaction survey as planned this
year due to government restrictions on this type of spending.
22. As part of our continued emphasis on the critical importance of effective working
relationships, the Corporate Communications team are embarking on a review of the way that we
target and conduct our external working relationships, and of how we gather, use and share
information and intelligence internally, to ensure that we adapt appropriately for the transition
period we are now in.
Aim 2: To have an approach to human resource management that supports the
delivery of HEFCE’s strategy within a continually evolving environment and is
based on the organisation’s overarching principles
We want to be an organisation that takes a robust and flexible approach to HR policies and
processes in order to support people in achieving our strategic aims, managing change and
continuing to succeed within a climate of reducing public sector resources.
23. In 2010 we reviewed our HR function taking into account external and internal drivers for
change. These included the people strategy, our exploration of HEFCE's culture (see paragraph
53), developments in the HR profession, and HEFCE’s reducing administration budget.
24. The review report recognised the wide variety of the work of the HR team and its current
strengths, as well as identifying how it could change to be better positioned to meet the
organisation's future needs. The changes that are flowing from this include: the appointment of a
Head of HR from within the team to be the team manager and professional lead; using generic
job titles and job descriptions within the team to support increased flexibility; and closer
partnership working between HR Consultants and team managers to strengthen people and
performance management, enhance HR’s organisational insight, and further target HR support.
25. These changes come together with the increased emphasis the HR team has placed on:
regular, structured communication with staff and staff managers (e.g. the monthly HR bulletin
and biannual staff managers' forums); continuous improvement and integration of our HR
policies, processes, management information and controls; and organisational and cultural
change within HEFCE.
26. We believe that, taken together, these developments will help to ensure that the HR
function can meet the Council’s changing needs.
27. In 2009-10 we invested 2.3 per cent of our running costs in HR. It is hard to benchmark
this reliably against other government organisations, as many of them include the grants they
13
allocate in their running costs (to illustrate the impact this has, if we took this approach our figure
would drop to 0.005 per cent). Another efficiency measure commonly used is the ratio of HR staff
to non-HR staff. At HEFCE this is currently 1:5227, which reflects the most recently available
public sector bodies average of 1:5228. In ‘Smarter Government’ the Government sets out its
aspiration to achieve ratios of 1:77 based on private sector median performance29.
28. Whilst the changes we are making to our HR function aim to strengthen the organisation’s
ability to manage the impact of reduced resource being devoted to HR in future, we believe that
reducing our investment in HR to a level compatible with this ratio would put at serious risk our
ability to sustain current levels of staff wellbeing, performance and satisfaction – especially
important in the current climate. However, we are keen to be as efficient as possible and are
engaging with the government’s Next Generation HR programme, and the HR elements of the
BIS Commercial Strategy to identify how these can help us lower our costs whilst maintaining our
service levels.
29. As a measure of our progress in relation to this aim in the people strategy, the HR team
aspires to achieve a year-on-year increase in user satisfaction in response to the question: ‘The
HR function supports delivery of the organisation’s strategic objectives’. In our most recent
survey the average score was 3.930, an increase from 3.7 in the previous year (with 4 being
‘agree’ and 3 being ‘neither agree nor disagree’). Our target is to get to a score of 4 by 2012 at
the latest.
Aim 3: To attract and retain high calibre people
We want to be an organisation where talented people want to work, with a positive employer
image, best practice recruitment procedures and consistently high levels of staff satisfaction
Employee engagement
30. The results from our 2011 employee survey31 have enabled us to maintain our one-star
accreditation for ‘first class’ employee engagement32 and have led us to be ranked in the top 100
'Best Place to Work in the Public and Third Sector' by the Sunday Times (n.b. this is embargoed
until publication in the Sunday Times on 6 March 2011). We are pleased to have maintained this
level of satisfaction in the current climate. Although the results were reported in 2011, the survey
itself was carried out in October/November 2010 - the period between the publication of the
Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance (the Browne Review)
and the Spending Review.
27 Figure at 31 January 2011, excluding resource allocation management.
28 Operational Efficiency Programme Benchmarking Report 2009-2010
29 ‘Putting the Frontline First: smarter government’ (page 56), HM Government, December 2009
30 ‘Public sector corporate services VfM indicators 2009-10, (commissioner survey), CIPFA, January 2010
31 We had a 76 per cent response rate to this survey run by Best Companies™ (workplace engagement
specialists).
32 70 per cent of the 1165 organisations that applied received accreditation. Of the accredited organisations: 320
achieved 'one to watch' status, 256 achieved 1 star status ('first class'), 158 achieved 2 star status ('outstanding'),
and 84 achieved 3 star status ('extraordinary').
14
31. The survey identifies workplace performance and best practice according to eight key
factors in workplace engagement. Our overall results, with differences from the previous year’s
survey, are shown in graph 1 below.
Graph 1: Employee engagement: overall by factor33
4.86
4.98
4.78
4.79
4.56
4.39
5.28
5.29
4.69
4.97
4.91
5.37
5.13
5.14
5.52
4.90
4.70
5.07
5.0
4.86
5.15
5.11
6.0
5.23
5.17
5.13
7.0
4.0
3.0
2.0
1.0
0.0
My
Leadership
My
Personal My Team Giving
Fair Deal Wellbeing
Manager
Company Growth
Something
Back
HEFCE 2010
HEFCE 2011
Benchmark Companies 2011
32. Of these eight factors, our highest rated, and highest ranking factor compared to our peer
benchmark organisations34, is ‘Giving Something Back’. This factor explores how much people
feel their organisation has a positive impact on society. Satisfaction with ‘Wellbeing’ is also
ranked highly compared to our peer benchmark organisations. This measures how employees
feel about stress, pressure at work, and work life balance.
33. Our 'Leadership' results are most improved from last year (up by 6 per cent). This factor
explores how employees feel about the head of the organisation, senior managers and the
organisation’s values and principles.
34. Our lowest ranking factors compared to our peer benchmark organisations are ‘My Team’
and ‘My Company’ and ‘Personal Growth’. ‘My Team’ includes encouraging team spirit, feeling
part of the company, having fun, and belonging. ‘My Company’ focuses on how much people
value their company, how proud they are to work there and whether they make a difference.
‘Personal Growth’ focuses on what employees feel about training and their future prospects.
33 Scores are derived from the Best Companies™ Employee Surveys completed and returned by HEFCE staff.
The highest score possible is 7 and the lowest is 1. A score of 7 represents ‘strong agreement’ with all positively
phrased questions and ‘strong disagreement’ with all negatively phrased questions; a score of 4 is ‘neither agree
nor disagree’.
34 Our peer benchmark organisations are other mid-sized organisations accredited with 1 star by Best
Companies™.
15
35. Factors showing the biggest drops in satisfaction from last year are 'Personal Growth' and
'Fair Deal' (down 4 and 5 per cent respectively). ‘Fair Deal’ measures how happy employees are
with their pay and benefits.
36. Unsurprisingly given the timing of the survey, satisfaction with the question: ’The economic
climate makes me worry about the organisation’s future’ fell significantly – there was a 25 per
cent increase in people who ‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’ with this question.
37. Some of these results are explored later in this report. We are also discussing the detailed
results and the peer and stretch benchmark35 information from this survey within the Council.
Where possible, we will agree actions aimed at sustaining and improving satisfaction in this
particular period.
Pay and benefits
38. We recognise that different people are attracted and motivated by a mix of different things.
For example, anecdotally we know that many of our staff are intrinsically motivated by wanting to
do a good job and knowing that their work is helping to making a real difference to higher
education, the economy and society. Nevertheless we also appreciate that for us to attract and
retain high calibre employees, it is critical for people to feel that they are being treated fairly, and
to have access to an appropriate package of pay and benefits.
39. A breakdown of our employee survey results on ‘Fair Deal’ shows that, whilst on average
people are still more satisfied than dissatisfied with their pay, they are less satisfied than they
were last year. It also shows that our satisfaction levels sit between those from one-star and
two-star mid-sized companies for all relevant questions.
Table 1: Employee engagement: ‘Fair Deal’
Employee engagement: ‘Fair Deal’
2010
2011
%
Peer
Stretch
change
benchmark
benchmark
I feel I receive fair pay for the responsibilities I
have in my job
4.82
4.58
-5%
4.34
4.63
4.65
4.42
-5%
4.34
4.64
4.70
4.50
-4%
4.31
4.58
4.99
4.74
-5%
4.56
4.92
I am paid fairly for the work I do relative to people
in similar positions in similar organisations
I am paid fairly for the work that I do relative to
others within this organisation
I am happy with the pay and benefits I receive in
this job
40. This reduction in satisfaction levels is like to reflect a number of issues. Firstly, the
previous year’s survey was conducted in November 2009, just after the second part of a two year
pay deal that led to a pay award of 4.25 per cent. In contrast, the most recent survey was taken
after the new government imposed a two-year pay freeze (with an exception for people earning
35 Our peer benchmark organisations are mid-sized organisations also accredited with 1 star by Best
Companies™. Our stretch benchmark organisations are mid-sized organisations accredited with 2 stars by
Best Companies™.
16
less than £21,000 who will receive £250 each year). As we do not have increments within our
pay system, this means that the great majority of our staff did not receive any consolidated pay
increase in 2010, despite the RPI inflation level being at 4.5 per cent at the time of the survey.
Secondly, our most recent pay benchmarking exercise (May 2010) found that overall HEFCE’s
average salaries are 4.8 per cent below the median market rate, reducing to 3.3 per cent below if
non-consolidated performance pay is included.
41. Clearly we are going to face continued restrictions around the financial benefits we offer.
Even though this is the case across the public sector, and even though job security may be a
higher priority for people in the current climate, we recognise that it may present an increasing
risk for us in recruiting and retaining high calibre people.
42. To help mitigate the potential impact of this, and to address the fact that in another survey
carried out this year we fell slightly behind our comparator public sector group for employee
satisfaction with flexible remuneration and benefits options36, we are continuing to promote and
develop our non-financial benefits. For example, this year we introduced a scheme to enable
staff to take a more flexible approach to their annual leave, whilst retaining their legal minimum
entitlements. This scheme aims to enable staff to more easily take additional unpaid leave, sell
unwanted leave, or to bank leave for future years. It will be reviewed each year to ensure it is
affordable and recognised as a valued benefit. We also continue to promote our approach to
work life balance as we believe that, as well as being a good thing in its own right, our approach
to flexible working is a key factor in retaining some of our high calibre staff.
43. In addition, we have started to publish information on employer pension contributions on
everyone’s electronic pay slips. Pensions are likely to be a high profile issue for people in the
coming year. Lord Hutton set out the case for change in public service pensions in his interim
report (October 2010). The final report is due to be delivered in time for the 2011 Budget and will
look at long term structural reform options.
44. In line with best practice within the new equality guidelines, we will be publishing our
gender pay gap in our annual report and accounts this year for the first time. On the census date
of 31 March 2010 our pay gap was 51 per cent37, which compares unfavourably with a public
sector pay gap of 19 per cent38. Graph 2 below shows that this position has improved over time –
and the last point on the graph shows that by 30 December 2010 it reduced further to 42 per
cent.
36 ‘Public sector corporate services VfM indicators 2009-10, central government with less than £100m running
costs’ (average turnover), CIPFA, January 2011
37 Median hourly earnings as at 31st March 2010
38 ONS, April 2010.
17
Graph 2: Median hourly earnings difference over time
45. Whilst this gap is a cause for concern, we are confident that it stems from the uneven
distribution of men and women between pay bands at HEFCE which is one of the issues
highlighted by our equality targets. This is supported by the data in table 2 below which shows
that the gap is very small when broken down by groups of payband and that, on average, women
earn slightly more than men in pay bands 1-5 and 6-9.
Table 2: Median hourly earnings by pay band group (as at 31 March 2010)
Headcount
Median hourly earnings
Pay band group
Male Female
Male
Female Difference
1 to 5
6
41
£10.26
£10.38
-1%
6 to 9
46
117
£16.65
£17.28
-4%
10 to 13
32
17
£33.14
£32.78
1%
Overall
84
175
£23.32
£15.40
51%
46. This view is also supported by our most recent equal pay audit (May 2010), which found
that we had no significant equal pay issues. Pay inequalities that were identified could be
explained, for example by performance assessments (which feed directly into pay), length of
service at a particular pay band and so on.
47. The impact of performance assessments and decisions about promotion on pay are one of
the reasons that we monitor equality in each of these areas. We note that last year women were
more likely than men to achieve the top performance review rating, and that, on the other hand,
at pay bands 1 to 8 men were more likely to be promoted than women (21 per cent of men
compared to 12 per cent of women). Further investigation has found that these results are not
statistically significant39, but we recognise that we need to keep them under review and explore
possible underlying issues.
39 P-value = 0.09. It needs to be below 0.05 to be statistically significant and below 0.01 to be highly statistically
significant.
18
Retention
48. The numbers of staff leaving HEFCE has dropped significantly. In 2009-10 our turnover
decreased from 14.3 per cent to 7.6 per cent, and about a third of those who left, did so because
their fixed-term contracts came to an end. Normally we consider turnover levels to be an
indicator of employee satisfaction, but we recognise that this drop is more likely to be related to
the current economic climate. Turnover for the year to 31 March 2011 looks set to be at around
the same level, although a higher proportion - about half - will be the result of fixed-term
contracts coming to an end. This suggests that the underlying levels of 'voluntary turnover' is still
decreasing and we expect this to continue in 2011-12, partly due to the continued economic
environment and partly due to us having fewer staff employed on fixed term contracts.
Table 3: staff turnover
20052006- 200706
07
08
200809
200910
Public sector VfM
benchmark40
Private sector
benchmark41
12.5%
14.3%
7.6%
14.3%
14.6%
9.3%
12.3%
49. This year we restructured the exit interview process to gather more systematic data on
leavers’ satisfaction levels to sit alongside the qualitative information we gather. The survey
information shows that the overall satisfaction level of leavers was similar to that for other staff,
although there were some differences at the level of individual questions42. For example, leavers
were less satisfied that work in their team was well managed (69 per cent compared with the
2009 all staff average of 85 per cent); less satisfied that they had opportunity for personal
development and growth in HEFCE (67 per cent compared with 79 per cent); and, particularly
interestingly, less likely to feel that their workload was excessive. We had some feedback that
the Council would benefit from more explicit mentoring especially for those changing roles or
taking on new responsibilities, and we are considering this.
Recruitment
50. As a result of reductions in our administration costs and the restrictions on recruitment
activity and spend (including advertising) introduced by the government in June 2010, our
recruitment activity is falling. Overall, we expect staff numbers to reduce by the end of the
spending review period.
51. When we do need to fill a business critical post we are generally restricted to recruiting
people on established contracts internally and within the Civil Service. We are proactive in
targeting Civil Service organisations that have staff at risk of redundancy. We have had some
success at recruiting within this restricted pool, but also instances of not being able to attract
suitable candidates – particularly to administrative roles. When combined with the new
40 ‘Public sector corporate services VfM indicators 2008-09, central government with less than £100m running
costs’ (average turnover), CIPFA, January 2010
41 ‘Recruitment, retention and turnover survey report’, CIPD 2009
42The exit survey questions were the same as those used in our internal staff satisfaction survey in 2009. The
results were compared to the all staff results from 2009. We are unable to use the questions from the Best
Companies survey for the exit survey because they hold the copyright on the questions.
19
restrictions on pay, the prevailing climate of uncertainty, and the fact that we are no longer able
to invest in executive search companies to help us identify candidates for senior roles, we
believe that we face a particular risk that we may not be able to recruit suitably talented and
experienced staff to our most senior roles.
52. As mentioned earlier, the reduction in turnover, reducing staff numbers, and restrictions on
recruitment and advertising raise concerns about our ability to enrich the diversity profile of our
staff to the extent that we aspire to. This makes it even more important that we make the most of
the opportunities we do have. To this end, all adverts that are placed on our careers site or on
the Civil Service job site include a diversity statement, we continue to be committed to the
‘Positive about Disabled People Scheme’ (‘two ticks’), and both the online candidate application
process and the careers web-site have been designed to meet the high accessibility
specifications. Nevertheless, our equality data on recruitment at Annex B shows that so far this
approach has not had the impact we would like on creating stronger pools of suitably qualified
applicants from diverse backgrounds. It will be a priority, and a challenge, for our Equality
Steering Group (see paragraph 75) to review what more we can do in the current environment.
Aim 4: To enable people to achieve their full potential in delivering HEFCE’s
success and encourage creativity and innovation in appropriate
circumstances.
We want to get the best from our people by providing a supportive and inspiring environment
encouraging self-awareness and authenticity, and facilitating effective personal and professional
development and performance management.
High performance culture
53. We believe that our people will perform at their best if they are self-aware and can ‘be
themselves’ at work as far as possible. In support of this, this year we have completed two
connected projects that looked deeply at HEFCE’s organisational culture (the way we do things),
and performance management and reward. We aimed to burrow deeper than the employee
survey so that we could get a fuller understanding of people’s experience and identify ways to
unlock potential and creativity to help us all meet the major challenges that lie ahead.
54. The work confirmed to us that HEFCE is a diverse, talented and thoughtful community of
people and we were reassured to find that there is much that people appreciate about working at
HEFCE. However, importantly, we also found that some aspects of our organisational culture are
holding some people back from performing at their best in a way that is natural to them.
55. We have agreed to follow this up by focusing on a number of cultural shifts that we are
aiming to achieve over time. These shifts include, for example, the need to strengthen our people
management; recognise that there is a time and a place for ‘gold plating’ what we do; bring more
‘buzz’ into our work (acknowledging that this is not incompatible with serious work – in fact it can
enhance it and stimulate innovative thinking); and share power more widely. This is part of the
motivation behind the recent replacement of the ‘Chief Executive’s Group’ (CEG) with the
‘HEFCE Executive’, which has broader membership (for example it now includes the Head of
Organisational Development), a more flexible approach to others attending, and intends to be
more strategic in its approach.
20
Performance management
56. This work has many implications for our approach to performance management. In
particular, we are concentrating our attention on improving the quality of the discussions between
staff managers and those they manage - encouraging “real conversations” and assisting people
in developing the skills and confidence that they need. Partly to enable us to focus people on
this, we have decided to make no amendments to our formal performance review process this
year.
57. We are also planning to reduce the number of staff managers across the Council to enable
us to focus on improving skill levels and ensuring more consistency in the way people issues are
dealt with. We will engage staff in discussion about how best to go about this.
58. We will still aim to be clear about our expectations of all staff. We involve a wide range of
colleagues in developing our strategic and operational plans, and agree individual objectives
linked to these. We also have a set of enablers focusing on the behaviours expected of all staff in
terms of knowledge and learning, planning, communication, and relationships.
59. In 2009-10 three members of staff were subject to formal disciplinary or capability
proceedings. This is less than last year, but is very slightly above the comparator public sector
group43. We also had one case of formal mediation during the year which resulted in a
successful outcome. These numbers are too small to include in our diversity data without risking
breaches of confidentiality, however we are confident that there are no patterns that might be a
cause for concern.
Personal and professional development
60. Personal and professional development is a key element of our approach to enabling
people to achieve their full potential. Our financial investment in learning and development is
rated in the ‘best quartile’ (2.5 per cent of our total pay bill, compared to a public sector average
of 1.7 per cent)44. We are committed to this level of spend even though we recognise that
development is about much more than investment in training.
61. As part of our approach to managing transition, we have recently undertaken an
organisation wide skills review. The information will further improve our resource allocation
processes including managing the resource implications of changing priorities. It will allow us to
better take account of past experience and personal development aspirations as important
factors in matching assignments to people. We will also use the data to inform our learning and
development plans over the next two years with the aim of ensuring our people retain and
develop the skills that will be essential to our continued success and ability to deliver in the
future.
62. The slight dip in employee satisfaction with the ‘Personal Growth’ factor is something we
will want to keep under review. For example although 72 per cent of people agreed with the
43 Public sector corporate services VfM indicators 2009-10, CIPFA, January 2010)
44 ‘Public sector corporate services VfM indicators 2009-10 (cost of learning and development activity as a
percentage of total pay bill), CIPFA, January 2010. This includes investment in in-house training and
development programmes, and development for individuals and teams provided externally.
21
statement ‘This job is good for my own personal growth’ in the 2011 employee survey, this was
down by 3 per cent from our results last year, and is lower than our stretch benchmark of 82 per
cent. We will be exploring this within the Council in more detail.
63. Our diversity data last year showed that male staff, staff from a BME group and disabled
staff were all less likely than average to attend core development events. We are pleased to
report that the data for attendance at core development events this year shows improvements in
all of these areas.
64. We have retained the Investors in People award for over 12 years which we believe is an
endorsement of our continuous commitment to involving and developing our staff in a way that
underpins our strategic plan and performance management system. We are due for
reassessment this summer.
Communication
65. We recognise that communication is particularly important at a time of uncertainty and
change. This year, following on from staff feedback, we took a new approach to our staff
conference which focused on various aspects of ‘transition’. The launch event in November was
open to all staff and included an interactive session with the Chief Executive and Directors
designed to engage everyone in the current issues we face. This event also launched a series of
staff briefings and workshops around the transition theme which mainly took place in the
following month. Staff were encouraged to sign up to at least two activities, for example:
briefing/discussion sessions such as ‘A University perspective on change in the sector’; ‘The
changing relationship between learners and providers’, and ‘Private providers of HE’ led by
external speakers; and workshops that explored themes of ‘innovation and creative leadership’,
‘personal resilience’ and ‘real conversations’.
66. On a day-to-day basis, we aim to support cross-Council communication through regular
briefings and discussions. For example, the Chief Executive and Directors rotate leadership of a
weekly slot open to all staff to get feedback on and discuss key issues being debated by the
HEFCE Executive and Board. We know that staff particularly appreciated the Chief Executive’s
feedback at these sessions around the time of the publication of the Browne review, the
spending review, and our grant letter. We also have a varied programme of lunchtime briefings,
various cross-Council groups and networks, and we take opportunities to support informal
networking where possible - for example at the staff conference.
Aim 5: To provide people with a healthy, safe working environment in which
individuals are treated with respect
We want to be an organisation that prioritises the well being of people in an inclusive culture
which values diversity and is free from bullying, harassment and discrimination.
Wellbeing
67. Many of the initiatives and benefits above are intended to engage colleagues and support
their wellbeing. We are keen to keep our sickness rates low and encourage a healthy, resilient
workforce. For example, we believe that good job design, empowerment, flexible working
arrangements and opportunities for professional and personal development within a supportive
culture are key. In addition, benefits such as health screening, free eye tests, support for cyclists
22
and walkers, support for volunteering, an on-site gym, seminars on health issues, and our sports
and social activities are among the things we do to help promote health and wellbeing within the
workplace. When people need more direct support, we provide ergonomic assessments,
mediation, confidential access to an employee assistance service, and occupational health
services. Last year we were awarded the Gold Active Health Award by South Gloucestershire
Council recognition of the work that we have done to promote the good health of our staff.
68. We have OHSAS 18001 accreditation for health and safety management and continue to
work within this to improve our processes, systems and records to protect our staff, suppliers and
contractors. We had no reportable accidents in 2009-10.
69. In addition to overall employee engagement, we monitor four particular indicators in
relation to health and wellbeing: perceptions of our commitment to people’s wellbeing;
perceptions of pressure and stress; sickness absence; and perceptions of our commitment to
work-life balance.
70. Commitment to wellbeing: As mentioned earlier 'wellbeing' is one of our highest ranking
factors in the employee survey and satisfaction has increased slightly since last year. In another
survey carried out this year our staff ‘agreed’ that ‘HEFCE takes the wellbeing of staff seriously’.
This result was slightly better than the average for our public sector comparator group45.
71. Pressure and stress: Within this ‘wellbeing’ context, there are mixed indicators about the
levels of pressure and stress experienced by people at HEFCE. The percentage of sickness
absence taken due to stress or anxiety (not all work-related) has remained fairly constant over
the past three years, with the majority of this being taken as long term sickness by very few
employees. In the most recent employee survey, 26 per cent of respondents reported that they
have experienced stress related symptoms because of their job in the past 12 months (up from
24 per cent in the previous year, and compared to our stretch benchmark of 21 per cent).
However, a lower proportion of staff, 13 per cent, report being under too much pressure at work
to perform well (down from 21 per cent). The pattern of results differs between groups and so we
are following this up on a team by team basis. Our confidential employee assistance service was
called on by 4.8 per cent of staff in 2010 compared to 9 per cent in 2009.
72. Sickness: Our sickness absence remains relatively low. In 2009-10 we lost an average of
5.1 working days per person, slightly improved from 5.6 days in 2008-09. This compares
favourably to an average of 6.8 days for government public service bodies46 and 6.6 days for
private sector services47. This data includes long term sickness48 for nine of our staff. 121 of our
employees had no sickness absence at all.
45 ‘Public sector corporate services VfM indicators 2008-09, central government with less than £100m running
costs’ (user satisfaction), CIPFA, January 2010.
46 ‘Operational Efficiency Programme Benchmarking Report 2009-2010’
47 ‘Absence management: annual survey report’, CIPD 2010
48 Defined as more than a month off work at any one time.
23
73. Commitment to work-life balance: We believe that supporting people in balancing their
various commitments and interests inside and outside of work reduces stress and increases
commitment. In our employee survey people 74 per cent of people reported at least some
agreement with the statement ‘I am satisfied with the balance between my work and home life’
(up from 69 per cent last year, and better than our stretch benchmark of 68 per cent). This
remains an important part of our approach to people management.
Equality and diversity
74. The new Equality Act 2010 came into effect on 1 October 2010. The Act brings disability,
sex, race and other grounds of discrimination within one piece of legislation, and also
strengthens aspects of the law. From 6 April 2011, the existing separate equality duties on public
authorities covering race, disability and gender will be replaced by a single equality duty to
eliminate unlawful discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations for
the existing protected groups, plus gender reassignment, age, sexual orientation, pregnancy and
maternity, and religion and belief.
75. Our senior level diversity steering group – including our equalities and diversity specialist in
the Leadership, Governance and Management Team – oversees our strategic approach to
diversity issues. This steering group is considering ways in which HEFCE can proactively drive
forward the equality agenda and develop HEFCE’s culture. The group has considered the
implications of the new equality legislation and the specific duties on public bodies. To support
this we have also undertaken some awareness-raising sessions, paying particular attention to
the newly protected groups.
76.
As part of our commitment to valuing diversity we continue to:
Increase awareness of equality and diversity issues for all HEFCE staff – with the aim of
increasing their confidence in embedding equalities issues into their daily work and
promoting understanding of the intrinsic value of a more diverse staff. This year we will
investigate the possibility of offering work placements to under-represented groups –
partly for its own sake, but also to increase our ‘readiness’ to embrace more diverse staff
when we are able to recruit.
 Work towards improving staff disability disclosure rates by promoting a culture across
which enables people to feel confident and comfortable to disclose. This will also help us
provide ‘reasonable adjustments’ and make anticipatory changes.
 Increase ‘ownership’ of equality and diversity at a strategic level with the view to
embedding it more within plans and processes and facilitating ongoing culture change.

77. As a result of the new public duties, going forward we will need to prepare to publish
further information on our activities, data analysis, and evidence that we have considered the
impact of our policies and engaged with protected groups where appropriate. This work
continues to be developed within our equality scheme activities as reported to the Board in
January 201149.
49 http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/board/
24
Dignity at work
78. Last year we launched our dignity at work policy to further support colleagues’ wellbeing,
our commitment to diversity, and to underpin our aspiration to provide a work environment that is
free from bullying, harassment and discrimination’.
79. As part of the launch we held focused workshops for all staff that encouraged discussion
about the issues to further develop understanding of what might constitute bullying, harassment
and discrimination at work. We explored the roles of the ‘actor’, the ‘recipient’ and the ‘observer’,
encouraging people to take action and seek support if they witness or experience inappropriate
behaviour. We plan to conduct a short survey on the anniversary of the launch of this policy to
assess its impact so far.
Communication and engagement
80. We will publish this report – including our equality and diversity data on our external
web-site. It will be publicised internally through our HR bulletin and discussed with our local
branch of the PCS Union. We are also holding an open meeting with staff in March to discuss the
results of the employee engagement survey.
81. We would welcome feedback on any aspect of this report. Please e-mail comments or
questions to [email protected].
25