KSF Leads meeting minutes – 16 th May 2012
Venue: Room G09, Europa Building, 450 Argyle Street, Glasgow
In attendance: Gayle Baxter, Lewis Berston, Ken Brown, Anne Campbell, Anne-Marie Campbell, Sandra Dunlop, Susan Dunne, Irene Gott, Dave Grigor, Carol Hampson, Julie Higgins, Rob Key, June Livingstone, Margaret Macdonald, Tracy McBurnie, Janine McGregor, Andy Moir, Evelyn O’Neil, Paul Simmons, Lynn Turner, Ishbel Whitters.
Apologies: Ian Cant, Lynn Cowan, Deanne Gilbert, Andy Glen, Gerry Lawrie, Sandra-Dee Masson, Bruce McCulloch, Judith McKelvie, Pat Millar, Kevin Reith, Julie Roberts, Duncan Service, Stephan Smit, Gary Wilson.
1. Welcome and housekeeping
Anne Campbell (AC) welcomed everyone and detailed the plan for the meeting.
2. Notes of previous meeting
The notes of the previous meeting held on 15th December 2011 were agreed by everyone.
3. Matters arising
Bank staff
AC stated that the final draft paper for KSF and Bank staff has been submitted to national committees for ratification and the feedback so far has been positive. AC will email a copy to all KSF Leads for information.
Support Workers Skills Map
An email has been forwarded to all KSF Leads in respect to the Support Workers Skills Map and NES are looking for bids to be submitted for projects to pilot using the Skills Map on the same basis as the Administrative staff skills map.
4. National update
Staff engagement indicator
AC updated everyone on the national Staff Engagement project that has been commissioned by SG on behalf of SWAG to come up with a definition of Staff Engagement and to establish a series of measures that will link to the 5 Staff Governance measures. The project lead is Liz Reilly and AC working with her.
AC stated that the PDP baseline figures based upon employees have been sent out to Boards and the information has been passed to SG. The data nationally has not been published due to the ongoing work on the Staff Engagement Measures and the feedback from this project will likely mean an update to the current Staff Engagement measure within the Quality Strategy. AC will keep Leads updated on the progress with this.
Post HEAT target
AC referred to the letter sent from John Cowie on 9th May 2012 and confirmed that the national report on KSF reviews will be run at the end June. The data from this report will be published on the Scotland Performs site. There was discussion and it was agreed that the reporting period for this report will be from 1st July 2011 to 30th June 2012. As per previous reporting an email will be sent to each Board confirming the figures that will be submitted to SG.
Revised Simplified Guidance
AC informed everyone that she had been asked to attend SWAG in February to discuss the implementation of KSF and the challenges faced by Boards. It was a positive meeting and it was recognised that there was a need to refresh the messages around KSF and PDP&R. AC also updated SWAG on the ongoing work developing revised simplified guidance for KSF.
AC stated that a very early working draft of the guidance has been developed and this will be emailed to all Leads for their comments. The purpose of the guidance is to take jargon out of KSF and to work through the perceived complexity. It is not about simplifying KSF, it is about simplifying the language and more clearly defining the relevance of PDPs and PDRs. Once completed it will be developed into an e-resource for use within Boards. Further progress is currently on hold so that it can be tied into the feedback from the pilot areas within the Staff Engagement Project. AC stated that there is a commitment for funding from SWAG to explore sources of funding to support the development of the e- resource .
AC referred to the KSF term and the negativity associated to this term. There was discussion around KSF jargon. There is also a need to break the link between KSF and e- KSF in that staff are not doing their ‘e-KSF’. AC stated that there is no reference to e-KSF in the Simplified guide and this was done intentionally.
Paul Simmons (PS) referred to Highland council staff transferring to NHS Highland and they already use PDP’s and these are very similar to KSF. It was agreed that PDP appears to be the common language.
National Staff Experience Project
AC updated that there is UK national work on Staff Engagement and information for this can found on the NHS Employers website. The work being undertaken in NHS Scotland is informed by this work and is linking the Staff Governance standards to the McLeod indicators. AC is working with this project with the aim of getting KSF further imbedded.
5. e-KSF
AC stated that the new e-KSF contract was signed on 1st April 2012 for 2 years. The proposal beyond this term is that all KSF processes will eventually be incorporated into eESS.
AC stated that there will be no interface between e-KSF and eESS but the link with SWISS will continue until the e-KSF contract terminates.
6. Rationalising Outlines
PS updated on NHS Highland work that is being carried out on rationalising outlines. June Livingstone (JL) also updated on the work that has been carried out at NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde. They had set up a partnership group and this has been in place for the last year. They now have 277 reference outlines and these have been aligned to the national profiles used in their Board. The findings have been presented to their APF and a review will take place in 2014 to link naturally with the move to eESS. Margaret MacDonald from NSS stated that SNBTS started with generic job descriptions and then developed outlines to link with them. 7. KSF Learn Pro module
PS stated that NHS Highland are using Learn Pro a lot more and staff are finding it very useful. They are working on their own KSF module and had been looking at the one developed by NHS Lothian. PS queried if any other Boards had a KSF module. JL stated that NHS GG&C have a module on Learn Pro but acknowledges that it needs updating.
AC stated that she is looking at the content of the KSF Essentials course with NES and they are looking at updating this into an eLearning pack. Dave Grigor stated that the NHS Lothian module needs updating too but they may wait until the Staff Engagement project is finished to link it all up. AC stated that a KSF module could be incorporated into the Simplified guidance.
8. e-KSF & eESS
This agenda item was covered under point 5 above.
9. Regional updates
Central region met in February and the items discussed have already been discussed at this meeting. They are scheduled to meet again on 7th June.
The North and West regions have not met since the last KSF Leads meeting in December 2011.
10. Frequency and timing of future meetings
AC queried whether Leads were in agreement to reducing the national meetings to twice yearly and to have smaller sub groups for specific project work. All Leads present at meeting were in agreement to this suggestion.
PS stated that NHS Highland have been tasked by their Chief Executive to look at the quality and benefits of KSF for staff. As part of this staff are being invited to local Staff Governance meetings. PS will update on the outcomes of this.
11. AOCB
HCSW code of conduct
June queried if other Boards are using the PDR discussion to sign off the HCSW code of conduct. NHS Lothian and NHS Lanarkshire confirmed that they are but have no feedback on how this is working in practice at the moment.
12. Date of next meeting
The details of the next KSF Leads meeting are to be confirmed.