NHS Fife

Report to the Staff Governance Committee on Wednesday 1st July2015

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS FRAMEWORK (KSF)

Purpose of the Paper

To provide Staff Governance Committee with a progress report on the KSF.

Which of the Quality Ambitions of Safe, Effective and Person Centred does this help us to achieve?

Continuing implementation of the KSF supports the achievement of all three Quality Ambitions.

  1. Background

The NHS KSF is an integral strand of the Agenda for Change national agreement. The core element is the Personal Development Plan and Review (PDPR) process underpinned by an electronic recording and monitoring system (e-KSF).

  1. Current Context

As previously indicated although there was no HEAT target or standard connected with KSF in the Local Delivery Plan guidance NHS Scotland continues to consider KSF as a valuable tool for staff development. Boards, in delivering their responsibilities under the Staff Governance Standard, are expected to continue to ensure staff have PDPs and yearly development reviews recorded on the e-KSF system. Within NHS Fife we continue to embed KSF as a positive developmental process to support staff to provide high quality services.

The NHS Scotland expectation is that Boards will sustain the previous HEAT target levels of 80% compliance with performance being monitored through the e-KSF system.

  1. Performance Summary

KSF performance is regularly reported to SMT and APF. The table in appendix 1 details NHS Fife performance as at 31st May 2015. It indicates that 63% of staff are actively engaged in the KSF process with 49% of our staff compliant and a further 14% active within ‘the KSF pipeline’. This equates to a6% decrease in overall engagement with KSF and a 3% decrease in compliance from the performance reported to Staff Governance Committee on Tuesday 17th March 2015. For comparative purposes the compliance rate as at May2014 was 62%

Feedback from the NHS Scotland KSF lead would indicate that NHS Fife performance continues to be in line with the NHS Scotland average KSF performance.

These performance figures emphasise the importance of continuing management and staff ownership of and commitment to the KSF process.

  1. Support Arrangements

The most important element of the KSF process is the quality “face to face” discussion between reviewer and reviewee regarding the individual`s performance and personal development needs. Recording these discussions and outcomes on the e-KSF system provides a mechanism for staff and managers to monitor and record progress and for NHS Fife to monitor compliance.

A range of support arrangements continue in place to assist NHS Fife achieve compliance and to support managers and staff to continue to ensure all relevant staff have an active KSF PDP in place, review meetings are undertaken timeously and are recorded on the e-KSF system.

Regular performance progress reports are provided to SMT to ensure focus on KSF is maintained and that appropriate management action continues to be taken to support the personal development of staff

Recent actions include a continued focus on “progress chasing” of the 3% of staff with “reviews ready for sign off”.

The Directorate of HR Organisational Development & Learning team continues to provide advice, guidance, training and support to managers and staff, and local departments and teams in all aspects of KSF. A range of training events continue to be provided, including specific department / team training sessions, evening and weekend training provision, and drop in sessions to support staff to “sign off” their PDPs.

  1. Changes to KSF

KSF continues to be an integral component of Agenda for Change and the importance of all staff having “….. a meaningful conversation about their performance, their development and career aspirations” is a priority for action in the Everyone Matters 2020 Workforce Vision Implementation Plan 2015-16.

Work is currently underway at a national (NHS Scotland) level to ensure the current KSF dimensions and examples of applications have continuing relevance and applicability to staff and to increase “user friendliness”.

The national KSF lead has recently advised that the contract for e-KSF will likely end at 31st March 2016 and the system will be replaced by the Oracle Performance Management (OPM) module within eESS. This has the benefit of fully integrating KSF with the HR and Learning management recording and reporting systems.

However the transition to a new KSF recording system carries a number of risks which have been raised nationally including:

  • The risk that managers and staff commitment to KSF and quality PDP reviews and thus compliance will lessen when managers and staff hear that “e-KSF is going”.
  • Failure to ensure a smooth transition from e-KSF to OPM will result in a reduction of commitment to KSF and the PDP process.
  • Failure to fully implement and roll out eESS, particularly manager and employee self service, across NHS Fife prior to 1st April 2016 will militate against OPM implementation.

Actions to mitigate these risks include:

  • Continuing management commitment and support to ensure KSF PDP are undertaken and recorded on KSF with regular KSF performance reports to SMT.
  • The early development of a KSF OPM project plan and training plan to ensure a smooth transition.
  • The full implementation of eESS with all staff trained in manager and employee self service.
  1. Recommendations

The Staff Governance Committee is invited to:

  • Note the contents of the progress report

RONA KING

Director of Human Resources

Report Author:

David Kerr17thJune2015

Head of Learning and Development

File Name: Staff Gov Committee 1st July 2015 / Issue 1
Originator: David Kerr / Page 1
Appendix 1: KSF Review Figures on e-KSF as at 31.05.15 (rolling year report)
Division / Number of staff (excluding bank) / e-KSF Reviews 'activated, work in progress' / % / e-KSF Reviews ready for sign-off / % / Number of e-KSF Reviews 01.06.14 - 31.05.15 / %
Acute Services Division / 2977 / 340 / 11 / 92 / 3 / 1388 / 47
Estates and Facilities / 1199 / 24 / 2 / 16 / 1 / 705 / 59
Dunfermline & WF
Community Services / 970 / 97 / 10 / 37 / 4 / 504 / 52
Kirkcaldy & Levenmouth Community Services / 1537 / 156 / 10 / 32 / 2 / 630 / 41
Glenrothes & NEF Community Services / 610 / 74 / 12 / 12 / 2 / 181 / 30
Corporate Division / 390 / 42 / 11 / 14 / 4 / 150 / 38
Others (No job family
shown) / 123 / 25 / 223
Number of permanent staff / Number of e-KSF Reviews activated / % / Reviews ready for sign-off / % / Number of e-KSF Reviews completed / %
Overall total / 7683 / 856 / 11 / 228 / 3 / 3781 / 49
File Name: Staff Gov Committee 1st July 2015 / Issue 1
Originator: David Kerr / Page 1