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Annual Report and Accounts 2000-2001 |
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To be a caring and considerate Investor in People and to develop the skills of the Agency's staff and unleash their creativity and talents to:
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One of the key priorities of the Agency's Human Resources Strategy is to ensure that we recruit and retain the right people to support our business needs. The Strategy identified that to make this happen we must develop a more efficient human resource planning system.
In February 2001 the Agency appointed a recruitment manager to be responsible for all aspects of the recruitment process. The Agency has for many years experienced difficulty in recruiting radio specialists, but we are now seeing an improvement as a result of using external recruitment campaigns.
The Agency's training and development strategy aims to help our people maximise their potential and also to feel valued as members of RA. Several developments are in the planning stage; from April 2001 the Agency will assume responsibility for the negotiation of pay for administrative staff as well as for specialists, thereby allowing us to adopt a more flexible approach to meet our business needs, and by April 2002 we will have revised our performance management system and linked it to an effective reward package to recognise individual and team achievement.
Investors
in PeopleThe Agency received re-accreditation to the IiP standard in May 2000. The assessor reported: "Prompt action taken to address all feedback areas has generally led to some excellent developments, and the Radiocommunications Agency management are to be congratulated for their dedication to continuous improvement."
The focus for the Agency is now on preparing for further re-accreditation in late autumn 2001 to the new standard. In anticipation of this we are carrying out a series of "health checks" to enable us to make any improvements necessary to meet the raised standard before assessment.
The Agency continues to place emphasis on the development of its people in line with IiP principles and the challenges of the Modernising Government agenda. We have streamlined our approach and now offer a consultancy service aimed at helping people identify the most appropriate development solutions for their individual learning style.
Key projects this year have included the Leadership Development Programme for all senior managers, which is now being extended to middle managers. The programme aims to build on individuals' strengths as leaders and help them become better equipped to meet the challenges the Agency faces. It uses 360-degree feedback, psychometric assessment, development workshops and individual coaching to achieve its objectives. Feedback from staff has been very positive and more detailed evaluation will be carried out later in 2001.
We have introduced a Career Development Programme for Engineers, the aim of which is to allow people to take stock of their career to date and identify options for developing it further over the next five years. The programme has been designed by the Training and Development Unit in partnership with operational staff, to ensure that it reflects the needs of individuals as well as the Agency's business. We aim to extend it to administrative staff in summer 2001.
We have recently opened a Learning Resource Centre. This is equipped with a variety of materials: books, videos, CD-ROMs etc., covering a wide range of knowledge and skills relevant to the Agency and the wider Civil Service. It supports our strategic aim of opening up development opportunities beyond traditional training courses.
Work proceeded during the year to implement the recommendations of the independent audit of our internal communications processes. These recommendations included:
At the time of writing the RA intranet has been up and running for 12 months. In this time it has grown to over 800 Mbytes of information, fulfilling the expectation that it would become the primary information resource for RA staff, but also outgrowing its original structure.
In order to meet Agency objectives, satisfy users' concerns and meet the recommendations of the Internal Communications Audit, which took place early last year, the intranet structure has been redesigned, to incorporate users' and the Agency's business needs. The changes will be implemented in summer 2001, and will make the intranet easier to use and to maintain.
Having easy access to the most up-to-date internal information and to the Internet has enabled staff to provide an improved customer service. The intranet has also enabled the Agency to reduce its reliance on paper, and it has improved communications and information sharing both within headquarters and with the local offices.
During the year the Agency gained accreditation for connection to the GSI, and in August 2000 connection was achieved. This facility enables the Agency to have a secure connection to the Internet, direct e-mail access to staff in other Government departments, and provides a gateway to systems for knowledge sharing across Government.
All Agency staff have now had Internet access at their desk for a year and for the vast majority of staff this facility has proved to be extremely useful, enabling them to have easy access to the RA website and other government information and to develop their web searching skills. During the year a revised Internet access policy document was written and agreed with staff representatives and the Management Board. This document clearly spells out the acceptable limits of Internet use at work; it strikes a balance between allowing responsible personal use of the Internet while alerting staff to the fact that disciplinary action will be taken if abuse is found to be taking place.
The Agency operates a comprehensive range of targets covering human resources, training and development, communications, change management, finance, information systems and facilities. During 2000/01 these were consolidated into formal review procedures, with regular reports to the Management Board and with performance data made available to all staff on the intranet. Some initial customer feedback has been received, and this is currently under consideration to see if any changes are appropriate.
A series of pilot measures covering key internal support provided by Business Units other than those in the Corporate Services and Facilities Executive was launched on 1 January 2001. These measures cover site clearance, research, monitoring, radio technology and compatibility studies, and the production of minutes of Management Board meetings. Performance in the last quarter was fully in line with target levels set, and the measures will be absorbed in 2001/02 into the formal reporting and review procedures.
This year the Agency has broadened its approach to include issues around diversity as well as those covered by Equal Opportunities. We have reissued our policy statement to this effect and have designed and piloted a management awareness programme which looks at the full range of issues. This programme will be delivered over the next year to all managers in line with our commitments in the Modernising Government agenda.
Additionally we have designed and are about to pilot a programme entitled Growing Leaders. The aim of this programme is to identify those people with management and leadership potential and then to develop that talent. We are offering two streams within this. The first is positive action for people from ethnic minorities; the second is a generic one open to everyone. The positive action stream looks at issues specifically from the perspective of being a black or Asian manager.
During the year we took the opportunity to run the Civil Service diversity survey for our staff. The survey examined the full range of diversity issues and assessed the perceptions of our people about the management of diversity within the Agency. We had a good response rate and the results will focus our activity over the next twelve months.
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| ENGINEERING GRADES | ||||||||||
| White Male | White Female | Ethnic Male | Ethnic Female | N/Known Male | N/Known Female | Total Male | Total Female | Disabled Male | Disabled Female | |
| Applied | 124 | 2 | 20 | 0 | 12 | 0 | 156 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Sifted in | 42 | 2 | 7 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 54 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Offered Post | 11 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
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ADMINISTRATIVE GRADES |
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| Applied | 135 | 89 | 106 | 107 | 1 | 0 | 242 | 196 | 3 | 0 |
| Sifted in | 31 | 31 | 30 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 61 | 63 | 1 | 0 |
| Offered Post | 3 | 10 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 14 | 0 |
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The Racial Equality Advisory Group (REAG) was set up by the RA Chief Executive in 1999 to promote diversity within the Agency. Composed of ethnic minority staff, REAG advises the Chief Executive on ethnic staff issues; in particular, the now widely recognised under-representation of such staff in senior grades. The areas dealt with by REAG include:
In my first post I was responsible for licensing and exemption policies for the categories of testing and development, police and fire, and low power devices. This was a good introduction to the work of the Agency because it involved liaising with colleagues responsible for frequency policy, equipment standards, type approval and enforcement. My section later expanded to encompass aeronautical and on-site paging licensing. A change in post moved me to Public Networks Unit, which covers national and regional 2G, paging, data networks and common base stations. My involvement in deregulation continued through responsibilities for cordless telephony and the introduction of DECT in the UK. Further changes of scene occurred when I became involved with CEPT ERC regulatory activities through participation in WGRR (the working group on Radio Regulations), and then when I moved to a new unit dealing with Telecommunications Policy. This has now evolved into the current Licensing Policy Unit (LPU), which is responsible for setting and co-ordinating licensing and pricing policies for all licence classes in the Agency. I am still part of LPU but am now mainly involved in international aspects of the Unit's work, which complements my recent appointment as vice-chairman of WGRR. |
In only its second year of existence, many of REAG's initiatives and policy suggestions are already beginning to have an effect; there is now a much greater awareness among staff, particularly senior staff, of cultural factors and the need to take account of them.
Following recommendations from REAG there have been some much-needed changes to the recruitment and selection process. Recruitment panels for interview boards now reflect, wherever practicable, the Agency's diverse workforce, and receive training on selection techniques and diversity awareness. Job advertisements are now placed in the ethnic press as well as the mainstream media.
There is some evidence that these initiatives are already having an impact in terms of seeing a better representation of ethnic staff in the more senior grades. A key priority for REAG has been that its initiatives and recommendations should not only benefit ethnic staff but all staff. Initiatives such as "Growing Leaders" and the review of the selection/ promotion process are clear evidence of this.
The Management Board recently approved the REAG work plan for 2001/2002. Priorities in the work plan include:
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The RA house magazine Rapport was published quarterly, providing a mix of new information on the organisation's challenges and a more light-hearted look at some of the issues that didn't make the headlines.
The Trade Union Side team has been busy during the year engaging in constructive dialogue with management over a range of issues, through the Whitley and Health and Safety Committees.
IPMS and PCS have participated in preparations for the introduction of the Agency's diversity and Growing Leaders programmes, and have discussed the possibility of a partnership agreement between unions and management, as well as staff development programmes.
The Government's announcement that the Agency is to be included in the new regulator, Ofcom, will pose many challenges for unions and management over the next couple of years. We believe that if these challenges are approached in the spirit of the new Investors in People standard, with its emphasis on outcomes rather than process, they will be successfully met, to the benefit of staff and the new regulator.
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Inspirations staff suggestion scheme Entitled "InspiRAtions", the new scheme was successfully launched on 1 July 2000. The scheme generates a steady flow of good ideas from staff. There is a strong emphasis on ensuring that ideas are implemented within the organisation and there is a procedure in place to ensure that this process is monitored to achieve effective use of the scheme. |
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I've
been with the Agency since its inauguration, having joined the Radiocommunications
Division, as it then was, in February 1990 from DTI where I had worked
in a variety of different areas.