I see that we have yet another appointment from outside Jersey. It would be interesting to know how many local applicants were available for the post. I don't know what the salary is, but Ruth Davies' previous position came in the salary band of £70,000-£75,000 with a bonus of £10,000-£15,000 and a healthy pension scheme in addition under the Premium Civil Service Pension Scheme. (This is all available from the Dstl Annual Reports, and in the public domain, so no breach of Data Protection - see Links below for the cash equivalent value of her pension.) I would imagine she'll get a higher figure here.
The Chief Minister's department is pleased to announce the appointment of Ruth Davies as the new Director of Human Resources (HR) for the States of Jersey. Ruth is a highly experienced senior manager, with experience in both public and private sectors. She joins us from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), an agency of the Ministry of Defence (MOD) that supplies scientific research and advice to the MOD and other government departments. For the past 5 years she has been Director of HR for this agency where she led major organisational change. Among her key achievements were the restructuring of the Human Resources and Health and Safety teams; the implementation of business performance measures and a stronger focus on customer delivery.
I notice that one of the annual reports reports notes that:
Outstanding leadership is undoubtedly a critical factor in achieving the very best from our people. This is especially important at a time of change as we prepare to relocate onto three core sites and adopt new working practices and tools. This year has seen the clarification of leadership roles and responsibilities, with an emphasis on leading and developing people to fill the full range of management roles. Our new leadership development programme will equip managers with the skills they need to support and engage their people, especially through this period of change.
Let us hope, therefore that her appointment is part of a move to train up local managers to the required proficiency so that in future, appointments can be made from within the Island, from the local pool of skills. We are forever hearing of the need to train and appoint locally, and it must surely be extremely depressing - as in the case of La Moye School - when perfectly suitable people are passed over in favour of someone from outside Jersey. I'm not saying that it is always the best policy to appoint from within Jersey, but the record number of outside appointments suggests a basic deficiency in the training methods. Specialist posts like doctors, nurses, teachers may need outside recruitment if there are not enough local skilled people, but administrative posts are more generalist - as can be seen by the way in which James Le Feuvre has cheerfully relocated from education to health and back again to education. But even with specialist posts, are courses being supplied at Highlands and elsewhere for future needs?
In the old days, there was a civil service exam over here which picked up on potential "high fliers" from the start, and perhaps it is time to review just how well this is being done. Do we have any numbers of potential candidates being trained from Chief Officer material, or picked as potential for the future? That would be an interesting question for the Council of Ministers to answer, especially as Mike Pollard's contract is coming to an end and we might be looking for a new Chief of Health.
Links:
http://www.gov.je/ChiefMinister/Human+Resources/DirectorHR.htm?printfriendly=true
http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc0708/hc08/0820/0820.pdf
http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc0506/hc11/1163/1163.pdf
1901: Coumment j'm'y print
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*Coumment j'm'y print.*
Tan pus l'temps va et tant pus nou's'a di peine a trouvé galant. Y'a
malheutheusman ben pus d'filles qué d'garçons en Jerri;...
1 week ago
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As a mainlander I don't want to get involved in the competing merits of internal vs external appointments to public posts in Jersey. But just one observation. Jersey has the population of a very small local council, yet it has to provide most of the public services that are administered by the Welsh, Scottish or Northern Irish parliaments. The law of averages therefore suggests that it is always likely to be a net importer of personnel to manage public services.
That's quite true, but that never seems to happen so much with lower down positions, but almost 100% with Chief Officers. The only Chief who I can recall from outside Jersey was when Bob Le Breton was Chief of Police. On a random basis, one would expect a few more!
I shivered when I read the following bits. I can't prove it in a short space but I am convinced that the rise of the perceived importance of HR departments and personnel is a very bad thing. Corporate speak like this sounds good but often masks a deadening, crushing, corporate fascism which leads to a highly stressed work environment for all apart from those who apply it... ultimately this is counter productive - one dimensional productivity targets may be achieved but the organisation's soul starts to rot.
"For the past 5 years she has been Director of HR for this agency where she led major organisational change. Among her key achievements were the restructuring of the Human Resources and Health and Safety teams; the implementation of business performance measures and a stronger focus on customer delivery."
"This year has seen the clarification of leadership roles and responsibilities, with an emphasis on leading and developing people to fill the full range of management roles. Our new leadership development programme will equip managers with the skills they need to support and engage their people, especially through this period of change."
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