Item 9
Council
5 June 2008
Developing a system for the appraisal of Council Members
Purpose of paper For action
Mission statement/business plan To be more businesslike
Issues To consider options for developing a system
of member appraisal
Recommendations See paragraph 29
Authorship and origins of paper Hew Mathewson and Duncan Rudkin
Presentation to Council Duncan Rudkin
Further information Duncan Rudkin
[email protected] T: +44 (0)20 7887 3811
Introduction
1. The White Paper Trust Assurance and Safety implementation work and the planning for an all appointed Council has prompted the Department of Health and the Appointments Commission to raise the question of how Member appraisal is carried out by the healthcare regulators.
2. Some discussion and consideration of possible models has been undertaken, initially by the Finance and Human Resources Committee. The work is now ready to be progressed to the next stage and subject to Council’s views the involvement of those Members with a particular expertise and interest in this issue is sought.
Discussion
3. This work stream has its genesis in the plans to implement the White Paper Trust
Assurance and Safety which includes the creation of an all-appointed Council. As
part of the arrangements for that new Council we are asked by the Department of Health and the Appointments Commission to consider the issue of Member
appraisal. There is no appraisal system in place at present. In the past efforts were made to address this issue but without success.
4. It is acknowledged that the Constitution Review Working Group has some interest in this issue as part of the modernisation agenda, but it is generally recognised that as Human Resources policy is governed through the Finance and Human Resources Committee (F&HRC) then the work ought to be progressed at that Committee.
Appraisal Options
5. When one considers the management discipline of performance appraisal, arguably, performance appraisal should not only take place on an individual basis but the performance of the Council as a whole should be appraised. Appraisal of corporate performance is addressed in two ways:
• The Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence (CHRE) conducts and publishes an annual review of the GDC’s performance. In the past, the CHRE performance review has been an individualised appreciation of the issues and achievements of each of the statutory healthcare regulators. For the 2007 review, CHRE has piloted an objective standards-based approach.
• The work which is under way on the development of corporate strategic aims and a new corporate plan is based on a “balanced scorecard” approach which will facilitate the GDC’s own assessment of its performance.
6. This paper is concerned with the appraisal of the performance of individual Council members. As a first step the F&HRC considered what other regulators were doing and these came down to:
7. Self-appraisal – fairly self-explanatory, the self-appraisal is used in the
performance appraisal process to encourage members to take responsibility for their own performance by assessing their own achievements or failures and promoting self-management of development goals. This would be a transparent process. The document that is completed would then be discussed with the President. It may be used in conjunction with or as a part of other appraisal processes.
8. 360 Degree - this refers to feedback on a members performance being provided by
the President and different people with whom the Council Member has contact, for example, other Council Members, external contacts and the member themselves. 9. The range of approaches we have discovered is as follows:
Self-appraisal 360 Degree Committees Appraised?
Council Appraised?
GMC Inc in 360 Yes Not answered No
HPC Yes No Yes No
GCC Inc in 360 Yes No No
GTCE1 No No Some
appraised
No
GOC Yes No Yes No
RPSGB No No No No
10. Work undertaken by the F&HRC has considered a range of options for how appraisal might be approached. There was no consensus at the F&HRC as to the best method and views ranged from some Members welcoming a system to enable them to give and receive feedback to other Members seeing the appraisal system as a good way to identify training opportunities for Members. Some points have emerged so far, as follows:
a) That appraisal of the Members of this Council is inappropriate as part of the Membership is elected and appraisal does not sit comfortably in an electoral system.
b) There should be no input from employees of the General Dental Council into a Member’s appraisal.
c) That the Chair of the new Council might be the best person to undertake appraisal, but that might be compromised by the system of Members electing a Chair from amongst their number.
d) That the appraisal might usefully identify training needs and suggest training solutions for Members, which would imply a training budget for Council Members.
11. Council is asked to consider these points and contribute others which members wish to see taken into account.
Appointments Commission
12. Since the F&HRC meeting there has been a meeting with the Appointments Commission (AC). It has been confirmed that the AC will be interested in systems for Member appraisal as any re-appointment process of the next Council, would use the appraisal system as an input into the selection process. The current thinking is that a Member of the next Council seeking re-appointment would not need to do so in open competition but would be able to do so relying on an application which would in part be judged against that individual’s appraisal.
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13. However, arrangements for the appointment of the first all-appointed Council will be on an open competition basis and the arrangements proposed a paragraph (12) above will not feature and so appraisal will not be an issue there.
14. The Appointments Commission has suggested that the healthcare regulators might consider moving to a system that adopted the simple template at Annex A. They suggest that the Chair of the next Council should be the appraiser and whilst they acknowledge there may be a potential for a managing interest issue in that the electors of the Chair are being appraised by the Chair, they see this as the most pragmatic solution. In their view this would provide a practical way of dealing with the appraisal issue in an organisation where the interaction between Member and the Appraiser is regular but not frequent.
15. The format is one of self-appraisal with a validating comment from the appraiser. The template makes no reference to training needs, competencies or objective setting so is in appraisal terms a light touch model.
16. The AC mentioned that work is underway on the development of Member appraisal at the GMC and that as their thinking emerges there would be merit in studying that.
“Good practice”
17. Council members have a wide range of experience in a variety of roles in different types of organisations, providing a useful source of contributions to this debate. Whilst there is no single authoritative definition of good practice on this issue which applies directly to GDC Council members, a number of sources provide useful comparators. For members’ information three sources, which may be considered more or less useful, are referenced below.
18. The Code of Practice for ministerial appointments published by the Commissioner for Public Appointments mandates the use of “regular and transparent performance assessment processes that will provide the necessary robust evidence for
considering reappointments”, which must be “fully recorded and documented”. 19. The Code of Good Governance published by the Governance Hub (for the “third
sector”) provides: “Performance Appraisal: The Board should regularly review and assess its own performance, that of individual trustees, and of sub-committees, standing groups and other bodies.” This Code is endorsed by the Charity Commission as applicable to the trustees of charities.
20. UK listed companies are required in their annual reports to explain how they have complied with the Combined Code on Corporate Governance (Financial Reporting Council, June 2006), which mandates “formal and rigorous annual evaluation of [the board’s] own performance and that of its committees and individual directors.” The Code makes the company chairman responsible for the evaluation of directors’ performance; the “senior independent director” leads the non-executive directors in their evaluation of the chairman’s performance.
Next steps
21. There is an opportunity to use the experience that this Council has gained over the years to design a workable and effective appraisal system. As the development of an appraisal system will affect the Members the F&HRC have suggested that a sub-group of Council be set up to develop, review and refine the options so that a solution to this issue can be developed.
22. The work programme of that Group, subject to Council’s own views, might be to: a) Review the appropriateness of the AC model
b) Review the work of the other regulators c) Generate options for appraisal systems d) Select the most suitable option
e) Make recommendations to Council as appropriate
Equality and Diversity Implications
23. The design of an appraisal system clearly has the potential to impact unfairly on members of diverse groups if the design is flawed, and/or if a well-designed system is implemented poorly. This will be a major issue in the work going forward.
24. We should aim to manage the risks of unfairness by paying particular attention to contemporary good practice in relevant fields, including human resources
management and equalities, and by extensive consultation and involvement of minority groups, so that unwitting bias can be avoided from the outset and stakeholders can have confidence in the system which emerges.
Communications Implications
25. There are major communication implications. A number of stakeholder groups have concerns about the credibility of a wholly appointed Council membership and the performance of the appointed members will no doubt be scrutinised carefully. A robust and visibly effective appraisal system is likely to be a significant factor in building confidence in the new arrangements, over time.
Standards Implications
26. The introduction of an appraisal system for Council members gives members an opportunity to model directly the sorts of values and attitudes they would wish to encourage in registrants, around self-awareness, openness to feedback, willingness to account for actions and behaviours, and a personal commitment to continuous improvement.
Resource Implications
27. At this stage until further work is progressed and the type of system emerges there is no hard data to base a cost estimate on. That said, we could estimate that an appraisal system could utilise one day per member per annum in addition if Member training became an issue a training budget for Members would need to be agreed. 28. In terms of order of magnitude estimates it is envisaged that the implementation of a
system of Member appraisal would cost in the region of £20,000 pa. This estimate has been calculated as follows:
23 members x £353 day rate = £8,119 23 members x £500 training = £12,000 Total estimated spend £20,119
Recommendations
29. Council is asked to consider this paper and the different options for establishing a system of member appraisal. If appropriate, Council is asked to commission the next stage of this work as described in paragraph 22 above.
30. Council is asked to consider whether it wishes to adopt the following principles to guide the next stage of work:
i. There should be a system of evaluating the performance of individual members of Council.
ii. The system should be formal, rigorous and documented.
iii. The chair of Council should have the principal responsibility for members’ performance evaluation.
iv. A suitable method should be devised to enable the chair’s performance to be evaluated.
v. Any concerns which may exist about the effect of performance evaluation on the independence of members’ thought and action should be addressed
through appropriate safeguards (including training and transparent protocols) to minimise the risks of perceptions of patronage, cronyism, discrimination or unfairness when it comes to issues such as allocation of work and
responsibilities amongst Council members, re-appointments and membership/chairmanship of committees and working groups.
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