 Morning, everybody. Are we all online? We are. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. So, welcome to this webinar, the HR Professionals Guide to Digital Change. I'm Joss Crease. I'm the Principal Analyst for the Edgeservice Executive Briefing Program, and we're sponsoring and running this webinar this morning. But I am supported by a range of industry experts. You can see the names on the screen. Sonja Halliwell, Assistant Director, HR and OD from Wigan. Kushal Burla, Head of Custom Service from Warwickshire County Council. Caroline Nugent, PPMA President and HR Director at OneSource, that's Newman Havering. And Neil Crump, Head of Digital Transformation Customer Services from Worcestershire County Council. I know there are also quite a few experts on the line and people who are primed to ask a few difficult questions of the panelists. So, without more ado, I suggest we move on. So, the next slide gives you the pictures of everybody. So, you know who we all are, as we're not doing a video for this. And what we're going to be looking at initially, before we open this up for general questions, is a deeper dive into the challenges and opportunities for HR professionals in digital change programs. So, just by way of a brief introduction from me. So, everybody's talking about digital change. Every local authority in the UK will have some form or other of digital program. And we all sort of know that this is much more about people and culture than it is about process and technology. So, we've worked with a PPMA to explore if this is actually true in practice. And what are the view of HR professionals, what might need to change? Because in practice what seems to happen is that many of the so-called digital programs gravitate back to technology-enabled change programs with relatively little consideration of some of the human aspects. And, according to our survey, not enough involvement from HR and OD professionals. So, working with the PPMA and HR and OD professionals, we've looked at how we can ensure that the HR components are central to any digitally-driven change program. Looking at the skills gap and then giving some practical guidance on what needs to change. And I think it's fair to say that most professional areas are still somewhat behind the curve in terms of the potential from the technology and what the implications are for job design, process re-engineering and changing the governance of local authorities. And those are the issues that we're going to be exploring today with the panel. So, the process for this morning is that each of our panelists are going to give a short introduction to a topic. They're going to talk about the experience that they've personally had, as well as the work that we've undertaken with EdgyServe through surveys, roundtables and a whole range of individual interviews. So, without more ado, if I can introduce Caroline Nugent, the PPMA President and HR Director at OneSource, to give us a short introduction to the topic. Caroline, are you there? Yes, I am. Thank you, Josh. I shall hand over to you. Great. Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody. I just wanted to start off by saying that we thought this was really important at PPMA to contribute to this survey, because I think you're right, Josh, there's been a lot in the past that digital has been 90 and there's not been so much HR and OD. So, we thought it was really important to look at some of those skills in that role, as well. So, my part, I'm going to look at some of the leadership issues as part of that. Can I just have a slide, access to the slide? Lovely, thank you. So, the role of HR. So, this for me is around looking at leadership and where we actually go in future. The good old days of personnel, those of us that have been around a long time will know we used to be personnel and we were very much recruitment and real day-to-day stuff. The role in HR now is much more strategic. And that's where I was saying in the slide, they're about working outside parameters. You can't be in HR now and focus just on people. You've really got to look at being one of the change agents, one of the people that pushes some of the issues internally. And is that that friend, that challenging friend to the leadership team of what they need to think about? So, it definitely is not the old school personnel. HR's got to be much more strategic and leading some of these. I think in the past, I specifically said skills high up the agenda because the last few years HR has been very much focused on reductions and restructures. We're now in the thing we've got to look at skills and we've got to look at what the basic skills are for the public servants of today. So, this sort of timing was really critical for us going forward in part of the roles now that HR's got. Can I change the slide again? So, it's lovely. So, five years time. I'm just thinking how much has changed in the last five years and how different it's likely to be. Digitally savvy, we still have staff that cannot do basic word, basic skill. And one of the things that sort of took it from me is we're taking on young people now that we expect to be digitally savvy and they're coming through the schooling and actually they may have word experience, i.e. typing in instead of handwriting, but they're not actually digitally savvy. They can't use word. They can't use the things we are taking for granted. So, I think we need to completely rethink how we are from bottom to top of people being savvy. We've got to be the innovators in this as leaders in HR. Again, I think, as I said previously, HR have been on the back foot of some of these. We have people that are in HR as the leader, perhaps further down the organisations now and haven't got that voice. So, it's really important we are there showing ourselves at SLTs and corporate management teams so they know we have ideas as well. And sometimes, because we're not IT, we might think of different things. True business partners comes down to the fact that, again, there's still a number of HR departments. We're operational. We're not giving that real high level strategic input. And in five years time, we absolutely need to be that. We can't be the police officers anymore. We've got to be business partners and looking at what's fundamentally in each of those departments that we're supporting. And as part of that, we're in this outside of function. We don't know what's coming up. What big ticket items are coming up. You can't support them. Therefore, you can't look at what digital skills we're going to need for five years time. If we don't know what's happening next year, how on earth are we going to be thinking for five years time. And my last slide. Politicians and board leader. Digital strategy. I've said about future leadership because I actually think the future is now. We've got to get particular politicians that perhaps have been in local government for many, many years thinking differently about how they're going to actually save money and how they're going to use some of the digital strategies to really look at the significant cost savings that we're all coming up against at the moment. So I think again, we're talking about the future but we've really got to grasp this now. Otherwise, we will have a whole range of people just not able to do basics whether they're staff or whether they're members of the public. Absolutely got to model the behaviour. So, you know, if they're sitting in meetings still bringing along huge big piles of paper when they're sitting there with an iPad as well. Staff will see that and staff will see if it doesn't matter for the top tier. We don't have to learn. So absolutely they need to model the behaviours. Improving the services to the public and the cost savings productivity related because we've all got to make the cuts. We've got to have different ways of doing it and digital is the way forward for absolutely bringing in a number of the changes that we need. You know, we're seeing lots and lots of stuff on the market and we'll hear about some of that this morning but there is an absolute fundamental, you know, change needed to bring lots of these things in and improve services as a consequence. Thank you Caroline. I mean, really interesting introduction I think to the topic. In our survey, by the way we found only 3% of councils reporting digital literacy of frontline staff as being good. 3% and yet less than half have actually got any sort of plan to do anything about it which I think, you know, supports your view Caroline about just how big a challenge we have and why it is a challenge for today, not for the future. So, Neil, if you're there can I hand over to you for the next bit about how we're actually keeping pace with this change. Sure, yeah, thanks, Joss. So, I really wanted to get involved a bit like Caroline ready because I hope you see how important culture is to our organisation and to enabling digital. So with the right skilled workforce technology can absolutely be a key enabler of the positive change both for the organisations and most importantly for our customers. So whilst stating that I need to be clear that it will only really deliver lasting transformation if it's deployed within a culture that embraces and thrives with it. So I'll put now on the slide four different items for things that we need in our culture. First of which is that sort of behaviour of lifelong learning. So the rate of technological change and the impacts that has on how work is done means that we've now got a different expectation and a readiness that we need to continuously learn new things and that needs to be embedded as an attitude in our teams. So our staff have to be not only comfortable but also invigorated with the prospect of learning new things throughout their working lives and that goes on top of their sort of professional sort of working lives. So digital therefore becomes part of that and they should have easy access therefore to sort of a range of materials and support to help them achieve this. In terms of that sort of environment of collaboration we need to ensure that we've got that collaborative and sharing organisational mindset so that that will help with the fast combination of information and in fact knowledge and expertise throughout our workplaces. So that's going to enable us to provide a faster response to and actually better connections with our customers and our partners. So an example of that has been the work that we've done in Worcestershire around digital inclusion. So working with digital champions in the community who have then acted as volunteers to work and to upskill people in the community in a digital way and then sort of embed that culture so that they can then access our services that have been put online. And there are plenty of other examples of technology that sort of helps promote that collaboration whether it be Yammer, Facebook, Twitter and the like. The third point was really around having an agile approach to delivery. So when we're actually increasing our rate of change it also means that we need to look at the way that we deliver so we need to be more agile so and what I mean by that is that we need to be more cross-functional. We need to be more cross-organisational and make sure that we're not departmental focused. So we've got to plan it and do it and review it and plan again and shorten the cycle between each review. So that means being process-like and open to change. So for example we use a low-code digital platform and what we've realised is that we have to make sure that people are brought into those working practices so that we can deliver the digital solutions at pace and those people actually, the people that work in our organisation and also our customers because our customers are helping to co-design those digital solutions. So we've embedded them in that sort of agile approach to delivery. And the final point on culture was that focus on the customer. So it was making sure that the focus on the customer is really about how we focus our efforts on design. So we need to make sure that we allow our team space to learn from the customer experiences and use this input to innovate and best to deliver the customer needs. So how are we actually going to practically achieve this? Well, the advancement of these new technologies and the favourable organisational culture depends very much on sort of strong forward-looking leadership from senior managers and other influencers. So it requires us as internal leaders as well as the promotion of shared initiatives across partner organisations and customers. So there are some really good examples actually out there at the moment. I could point to Ellsbury Vale, for example, with their use of Alexa for customer services and how they're looking to lead from the front or Enfield, for example, about how they're looking to use artificial intelligence and the chatbot. And that will actually change the culture at the same time. Yeah. And the final point really is around the shared initiatives. So we need to be identifying firstly existing shared initiatives that require more visible support from senior leadership. So an example where we've got in Worcestershire is saying, actually we had this digital strategy a few years ago. Now, how can we actually get more visible leadership across all of the public sector in Worcestershire rather than rather one Worcestershire banner and therefore change the HR and culture across organisations rather than solely within the county council itself. And it also means about looking to get new shared initiatives off the ground. And one thing we're doing is as an example is around Worcestershire Office of Data Analytics. We're actually, we're saying across all of the public sector, we need to start sharing data better. And again, that's going to require different culture to the way that we've done things previously. So that gives my sort of input and starting point for the questions later. Great. Thanks, Neil. That's a really good introduction. It's interesting, you know, you talk a lot about the culture and the need for developing digital skills. The work that we undertook 29% of HR professionals only 29% are actually promoting digital skills either in recruitment or indeed in performance measures in their organisation which says to me that over 70% just aren't doing anything about it. And it seems to me as though there is a real need for HR to raise its game in this to be more and to justify being more central to the way in which councils are changing their service design, their culture, their practices and so on. So what I'd like to do now is to bring in a Cushal if I may Cushal just changing the way councils are delivering services, you know, allowing the sort of new partnerships, the self-service, the ensuring that we don't have avoidable contacts implies that we need to change our skills, practices, policies and there's a real role it seems to me for HR professionals in particular to be taking more of a control on this, rethinking what they do, what we do as HR professionals and how we go about it. What's your take on this? Right, good morning everyone and thank you for asking me to participate in the webinar. It's interesting, actually quite a few things I was going to say that have been mentioned by Caroline and by Neil. For me I think actually and I'm going to echo what others have said I think technology has a potential to transform how we can deliver public services. I think in spite of the challenges of austerity the fact that local authorities are being asked to manage demands and expectations in terms of the public I think we still have a duty to deliver the best customer experience for our public and ensure that we are enriching the customer experience and this is why I think technology can help us do that. In Warwickshire we are calling our digital first program and what we have found we are doing most things that most authorities are doing so we have good CRM system we have information on the web we do web chat but actually Neil was talking about some of the other authorities that are beginning to delve into the world of bots and artificial intelligence and what that is highlighting is that actually there is some work to be done around the skills and competencies that we are requiring of our workforce and there is a deficit because traditionally some of our staff have not been exposed to technology some don't have the confidence to use the technology and we have sometimes with policies and procedures probably tied the staff down to scripts and structures in terms of how they are responding to the public beat on the phone or face to face and I think actually we do need to challenge quite a few of the skills policies and procedures but also have an impact on how we are also recruiting our staff we are still very traditional in some parts of public sector in how we find our good staff and we are talking about the younger workforce and actually in this area I don't think anything to do with age is more to do with embracing the technology and using it as I said to enhance that experience for the customer so if staff don't have that confidence to use technology that is conveyed to the public they will feel that and also what we want our staff to do is to help the public to help themselves so that we can actually begin to build some capacity in the communities so Neil talks about the whole assisted digital agenda that is quite key but again we need the right skills to ensure that actually we pass on those skills to community agents to our community catalysts that are going to help us deliver services by using technology not as an ICT infrastructure thing but more as actually part of the customer experience the other thing actually I think it's worth saying is that we talk about public sector we talk about skills but if we can get this right actually we are also helping with the whole transferring the quality of life skills to our public because if you look at how we deal with other transactions in our daily lives be it banking, be it applying for jobs some of the ways the legislation is changing be it for universal credit there will be no option but to actually use online applications online technology to be able to get what you want and if you're applying for a job you need to do that online if you're doing an assessment you need to do that online so I think with what we are trying to do in the public sector I think we also help a wider agenda in terms of actually ensuring that the public out there are skilled to undertake other aspects of their working life and I think also the other factor that's worth mentioning is the reason sometimes there's a reticence maybe in some public organisations embracing the agenda there is that fear are we talking about reducing the workforce are we talking about cuts and certainly the conversations I have it's around using our resources in the best way possible and effectively so when we're talking about bots, I mean bots are programmes that interact automatically with the user so actually what we're saying is those frequently asked types of things actually you don't need human intervention which means that actually then you can actually sort of divert your resources to the specialist stuff that does require extra time and more in-depth face-to-face or phone interaction with the public. Similarly with artificial intelligence that is all about actually trying to work out human behaviour and use that to help us inform how we're going to deliver our public services so I think actually I'm reiterating some of the things that have already been said but I think the potential here is a fantastic one I think we should not fear technology and we should embrace it and I think if we do that we'll find that actually our public, we're not actually compromising our public service ethos actually that's it really. Thank you Cushall. I mean that's a great segue really into the next part of this discussion. By the way, for all of you listening, very soon you're going to have a chance to take part directly in this. I'd like you to come up with some really constructively challenging and difficult questions for my panellists, they're going to really enjoy that. Thanks Joss. So yep, I won't have to answer these and if you don't ask any really difficult ones I've got some up my sleeve for them but just before we do that I'd like to bring in Sonia Halliwell, HR and OD Director from Wigan Council Sonia, we talked about the barriers generally and Cushall talked about quite a lot of those in terms of making sure this is about people and it's less about technology dominating and I opened this with a suggestion that actually we've got to obviously allow our IT colleagues to have an important part but the IT leadership shouldn't dominate this. It needs to be about leading change and HR people in particular need to get more directly involved in this and they need to have the right and the capability of doing so. So I wonder what we need to do to help address the barriers that HR people are facing or indeed, whether or not, whether we think maybe this isn't an HR role at all. Maybe there needs to be a completely different profession or a different approach to how we tackle this. Now, I guess everybody's starting position is that this is something that HR needs to do but if they don't, I guess someone else might. What's your view about these barriers? Are you there Sonia? Well I can hear some noise in the background I hope you can all hear me. Yes. Yeah, well I'm assuming Sonia is either on silent or Sonia you can't hear me so one of my other panellists would you like to pick up this question just to reiterate the question the barriers that HR people specifically face whether they're actually the right people to take the lead on people change because I think we're all saying actually they need to step up to the plate and move away from just being a traditional profession so which of my panellists would like to pick up on that? Maybe Caroline as you started I could bring you back in at this point. I'm happy to take that one. I mean I agree I think there's an absolute personal responsibility for HR to be involved in this because they do hear things in the organisation they do see sort of the temperature gauges of what's going on and as individuals if we're not keeping ourselves up to speed I don't think we've got the right even to be an HR professional because digital skills to me is a fundamental part of being a worker and if you are going to be effective at work you should have these as baseline skills so I think there could potentially be a lead by a transformational person or an IT person but HR tends to gauge the organisation and tends to have the relationship with senior leadership teams to actually bring in some of that challenge and bring in some of that why are you trying to remove the training budget type scenario because you need it for X without it being seen that you're trying to protect a HR or your own siloed area we're bigger because we do think about the wider councils we're not just thinking of our service when we're trying to challenge the status quo so for me as a personal person I think you should be doing it but also as a professional I absolutely think HR should be taking the lead on this skill Josh can I come in on that as well please do Kuchel I think actually agree with what has just said I think certainly for me actually HR very very critical and certainly in Warwickshire traditionally we're talking about a number of years ago actually I think there was the assumption that HR sat in the rooms and actually procedures were then circulated but what I certainly endorse is that they need to be equal partners around the table because they do bring a very valuable skill on how we do transform the culture in the organisation and contribute to the whole skills agenda I spoke about recruitment how do we become more innovative in attracting the right people who can do the jobs that we're requiring of our workforce now so I tend to think about a number and we mentioned ICT as well I think again traditionally I think the questions we asked if ICT tended to be all around infrastructure and the widgets and all that and actually there was a lack of awareness and understanding how the end-to-end customer journey looked like and what was required in terms of the end product so for me ICT are also equal partners when we are looking at customer journeys and trying to work through having the most slick customer journey that is going to give that satisfaction so that you don't have the wasted calls or the avoidable contacts and I think that is actually I think the organisation's responsibility to ensure that those colleagues actually are around the table on day one when you're talking about any change or transformational programmes I'd just like to come in as well on a slightly different slant as well Joss Go ahead Neil so HR absolutely needs to lead from the front and there are lots of different ways in which they can do that so first of all they need to work in partnership with the whole organisation I think that's just a given these days and then they need to lead and model how digital can work in our organisations so I'd have thought processes such as lever and starter processes they all need to be digitalised and the way that HR then asks for performance management to happen across the organisation that can have digital at the heart of it the fact around the whole culture discussion about how to promote and provide workshops to enable people to get new skills whether it be lunch and learn and things like that HR can take that from the front as well so what we need really is our HR professionals to work alongside all of us within the rest of the organisation to make ourselves culturally enabled I think those are all really good points I'm going to bring in the audience now if I may please type in your you've got this screen there it's your turn to join the debate you just if you've got that box you should see that box just enter a question I will see the questions and I will pass them on either to the panellists in general or to one specifically if you want to ask a specific one a question just while people start typing in some questions I've got one that's come in I'm going to push back to you Neil on this one I my background is largely technology based but it's technology change and I've always worked hand in glove with HR professionals on this but I'm going to ask a slightly tricky question and that is I still see HR professionals in some organisations being really quite reticent about all of this feeling quite protective over I think as Kushal was describing the traditional basis on which the profession operates and I wonder if you know we sort of need to acknowledge this or whether my experience is just that you know this is more isolated and in general the HR profession is raising its game and changing what it does or whether there really is quite some quite ingrained HR practice that makes it difficult Neil One thing that immediately jumps to mind right so we heard earlier on about sort of revising policies and things like that and making them more streamlined and things like that I think actually the way that we go to market to get our new people I don't think that's particularly digitally savvy and it doesn't necessarily entice the right people into our organisation so whether or not there's some reticence there or some traditional approaches that we can tackle and to bring that to life I mean the fact that sometimes you can have to fill in a really lengthy application form even if that is online it's still a very lengthy application form but it takes forever to get to the end whereas actually these days I wonder whether or not things like the traditional job description and person spec and things like that are a bit outdated and whether or not a one pager which gives these are the sort of 10 things that need to be delivered in the next two years would be a better way of getting the right people into the organisation so I wonder whether or not perhaps we've got some traditionalism at the very start of the process about bringing new people in Sir Blocker So what might be helpful is if we can provide some guidance perhaps with the PPMA in particular in how HR professionals could address these sort of points the sort of things that they should be thinking about in order to move from maybe a traditional basis of the organisation and how they can change the culture of their organisation because it's not an easy task it's actually a lot easier for IT to simply bring in some new tools and technology much harder for the HR profession to change how the organisation looks, feels, thinks, breathes and so on isn't it Yeah totally great I mean with PPMA this year is the first time that I've sort of got engaged and there is a lot of forward thinking HR people out there I think there's more that we can do or I can do and others that come from a digital background to sort of to help form some of those ideas I agree So I've got a question here that I'd like to put to the panel Kushal I'm going to ask you initially on this one if I may because I think it's something that you touched on and I know Neil did as well it's a question about the creating a climate and a basis for effective coaching mentoring and support for digital skills So we know that many organisations are reporting very poor digital skills in front-line staff so only 3% of councils, I repeated this one from earlier on, only 3% of councils are reporting that the digital skills of front-line staff is good which in a digital age seems to me to be a bit scary actually So what should HR professionals be doing to create that culture for coaching and mentoring in particular to upgrade those digital skills Kushal if I can ask you initially Yeah okay I mean one of the things that actually certainly we're embarking on is we talk about the word digital savvy has been mentioned I think there is a bit about defining what do we mean by digital savvy in the public sector arena and when we talk about competence and skills are we just talking about good keyboard skills or are we talking about being able to undertake a web chat which doesn't the language is different and the conversation is different so I think there is a bit that I would say that HR needs to be probably more proactive I talked about HR getting around the table but actually what we need to have is HR coming before we've even asked the question to say actually because we talk about the digital age that has been involving over a decade now and we are talking about digital skills now and for me they should be that word is a future proof thing what do we want our workforce of the future to look like here we've got to start to pretend to the organisation to think through what does that mean in terms of what good looks like in terms of recruitment rather than actually reacting and it's always dangerous to be generic I would like HR to be saying we talked about Aylesbury and the prototype of Alexa that they are texting how does that change our interface with the public when we're talking about people in their homes having conversations and that kind of stuff so that's where I'd be going with HR in terms of looking at what public private sector look at what other countries are doing and then saying actually let's have that dialogue and here's how we can help you Thank you for that I've got a question come in now about the customer journey Caroline I wonder if you could pick up on this one from Andrew Jacobs online there's been a lot of talk about customer journey how have HR worked with their customers and the workforce to co-design HR processes I think in some aspects they haven't and I think that's what's sort of coming to light now that HR's been very focused in a number of organisations on reducing self-streamlining getting on with it and actually forgetting the customer as part of that I think that's changed probably in the last year or so where HR have got some time now to think about things rather than just reducing the workforce to actually upskilling the workforce and what we need to do for example when we've done things in Havering and Newn we've absolutely engaged because we have two different councils that we're supporting we've engaged with them to say what is it you actually want so we've done and we've actually gone out to staff to say what is really difficult, what's a pain what would you like us to reduce and actually start working with them what's the key things if we were to do this bit first how would that make your life easier and then I think there has been some reticence of staff actually admitting when they don't have some of these skills because where there's been redundancy threats you are not going to want to say actually I can't do this so I think now again where we're a little bit more settled we're hopefully getting staff to recognise that if they come forward and acknowledge they do need support we can upskill them by the time then we need to make significant cuts again because obviously that's not going to go away so I think there has been some fear factor and I think in the past HR perhaps haven't because they've just wanted to get on with it because of timescales and work pressures they've not actively engaged the customers but I definitely I speak to I'm hearing a sea change in that where they realise like you would consult with the unions actually you need to consult with other people too yeah that's a good point it is a good point and it's interesting with quite a few questions coming in now there's moving on if I may to another one I've passed this on to you Neil but just to read it out for those who are online really good point here from Patrick while only 3% of staff may have good digital skills they're probably all using a smartphone, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter so perhaps we don't need to worry about the digital skills of those using their services we'd be better concentrating our efforts on changing the culture from being paternalistic to collaborative I think that's an interesting point Neil and I wonder whether we should say look actually people do have the digital skills in our organisation but somehow they're not associating them with the work that they have in hand once they walk through the front door of the office what's your view about that yeah we talked about or in my slide I talked about leadership and absolutely in our organisations at the moment included Worcestershire we still have not enough leadership around collaboration and about sharing challenges together to work out how we can solve them so although we've introduced workshops sort of design thinking sort of digital culture type, collaboration type workshops we still need to do more and I think part of it is that people sometimes are very comfortable with what they already know and the ways and practices that they previously used so it's an open question really about how we do bring people away from things their own behaviours that they have and how do we change those behaviours and there's no easy answer sometimes actually some people will refuse to change and that means that therefore we need to deal with that as an organisation and say actually we do need different behaviours and if you don't change your behaviours then you can't be part of what we need from the future organisation so one thing that we've introduced at Worcestershire to help with that is that when we are managing performance we're not only looking at the actual digital skills or the actual skills of a person we're also looking at the behaviours of a person and those two things the skills and the behaviours therefore actively become the performance so I would say we need to concentrate our efforts around there good point can I just come in on that one too just please because I'm very much into behaviours and recruiting on behaviours and succession planning on behaviours because so many times we do have people that as you say at home or on Amazon or buying everything online don't even think about it and yet when they're coming into work there's this barrier around I've not been trained so how do you expect me to do this piece of work and it does come back of the old adage of change the people or change the people there are some people that just absolutely do not want to engage with how the workforce is changing and how businesses are changing but they have a choice because if they don't make that choice and change or leave we have to make that choice for them because we cannot carry people that have got those behaviours now in future because digital is the way forward so you either embrace it or you go and live on an island somewhere yeah I think that's right but on the other hand there's an awful lot of change going on and there's also an argument Caroline is there not that we need to nurture and develop our people repositioning them for the future rather than saying sort yourself out or move on I'm playing devil's ab absolutely and that is about changing the people or changing the people you've got to give people the skills you've got to give them some of those opportunities to learn to change but if ultimately people make that decision they're not going to there has to be a decision made because we haven't invested in some of these skills you know we've these are the type of things that over the periods of time when we've done research through PPMI it has been very much on delivering reductions not delivering talent and succession planning and those things have got to definitely turn around because you know we have some very skilled staff that are in the wrong jobs because they've not had the opportunity to do the other jobs that they were flying absolutely flying so I totally get your your point so I think it's a good point yes hello is that Cushall yes it is can I come in just very briefly I know there's lots of questions just very briefly I think one of the things that as organisations we also need to consider so it's true you know out there that we're using a technology you know you know to do shopping and all sorts of stuff but actually sometimes I think we're putting some barriers in the way of our our colleagues you know and we need to provide a support so I think sometimes we're for example we're risk averse occasionally when we look at social media you know and you know in how we interact with our public with them and some authorities actually you know stay away from social media because they foresee problems you know that they might have to deal with and I think actually if we are true in saying we are embracing technology then actually some of those policies and procedures that we currently have in place because maybe we have been risk averse also need to be challenged and we also need to ensure that actually you know we do provide the support for our staff you know if things go wrong it's not a perfect world and sometimes things will go wrong but we continuously learn by using technology so I think this is where actually we as organisations might have been risk averse with some of our policies and procedures which then mean that actually staff are not then exposed to using some of the technologies that we use in our private life. Yeah I think that's a really good point and there's another one Koshal I've passed the question on to you I'll come to it in a moment if I may because I want to pick up another one but there's a question that Ellen has raised about you know what do we really mean about digital skills here what are the descriptors, the parameters that we should be thinking about when we design systems okay Koshal if you can come back to that in a moment I wanted to pick up on a more technical question David has put in a question which I think is a really good one it may be a bit technical for the discussion here but I'll read the question out does the panel agree that new and emerging technologies such as low-code software development isn't being embraced in depth due to this lack of understanding and knowledge about the art of the possible I'm going to make this a general point because things like low-code software development allow people to be able to do their own simple programming and actually a lot of us do this through apps on our phone without even thinking about it but in the workplace our lack of understanding about some of these simple technologies the newer technologies that are out there and indeed perhaps our IT department is continuing to have to maintain and support some old legacy tools is actually holding back some of this cultural change Neil I wonder if you have a view on that one yeah I mean we've got a low-code digital platform at Worcestershire and we actually had this debate our wider leadership team yesterday because although we've done absolutely stacks of digital change and digitalising processes we've still got a lot more to do yeah and so the sort of challenge out there and one way that we're potentially looking to deal with it is actually to put our developers who use that low-code technology into the directorate so they're actually placed in the directorate seeing what the daily challenges are and the weekly challenges and the monthly challenges and then answering them according to the priorities of our organisation because some of these things only take a few days to sort out we've got that sort of digital process in place so I think by moving the people who know that low-code technology into more into the business we can deliver faster and I think what that would also mean is that we start transferring skills from digital developers to other people into the actual business and the people can then pick up that tool themselves and we won't need digital developers in the same way or the digital developers will be dealing with more complex challenges and the business can then be getting on and doing other more simple digital challenges and I think that's absolutely right but you know I guess quite a lot of HR professionals might find it slightly scary if their role descriptions in future included being proficient in low-code software development they probably say that feels more like an IT role but actually your point is to strip away the jargon and say look we're going to actually be giving you the tools to do some of the things that in the past you'd have to rely on your IT department to do you know you can see a future where social workers become IT professionals in as much as one of the main ways of allowing people to stay in their own home to be connected to family and friends to continue to you know participate in society despite maybe you know physical disability is through technology so it becomes part and parcel of what a you know social worker needs to do and therefore they will need to develop the skills and understanding and you know in their own role in the same way HR professionals have a function I think yeah absolutely I can see HR professionals in future getting hold of low-code development tools and delivering solutions with them absolutely I can and in fact it's already starting to happen outside the public sector so if you look at the private sector they're already starting to use some of these low-code tools in order actually in the business to deliver and I can see HR being part of that so Cushall can I quickly come back to you when we're referring to digital skills says Ellen what kinds of parameters of description should be thinking of I mean for you if you could just summarize in a nutshell what do we mean by digital skills and isn't it a bit of a moving feast because you know the skills today will not be the same as tomorrow should it should we be defining a journey rather than a specific skill set yeah and apologies if I just don't agree I think sometimes we can complicate this you know when we talk about you know digital skills I think you know if you want developers you know and I have a team of developers then of course coding and whatever you know is important you know so for me you know the work we've been doing over the years you know the last few years with our HR and other colleagues is actually defining you know the different roles we require in the organization and they are different so in my contact center you know we do need people who are you know have good you know good you know keyboard skills but also good skills in terms of you know how they are sort of you know having that conversation you know with a member of the public be able to go through different screens and access different information be it from the website or you know other using other software so that's in our contact center when I'm looking at you know our front door staff actually the change we're asking them to do you know now undertake is actually instead of when people come in and say I want this you say okay I'll do it for you is actually how are you going to help you know people and communities to find their own solutions and some of that is actually using technology so what I'm actually asking of the staff is you need to have awareness of you know the information we have where it is accessible on the mobile on tablets and then I want you to be able to coach and mentor you know sort of members of the public to using that with confidence you know you know so that is a different skill that you know we are requiring you know you know of our staff so it's I think it must have I think it was Neil who talked about changing that you know that relationship that we have with our public from being paternal to actually you know you know we're going to trust you you know to be able to deal with your life but we are getting you some tools and will help you to use those tools so I think actually sometimes being digital savvy you know you know it can scare people because actually people will be thinking does that mean I need to know the workings of you know coding and all that kind of stuff and it's not true you know you know I'm not a techie but I would you know I hope I do technology but that's because it makes my life easier and we need to explain that to the public that actually you know the reason we think you need these skills is because actually it will make your life easier and the conversation has to change so you know that's the conversation we are having here with our communities and you know with our staff it's a good good point I want to be Caroline in a moment I've had a question another question through I'd like to pick up but just before we do that Alison Kushal has raised a question about this the fear and vulnerability staff feel in using new technology and digital training the training is required to overcome that but not just on the kit itself not just on the technology but the new process is wrapped around it so what is the role Kushal of HR professionals in supporting service continuity while staff are released to contribute to the change and I've seen this on several times you know you've got a major transformational program you can't afford to you know to employ lots and lots more staff maybe as we've seen in our surveys there's an increasing dependence on external consultants who may well not be passing on the skills how do we release our staff and support them on change programs digital change programs what's the role of HR in that that's for me is it Josh? yes if you just because it carries on from what you were saying just a quick response and I'd like to bring in Caroline that's fine I think for me if you're going to see the transformation and change program as separate to other work that you do then actually you will have that problem of you know releasing and certainly what we have actually just embarked on as part of the change programs we're doing is that we actually have what we call the enabling board and you know in there sit on the table to make decisions and inform the change agenda and these are people who are key sort of colleagues in the organization we're not talking about contractors or anything like that you know who sit round the table and really the challenge that I you know I happen to chair that board that we are going to be giving the rest of the you know the organization is okay if you've got the adult social care you know change program talk to us about actually you know what is the culture change you're looking at what is the skills you are saying you know the social worker of tomorrow is needing and that actually is embedded as part of the organization rather than actually we now need to backfill and as part of that our directors have said okay as we move on how do we really you know how do we get capacity and we have got a transformation fund to do that so that we're not trying to get everyone to do a million things badly so if the whole program is part of you know what I call business as usual but still transformation then you have to acknowledge that you will have to invest to save is you know our approach in Warwickshire I think that sounds sensible Caroline I'd like to bring you in with a broader view that you've picked up through PPMA on this you know I worry a little bit that according to our survey not only do we report in councils that we've got insufficient resources to do what we need to do and insufficient skills but the solution to this is rather than training our own people according to the survey over 50% of us are simply increasing our dependence on external consultants is that the best approach as we go through this sort of transition no I don't think it is the best approach I think it comes back to one of the points I made earlier where HR and people that are here know the organisation sometimes you need some of that external challenge definitely to look at your internal processes all the way you're doing things and you know some of the giving them they can look wide out and see what's on the market but what I don't think you could do is have a team which is part of parachuted in that's going to change the organisation and parachute out again because that cultural change will not go with it so I think it fundamentally has to be a mix of internal and if you require some external specialists you bring them in at that point otherwise I think there is a risk in that approach. Yes I wonder also there's a question came in from Kevin about innovation which I thought was quite a good one sort of relates to this Kevin was making the point that there's a need to promote innovative stakeholders he mentions Theo Blackwell who we've had involved in some of our programs who are leaders politicians and executives who are promoting innovation what do we do to help drive innovation and that sort of performance and how do we grow member champions political support for this earlier on I think it was you Caroline was mentioning the importance of ensuring that we've got political backing for this sort of work. Caroline. Yes definitely again this comes back to a previous comment where members may come into meetings with huge great big agendas rather than looking on iPads and how that might be perceived if your members are on perhaps webinars for the council meetings when people see that approach and perhaps see it as an old fashioned council I think we've got some fantastic members that really have taken this this digital journey and what can come what innovation and change can come from it and I think that is something that even the Fawcett report that came out last week has emphasised is that diversity in members if we've got members that are bringing different ideas we need to champion them and I think that again is something that through publications like the MJ that we can get some of these members to say what's gone on in their organisations where they've worked with officers to actually bring about the change but you know there are some members that have been members for many many years and are quite comfortable in staying as they are because it works whether that will work in five years time is the question so we do need to look at coaching and bringing in some of the external people that we've got to showcase this can happen just by thinking about things differently and I think to me that sounds a very pragmatic approach I don't think you can build all the skills in-house and retain them because you may not need them for very long but there has to be a core capacity that creates that sort of that sort of impetus for change Caroline as you describe it and we can't simply say well we'll just buy in what we need to do this rather than do it ourselves because you're just putting off the time at which you have to create those in-house skills and I think some of the things we've done we've actually moved some of our staff so one of my business strategic business partners has been moved on to a corporate transformational project and then I backfill beyond her so that then means that she's getting the skills, she knows the organisation she can bring in that challenge she's freed up to do that specific work and I can backfill it what's the challenge is if this happens time and time again where you're not given the opportunity to backfill or get people to act up into positions so again they develop because there isn't that capacity just sitting around nowadays waiting for jobs to come along but I absolutely think there are people internally we need to be giving first opportunity to some of these things for Yes Neil perhaps I could bring you in on this one there's a comment from Alison at Steve Nidge they've recently moved change managers and program management to sit alongside the HR team seems quite an innovative approach I think previously this was aligned to IT that sort of speaks volumes doesn't it and they're now just starting out to undertake a modern HR business partner role and Alison's question is how could we make this most of this opportunity the alignment with HR in an organisation which is seeking to deliver digital customer services plus process technology and skills in the office Neil Yes very good question and actually I really applaud that in terms of what's going on there in terms of getting the change and program managers in HR because that's a great place to go and instigate that change I think the idea is that I would put in there one of the things that's really been powerful for us has been around the use of business analysts so actually business analysts are often different to perhaps the program and change managers so I would therefore look and see how I could embed the business analysts within that change program and HR function because the business analysts are the ones often that one they understand the business because either they've worked there or they've got data that they've got to back up their understanding so by taking those business analysts and helping them shape that future organization that would be the technique I would propose I think that's a really interesting point and I'm sort of glad we've got on to this subject we had several comments during the webinar about HR being a little bit by its nature a little bit traditional quite concerned about protecting people and therefore some of this change is slightly culturally different and I think Caroline you started by talking about operational versus strategic role of HR and the need to move away from a lot of the operational towards strategic functions and it seems to me Caroline if I could put this one to you a building on Neil's point that if we were designing an HR function for the future it would look quite different and as Neil says and Stevenage are already doing you bring together a whole range of newer disciplines into perhaps a different professional type of grouping and you might not even call it HR but you bring in the business analysts that are actually now fundamental to job redesign and job structuring you bring in people who may be looking at organizational structures and governance around digital operating models you bring in your change and transformation leaders alongside the people who have the more traditional HR skills what's your view about that model for the future do you see that actually happening I do I see it happening now I mean we work very closely with our two councils that I support we've got the big transformational journeys going on in those and we work very very closely literally in one of my councils we sit next to them they're in the same so they're not part of the HR department they absolutely sit next to us so that decisions that are made and spoken about are clearly evidenced and heard by all so I think that there has to be a change journey I mean one of the posts that I've actually got in my structure is an HR data analyst now there is lots and lots of statutory stuff we have to do that that role undertakes but it also looks at other things as part of the role and that's somebody that they're a doctor in information they've got an HR background but actually they are very digital and data savvy that they are using that to benefit my department they're for me benefiting both councils so again I think fundamental skills we used to have in HR core skills are changing and this is where it comes back to that strategic business partner who has to think differently than just looking at just HR one of the things we're actually looking at through ppma from one source is skills that business partners need now and we are looking at working with CIPD and SIPFA along with a business partner qualification because you do need finance you do need IT and you do need HR if you're going to be a true business partner you should know all of that because you should then be able to support them on the business so again I think a fundamental change on how we see our technical specialisms is going to change fundamentally in the future I'd just like to add to that point Joss sort of a practical example what we've just done actually one of our business analysts that's previously sat within our technology and transformation team has actually just become the talent manager for the organisation that speaks volumes really around the fact that this person who's come from a sort of a business analyst data type focus is now our talent manager so that's really going to help drive that sort of change in terms of the type of people that we want within our organisation and the type of people that we're going to promote in the future it's interesting isn't it I think that's a great point and you know this part of this conversation is saying to me that there's a massive opportunity here for HR professionals and particularly the HR leaders to actually become the future leaders of our organisations given the focus on people and business change enabled by process and money and technology and so on but if they don't do that they could become sidelines so that we're almost at a watershed for IT professional for HR professionals here which says you can actually be the future CEOs of our you know of our organisations or you can move into a sidewater the choice is yours which is perhaps an interesting point we'll come on to in a moment. Can I bring in Natasha and Natasha Venendal who's our lead on the programme I think Natasha you've got a question I actually wanted to first of all pass on an apology for not being able to get Sonia online she's having a few technical problems, she's listening but she's not being able to speak so I wanted to pass on a question from her so Sonia passed on a question so she asked how can HR really drive and support leadership to become visible and become active digital leaders so what is their role in driving the leadership of the organisation that's a good point so HR professionals helping the leadership team as a whole I don't see it happening at the moment I don't see chief executives going to their HR director saying I want to become a digital leader what do I need to do let's start with Caroline then go on to Cushall A couple of bits I have had examples of some senior leaders but it's not even quite that word but saying they recognise they need those kind of skills because they're telling the rest of the organisations what they need to do and they absolutely need to know it themselves because if people are going to say things like local development you've got to have some idea at least what people are talking about I think our leadership is absolutely critical in this we cannot expect the organisation to change and to embrace what for some people will be seen as challenging not perhaps something they particularly want to do because the roles that they enjoy doing are changing but the leadership team it comes back to those behaviours and those values if they're asking others to do it they absolutely need to lead the way I mean I know with Solace the society of chief executive and leaders they again are very much looking at leadership qualities and leadership skills so again you know that you're going to have your statutory responsibilities but actually as a leader how are we going to lead our organisation and show some of that so there is definitely a sort of an appetite across a number of professional organisations like PPMA and Solace to support chief execs and leaders who may not have come up through using these type of digital skills but absolutely need to embrace them now if they're going to expect everybody else to follow them I think that's quite important I work across many organisations and slightly less than it used to be but I will often hear main boards if I'm doing a presentation on digital or what they need to do to get to grips with a strategic digital programme they say of course we find it a little bit difficult because we are old out of touch we didn't grow up with it or whatever and it makes me slightly cross actually because I just think that's a bit of a cop out I don't think and someone said earlier on in the presentation that this isn't about age you can be 86 and become pretty digitally literate if you have a need and a want to do it ok systems have to be designed appropriately but you know I think good digital design should be intuitive easy to access and appropriate to use so I think there is something here for I absolutely agree with you Caroline for HR leaders to say do you know what this is what it means this is what you should be doing and we can help you to do that do you have a view on that one yeah I mean as an organisation the sort of leadership actually can I pass on that one yeah Keshal do you want to pick up on this we've also had a question come in from Neil Keelor online this is not about content it's more about how L and D isn't keeping pace with the need for constant learning the rate of learning complex systems traditional L and D behind and resourcing of those services to embrace digital benefits themselves is possibly an issue seems to me to be quite insightful actually that's a good point from Neil that actually you know if we're struggling to simply move from our traditional base of learning and development and to embrace all of this at the same time you're constantly running to catch up is that the problem perhaps if I could bring in Caroline again briefly on that one because of the broader perspective I think Keshal yeah no I will do hi Neil I know Neil personally so I know he is very much at the forefront of some of this and some of the leadership challenges and supporting organisations I totally agree I think you know we've really got to get our HR L and D O D whatever we want to call them up skilled as well because you know we've reduced training budgets within our own teams we've asked people to just get on with it but have not skilled up so how L and D again how are they supposed to know what's out there if they're not out networking if they're not out doing these kind of webinars to actually see so they can then go back into their organisations and challenge and say well why are we not doing something on X why are we still just doing recruitment training actually we don't want to be doing recruitment training we want to be looking at X those kind of things if you're not keeping up to speed with what's out there you're not then as a professional able to deliver on that in-house and I think it's fundamental you know Neal runs a service that self-funded they go out so you have to provide what people want and sometimes you have to tell them what they want because they don't know because you don't know what you don't know so I absolutely think it's critical that our L and D function doesn't remain as a typical L and D function. Yeah Khashal do you have a view on that one yeah I mean it just happened before joining the webinar you know I was in our customer and transformation board this morning and certainly I have to say in Warwickshire I do feel supported on this particular agenda and certainly in terms of the various leadership teams we have got the HR business partners sitting around the table and they have the authority to challenge head of service or directors I think for me one of the things I said earlier is that if you want your managing directors or your leadership team head of service managers to believe in what we are saying then actually you also have to make it real why does it matter what does it look like because if you are just saying actually you need to embrace digital without translating what that means for them and for the customers that they are also responsible for then you are going to actually struggle to have them as your advocates similarly with elected members we were just talking about earlier we did a very very simple thing as part of their induction when we had new members join recently and it was actually as part of the induction we would get tablets and during the induction we just showed them what the public was complaining about or reporting and we took them to the reported pages and said now when you get constituents can you help us in passing the message on show them how the live stuff works here you all really need to do press a few buttons it will tell you the status of potholes and all that kind of stuff that made it real so now they are actually passing that message out because they are just as much our advocates and probably very important advocates for us so I think when we talk about leadership actually there is the big it's not just the top telling the organization we are talking leadership throughout the organization and how we are using them as advocates but we have to make this real how does it actually change either the staff or the public deliver their services yes so I wonder we are sort of into our last part of this session and I would be really interested to know generally from those who are on this webinar whether they think HR are currently capable of keeping pace with and eventually driving digital change do send a comment in if you have got a view on that and you know this is interesting there is quite a few agreeing with Neil's point about Alan D in particular so I want to pick up on one raised earlier by Kevin a question earlier organizational culture is the biggest issue we face new staff are already skilled in many ways we heard about the Facebook and so on technology will deliver if it is specified and delivered correctly but the organization design piece is lacking what is your view about that the organizational design piece is lacking and I think Neil I am going to ask if you could pick up on this it feels to me as though behind this is something about trying to make IT, new technology and digital solutions fit with traditional ways of working yeah so I mean on the design we still traditionally and I am including our organization was to share in this we still traditionally sit within our departments so that sort of embeds the culture itself so one thing that we are starting to do is work out actually how we can combine themes to work together so that we can actually change that culture because that actually allows a lot more joined up thinking about how we can tackle problems I would just like to dive then into something like data for example as an example because in our organization at the moment we don't actually understand enough about the way that we use data and the way that we actually use first of all how we capture data and how we then use that data for insight and then how we use that data for effective decision making so that to me is something that we can solve together by changing our organizational culture because there are pockets of good practice across our organization and I expect many organizations however if we can then capture culture we can get those pockets of good practice and sort of take it across the organization Yeah I think that's a good point Caroline Koshel do you have views on that one I mean I agree I think we've got staff that are fundamentally sort of skilled in a number of areas so I've always said an example I've used is an HR person could actually go and work in housing benefits or a housing benefits person could work in HR because some of these are investigatory skills they're skills that you wouldn't naturally say somebody's got so I think we've been quite sort of narrow minded in the past about what we can use and the data issue I fundamentally agree we know that we've got data that it may be in my area but actually it might be really relevant for street cleansing for example but I don't think oh I wonder if street cleansing need to know that so I think we've got to get people to think about the data is council wide data it's not departmental and how can it be used for other things Yeah and there was a question and it's interesting Koshel just before I bring you in here there was interesting there was a question about data and information you know I see local authorities in particular moving from being very process driven to being primarily information driven by that I mean it's less about who and how things are done you want them done well but actually it's about information who needs help when do they need help what's the best way of doing it what services should we do what's our performance and a lot of this is data data driven so I think that sort of fits really well sorry Koshel I cut across you I think you were going to come in there No no just echoing actually what Caroline was saying I think when you do undertake skills audit in any organisation you will begin to find actually like we talk about the generic skills about you know the customer service skills and there's no reason why we shouldn't be challenging organisations you know because we do you know fit people into their JDs and person specs and actually that can actually sometimes stop people blossoming you know in areas that they would be really good at and I think we need to again look at our policies and procedures so that we can actually attract the right talent and also grow our own talent within the organisation because actually when we were talking again about a decade ago you know some of those skills weren't required they are now and I'm finding that I'm working with colleagues who actually you know love technology and want to be given a chance to play with it you know to delve into it so I think there is a bit about you know how we are managing our talent and also how we are attracting the right talent you know to deliver our public services I think the other thing also you know with Neil talking about how we use our intelligence spot on you know actually we are so data rich in public sector you know we collect so much but it's actually targeting the data that is necessary you know that is going to inform our customer journeys you know we're talking about artificial intelligence earlier is actually that intelligence begins to tell us a story about how our public are behaving and how we can then use that you know to still deliver you know what I call excellent customer services Neil I'm going to bring you in on a point that struck me as Cushell was describing that particular point and it ties in a little bit with a bit about recruitment but I see a lot of let's say younger people you know leaving university and they're looking for organizations that are digitally equipped they don't want to work in some out of date traditional organization where they feel held back because they're not able to exploit the potential of technology that they've used at college they use in their private lives and they are selecting organizations now based on their digital maturity appetite for digital for digital change and you know I wonder whether we're doing enough not just to retrain our existing staff but to say do you know what this is this is the world now and we're going to be recruiting people who have got these skills and we need to keep pace with their expectations as well as the expectations of the public Neil could I ask you for your views on that we've been recruiting graduates over the last couple of years and what we've actually found is they've bought a new mindset they've bought new skills you're right they absolutely want to use digital so going back to the data outside my teams in other teams like the commercial team and things like that you know they've come in and there's not only digital savvy they're also data savvy so if you look at the big organizations that've been successful in the last few years wherever it be Google, Facebook and whatnot they're all data driven and these people want to sort of they're really interested in that they ask questions about oh why is that organization successful and what do they know and what type of skills do they actually deploy and things like that so actually those people have come in and they're actually helping to change our culture itself because they're working alongside perhaps other colleagues and saying oh have you thought about this why don't you do it in that way how are we capturing that data how are you going to use that data when you do capture it what insight is that going to give and things like that so you're right we therefore need to attract those people into our organization because that's going to help drive that sort of cultural change and in order to do that we have to put our stall out and say you know we want those sort of people and actually if you do come into our organization we're not going to stifle you we're actually going to give you the breathing space and the ability to actually go and deliver that change for us good point Neil thank you for that we're moving towards a close now if I could just ask each of our panelists to give a quick 5 to 10 seconds single point what's your single point that you would take away from the discussion this morning I'm going to give you mine and that is digital is a real opportunity for our organizations and is going to depend massively on HR stepping up to the plate Sonia, oh Sonia is not there is she still perhaps some Natasha can you ask Sonia if she's got a comment Caroline I agree I think HR have got to come up to the plate but I think they've got to be allowed to so definitely in smaller organizations where they're lower down the rankings per se they've got to be given the chance to come man the table I would say HR can be the leaders of the future with the sort of skills they've got around changing organizations the culture and things like that that they've got an absolute opportunity to be the next CEO to use your words and they need to grab that opportunity great points Krushal yeah I mean again as I've already been said a fantastic exciting opportunity for colleagues in HR embrace it because you can and you can deliver great so I'm going to say thank you to all my panelists you've added I think some real insight to this topic thank you very much for joining us this morning I'd like to thank everybody who's coming out I'm sorry we haven't answered all of your questions I've tried to make sure we've covered as many as we could and there was a late one came through from Kevin if we were designing a local authority from scratch certainly really good point actually but we are where we are so my thanks to you I want to say thank you very much to Natasha and as you serve for putting this in place that we will be circulating and you will have available both the video and the slides from this should you want to follow up later on and I do hope that everyone will be able to join us for some of our future webinars on this topic because we'll be certainly publishing some more information and some more more research as well as on other areas tackled by the edu-serve executive briefing program so thank you all very much indeed