12.08.14
HEE approves major cull of local education & training board managers
Health Education England is pressing ahead with a restructure of England’s 13 local education and training boards (LETBs) that will cut the number of manager posts from 60 to 45.
The LETBs will lose their individual managing directors, directors of education and quality, and heads of finance in a move to save £17m in running costs from April 2015, from £85m a year to £68m.
The 13 LETBs will instead by managed by four geographically based national directors, each with a director of education and quality and a head of finance. New local director posts will be created, but with fewer powers and staff, and a reduced budget.
The restructure was approved at the HEE board meeting on Thursday. The board papers say the move will “better align the work of LETBs and the rest of HEE nationally”.
The four new directors will cover:
- North: North West, North East and Yorkshire and Humber LETBs;
- South: South West, Wessex and Thames Valley LETBs;
- Midlands and East: East of England, East Midlands and West Midlands LETBs; and
- London and South East: South London, North Central and East London, North West London and Kent Surrey and Sussex LETBs.
These new directors will be members of the HEE executive team, and will have line management responsibility for new senior local LETB directors. They will also be responsible for ensuring that local issues and the voice of LETBs are central to discussions nationally.
It is reported that these senior staff will be focused, for the vast majority of their time, on supporting LETBs and will be expected, alongside local directors and the new national directors, to attend local LETB meetings, both to support LETBs and ensure greater knowledge transfer between the local and national is built into HEE.
HEE’s board also agreed that the new post of local director would not need to have a clinical background.
These local directors will be responsible for workforce strategy and planning; attracting and recruiting the right people; commissioning excellent education; lifelong investment in people; improvement, quality and transformation locally; LETB performance, including nationally allocated and delegated budgets and ensuring value for money; leading senior level engagement with LETB members and the broader health and healthcare community in the LETB area; and the efficient operation of the LETB as a sub-committee of HEE.
But unlike the current managing director role, these new local directors will be accountable to one of the four new geographically based directors, not HEE’s chief executive, and they will not line manage the director of education & quality or the head of finance. Under the new model, the local directors will have responsibility for fewer staff and for lower running costs, but they will take on some of the local aspects of the current director of education & quality role.
The plans have sparked concerns that the changes will not support LETBs and that it is a move “all about centralisation and removing autonomy from LETBs”.
In his report for the board, HEE director of people and communications Lee Whitehead acknowledged: “There were concerns that LETBs would be unable to deliver their core functions; that employers would stop engaging and supporting LETBs locally; that the pace of change was too quick both in terms of timescale but also too soon after the creation of HEE; that local leadership would be insufficient to HEE to support LETBs; that the changes were all about centralisation and removing autonomy from LETBs; and that the success of LETBs and HEE in the first year would not be sustainable in the new model.”
However, the board added that the engagement produced no other options for meeting all the challenges beyond those proposed.
Phase Two of the consultation is planned to begin by the end of October 2014. This will be a broader staff consultation as a result of the functions review and the most appropriate way of delivering for 13 LETBs and the board from a more streamlined staffing structure within one HEE.
The full timeline is below:
- Formal consultation is launched (3 July)
- Affected staff are declared as ‘affected by change’ (3 July)
- Informal expressions of interest in voluntary redundancy sought from among the affected staff (3 July)
- HEE Partnership Forum meets (24 July)
- Formal consultation ends (4 August)
- HEE Board meeting to review consultation outcomes (7 August)
- Response to the consultation published, and next steps (11 August)
- Affected staff are formally declared ‘at risk’ (11 August)
- HEE Partnership Forum meets 21 August
- Additional and/or refresher training on equality & diversity for interview panel members as required (August/September)
- Formal interviews for new posts take place and formal requests for voluntary redundancies considered (August – September)
- National Director interviews (W/c 1 September)
- Interviews for the posts of Director of Education & Quality (geography), Head of Finance (geography) and LETB Director (W/c 8 September and 15 September)
- Second phase of organisational change, led by new senior team (From October)
- Complete process By 31 March 2015
Discussing the possible redundancies, HEE said: “Where staff are unsuccessful in securing a post in the new structure and remain at risk of redundancy, every effort will be made to redeploy them to alternative employment within HEE, or to another NHS organisation or ALB. Redeployment will normally be confined to posts at the same grade or one grade below.
“All staff declared as ‘affected by change’ or ‘at risk’ of redundancy will be encouraged to seek support and advice from their trade union representative.”
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