Who?
A large, non-ministerial UK Government department with over 65,000 employees. Also one of the UK Government’s largest employers.
The challenge
More than £3.4billion was saved in 2020/21 through successful efforts to improve efficiency across Whitehall. However, further acceleration in cost-cutting was required. Our client had established a Transformation Group to support and enable the delivery of major cost-cutting programmes, whilst ensuring collaboration across their other business groups.
We were required to run and transform the Portfolio Management Function (PfM) of the Transformation Group, to deliver a portfolio strategy and manage over £2billion worth of transition activity. Central to this was the need to build a sustainable, ‘fit for the future’ in-house PfM, with the capacity, capability and culture to maximise benefits to customers. This had to be delivered with limited resources and without disruption to Business-as-Usual (BAU) activities.
How we helped
Working closely with our client, and bringing together expertise and experience from across the Moorhouse team in People & Change, we:
- Co-designed a new operating model for PfM with a new strategic vision and new ways of working and processes
- Created a new organisation structure that underpinned the Operating Model and drafted new job descriptions
- Led the transition to a fully in-house civil servant-led function – whilst maintaining exceptional standards of all PfM BAU operations. This included Job Evaluation for Senior Posts (JESP), consultations, HR support, transition planning and migration of individuals to new roles and teams
- Ensured all civil servants were upskilled, trained and onboarded during the journey to ensure that civil servants had the right skills to excel in their new roles and were living, breathing, and exemplifying the new PfM values
- Supported the Landing Change and Benefits Realisation team to embed the new landing change framework.
Outcomes
We enabled delivery of a £2billion+ portfolio of transformation programmes and through Organisational Development (leadership development, capability uplift, learning and development, transition and handover) civil servants were equipped with the right skills from day one. This included:
- Working with the new PfM leaders on culture and engagement to agree new ‘working out loud’ ways of working and a behavioural charter, the new Op Model was successfully implemented with a clear direction and new ‘ways of working’.
- Successfully implemented the new Portfolio Management function, supported with recruitment for all required roles and performed complete handovers to all staff.
- Building a series of role-based learning journeys founded on our understanding of the client’s skills gaps. These journeys were backed up by a Learning and Development plan which was delivered through Academy Sessions, Masterclass Sessions, Process Walkthroughs, a buddying scheme and role-by-role Handover Sessions.
- Through supporting the Landing Change work, we helped to prepare the individuals within the new organisation structure to help make the changes land successfully and allow the Portfolio Function to be successful.
