Investors in People award success for OIC

Our staff are our most valuable asset, providing vital services for the people of these islands and last week, Orkney Islands Council achieved the Investors in People standard award for the first time. This is a great achievement, and my thanks go to everyone who took part in the survey, the interviews and to all who spoke with the Investors in People team.

We have always recognised that the level and quality of what you do together is very high and this was evidenced first-hand by the IIP Specialists who visited us recently.

Notwithstanding, they also heard directly about the significant professional challenges and strains a great many of you face. As a local authority subject to regulation and a great deal of scrutiny, we are always ready to accept criticism where we have not met expectations and we must do everything we can to deliver excellent services. The way we work needs to follow the best practices and focus on our Values.

I know that many of you are stretched as never before and vacancies are higher than we want, therefore, improving our efforts in respect of recruitment must remain a priority for us. Our recruitment teams are working hard and some changes have already been made to our systems but there is no quick fix and it will take time and efforts from us all to make any impact.

We have found that IIP offers us a framework of best practice that will help guide us moving forward and this assessment will allow us to build on the many good things happening but also focus more on our priorities, responding to the comments made and the concerns you expressed.

Across the UK there are staff and skills shortages and as an organisation, we also recognise the importance of being an employer of choice, where people enjoy their work, satisfied they provide a valuable service. Therefore, together we need to make sure that people want to join our great teams and experience the pride you all feel in working together for a better Orkney.

Within the Corporate Leadership Team, our ambition has always been to support you in keeping with Our People, Our Plan as you deliver the frontline services but there is a recognition that we can, and need to, do more. Our recent restructuring has been central to some of the improvements we have made, but now we need to advance the ways we further support and develop our teams so that you can deliver the best service in an increasingly demanding environment.

When the visiting specialists were here they spoke to a sizeable number of staff from across our services. They got a valuable insight into and across all of parts of Orkney Islands Council – I am told, everywhere they went they were made very welcome. People gave their views freely and expressed their opinions openly. Everywhere they went, people told them about the Council at work and talked proudly about what they do.

All conversations were made in confidence – putting all of your comments in context, they will be used by IIP to determine their findings and make some specific recommendations which will offer us real direction moving forward.

Once again, my sincere thanks to you all for your efforts – yes, there’s a lot of work to do and there are challenges we must address, but this is a time for us all to celebrate our successes. It is through your hard work and efforts that we achieve this recognition and award. Using Investors in People, we start a new journey and should look forward to working with their team in the time ahead.

Kind regards

John W Mundell OBE, Interim Chief Executive