People Strategy 2024 to 2027

Our People Strategy “Working Together, Putting People at the Centre” sets out how we will support the vision, aims and activities contained in the COPFS Strategic Plan 2023-27 and outlines the key priorities and initiatives to enhance people management practices, performance and accountability across COPFS.

COPFS is operating in a period of transition as the Designed for Success programme is progressed, and it is recognised that the detail provided in the strategy may need to evolve or be refined over the course of the next three years, but the focus on leadership and management effectiveness will be critical to success in any context.

Underpinned by four key themes – confidence, capacity, competence and culture - the strategy illustrates our ambition for COPFS with a range of aspirational outcomes supported by active leadership and effective management practices, including having clearly defined priorities, objectives and communication routes to drive performance and a culture of continuous business and service improvement with a working environment that is inclusive, compassionate, people-centred and trauma informed.

The strategy sets out what we are going to do to reach successful outcomes over the next three years focussed on eight transformational priorities: leader and manager effectiveness; shared commitment to learning; organisational design; employee experience; performance and maximising attendance; strategic workforce planning; talent management; and technology as an enabler.  This work will largely be driven by a newly formed single People Directorate but will be informed by the scale of transformational change either in progress or anticipated.

This will mean that work will be delivered in the context of the Designed for Success Programme. Our actions will enable COPFS to have assurance of confident decision-making at the right levels, create a positive and inclusive working environment, develop capable leaders and managers, and ensure our workforce is equipped with the necessary skills to meet increasing demands over the course of the next three years and beyond. The strategy emphasises the importance of effective leadership and management at all levels and building a robust learning focussed culture, aiming to develop the knowledge, skills, and behaviours required for all professions and job types across COPFS.

The success of the strategy is grounded in our people trusting that the strategy will inform decision-making and actions. It is essential that managers and leaders at all levels are clear about their responsibilities and corporate expectations, supported by a strengthened senior structure and single People Directorate. The work outlined in this strategy is underpinned by detailed business and delivery plans to ensure that a joined up approach is taken with service improvement activity across COPFS.

Our people are our most valuable asset in delivering justice to the people of Scotland.  Their knowledge, skills, values, experience and engagement are critical to our success and to delivering COPFS’ strategic and service improvement and transformation aims.

Our People Strategy sets out how we will support the vision, aims and activities contained in the COPFS Strategic Plan 2023-27 and the strategic aim of supporting our people to deliver excellence.

We will do this in the context of being in a period of transition, currently engaged in implementing changes to the way we work and our organisational structure. This strategy will be reviewed regularly to ensure our focus and outcomes are aligned to supporting Designed for Success, our transformation programme to improve resilience and leadership in COPFS; the continuing challenge around budget and resource allocation; a focus on service improvement, particularly around how we are trauma informed in our interactions with victims, witnesses and bereaved nearest relatives; our commitment to creating and maintaining a workplace that adheres to the principles and values of Fair Work, with inclusivity in practice and ethos; and the practicalities of hybrid working arrangements and the move to a reduced 35 hour week on our working practices.

Our people

Figures from Staff in Post as of 29 February 2024. Percentages may add to more than 100% because of rounding.

• 70/30 female/male gender split
• 8% identify as disabled
• 39 average median age
• 4% identify as Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic backgrounds, 91% White and 6% ‘other’ or ‘unknown’
• 41% Identify their religion as ‘none’, 34% Christian, 2% Muslim, and 23.5% ‘other’ or ‘unknown’
• 6% identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual

Our Learning

• 15 mandatory corporate e-learning programmes that maintain standards and manage risk
• 2 multi-year mandatory programmes for trainee solicitors and new deputes
• 2% of our workforce currently undertaking formal education and learning study
• 62 internal programmes published annually through our College prospectus
• 220 face to face training days annually
• 88 face to face training days annually dedicated to domestic abuse, sexual offences and advocacy skills

Supporting the Strategic Plan, our focus will put our people at the centre of what we do, working across teams and functions to collaborate and deliver excellence.  Using data analytics to drive forward our decision-making we will aim to attract, retain and develop exceptional people and leaders, promote wellbeing and encourage the development of skills, capabilities and culture for delivering excellence and improved performance.

Our People Strategy will support our future organisational structure, leadership, management, succession planning and business delivery as we work together to deliver improved service outcomes and ways of working. Over the course of the strategy period, we will take the opportunities afforded by the Designed for Success programme to review and implement changes to our organisational structure, creating a more resilient workplace that will allow us to flex to meet demands.

Four key themes underpin our People Strategy and form the baseline of our approach to working together, putting people at the centre. These themes are what we call the four C’s: confidence, capacity, competence and culture. Everything we do in delivering on this strategy will be underpinned by one or more of these thematic elements.

Our underpinning themes – the 4 Cs: what these mean for COPFS 

Confidence

Confidence is about making timely and effective management and leadership decisions, empowering our people in their roles, giving purposeful feedback to drive excellent performance and address skills gaps, and being empathetic and proportionate in how we respond to our people. It is about enabling our people to become involved in decision-making, knowing that they are listened to, and feeling encouraged to contribute their experience, expertise and ideas to support high performance to deliver excellence for the people of Scotland.

Capacity

Improving our capacity means making the best use of our available time and resources through effective workforce planning and good organisational design. This will mean maximising attendance at work, defining priorities clearly, protecting time for learning within priorities, making data driven assessments of workloads and resources, taking risk-based decisions to drive improvement, trusting our people and providing room for autonomy at the right levels. This becomes even more important as we move to a 35 hour working week in 2024 and assess the impacts of this change over the course of the strategy period.

Competence

Competence means we have a shared understanding of what good performance looks like. It is about creating learning opportunities at all stages and in all roles to build and maintain competence and to identify and nurture talent. Our aim is to provide career enhancing opportunities for all and promote excellence at every stage. Management competence means a focus on learning for those who move into management roles, creating a learning environment that responds to and anticipates the needs of managers across a range of experience levels.

Culture

Our ambition is to truly put people at the centre of what we do and how we do it – leading to a culture that is one of shared responsibility for empowerment, engagement, performance, learning and delivery, where our values of being professional and showing respect are role modelled every day by our people. Our intention remains about being inclusive and compassionate in our approach, modelling our values in all of our interactions, offering our people challenging and interesting opportunities where they are rewarded and appreciated.

We want our people to be involved, listened to, and encouraged to contribute their experience, expertise and ideas to support high performance and to deliver excellence for the people of Scotland.  

Our immediate focus and longer-term goal is to have the foundations and opportunities where active leadership – that is, being proactive and engaged to lead by example - supported by effective management practices, are at the forefront of leading our people to success.   Putting our people at the centre of what we do, and our person-centred public service, will reflect an overall culture within COPFS.

We have identified the following aspirational outcomes for our people across our four key themes to deliver excellence by 2027.

• We are open and honest with our people, involving them in decision making and using their feedback to make improvements. 
• We have the roles, structures and processes in place to make proportionate, confident decisions impacting our workforce. 
• Our leaders and managers build supportive teams which are empowered and trusted to take decisions and work innovatively. 
• We build the experience and expertise to prioritise and allocate tasks effectively in our fast paced working environment, delegating to the right level and understanding when to seek support.

• We are clear about our priorities and have well defined approaches to moving and flexing resources to focus on priority work.
• We take opportunities to improve our processes, systems, structures and ways of working to drive performance and a culture of continuous business and service improvement.
• Our managers take decisions that improve capacity and maximise use of available resource, including well-timed action to help employees be productive and stay at work, but also to support return to work following employee absence.
• We protect time for learning in all roles.
• We provide clear commitment and support for each other’s personal wellbeing, providing access to expert and trauma informed support where that is needed. 

• Our people are skilled and resilient, delivering an excellent service for the people of Scotland. 
• We attract, develop and retain a highly skilled and diverse workforce, creating opportunities for our people to develop in challenging, interesting careers with purpose and integrity where talent potential is nurtured and developed. 
• We are a learning organisation. We provide and fund wide-ranging education and learning, certifications and qualifications delivered at the right time to support the career journeys of all COPFS people, always ensuring the quality of our provision. 

• Our developing culture is focused on a shared responsibility for curiosity for, protection of and participation in learning, ensuring impact for individual, team and organisational development and performance, supporting our delivery of a compassionate, person-centred and trauma informed service.
• We create working environments that are inclusive, empathetic and people-centred.
• We model our values and demonstrate the behaviours that actively promote a culture of empowerment, engagement, performance, learning and delivery.
• We are inclusive and compassionate in our approach to decisions impacting our workforce. 

We have identified eight transformation priorities to deliver our strategic outcomes, all of which reflect our key themes of confidence, capacity, competence and culture.

We are committed to improving our employee experience and to providing a clear employee value proposition to inform our people of available benefits and to showcase COPFS as an employer of choice. It is important for our people to have clear, shared expectations about how wellbeing, performance, conduct and attendance at work are supported and managed to help to create a corporate understanding of what it means to work in COPFS.  

We want all our people to feel welcome, valued and rewarded in our workplaces and to remove barriers to career and personal achievement. To do this we will:

• Work with our staff networks to ensure our inclusion strategies support our people to be their best and achieve their full potential. 
• Create and implement action plans focussed on driving inclusive behaviours and activities in leadership development and in recruitment practices. Our focus in year one will be on implementing race and disability action plans.
• Be proactive in our recruitment planning to widen opportunities to people from a diverse range of social backgrounds.
• provide competitive reward within the context of public sector pay strategy, assessing the variety of pay and non-pay benefits available to our people.
• Recognise and reward our people for their contributions, looking creatively at opportunities to acknowledge and promote employee achievements both within and outwith COPFS.

To enhance our employee experience and gain shared of understanding of what it is to work in COPFS we will: 

• Focus our wellbeing efforts on four key elements of wellbeing: social, mental, physical and financial
• Become a trauma informed organisation, and further review and monitor the provision of support available to staff dealing with difficult, complex and sensitive cases, with particular care for those in contact with vulnerable victims and witnesses. 
• Analyse and act on data and emerging trends in employee absence, ensuring that managers have the capacity and confidence to proactively support staff, with the aim of reducing sickness levels. We will look outwith COPFS to gain insight into best practice to target wellbeing initiatives that maximise attendance, improve productivity and increase employee engagement.
• Evaluate the effects of our wellbeing hour pilot on individual and team wellbeing alongside an assessment of impact or consequence on capacity to deliver the quality of service we strive to deliver for the people of Scotland.

Shared commitment to learning 

Supported by a clear educational philosophy and evaluation framework, through our College our ambition and intention is to support our people on their learning journeys, to thrive in current roles and into other roles whether those be within COPFS, other parts of the justice system, or beyond. 

To achieve this, we will:

• Ensure ongoing growth of this area through support and oversight from our College Steering Committee, improved learning needs analysis (LNA) and responses, and improved provision of specialist advice from our College remaining responsive to corporate needs and being agile through effective College business partnering with functions.
• Publish the Scottish Prosecution College prospectus twice a year and at least a month ahead of course dates to support planning. It will set out our curricula with clear course descriptions and learning outcomes and ensuring it can be available at the right time for our learners - from our Modern Apprenticeship and trainee solicitor programmes to our talent and leadership offering, and from our bespoke programmes to our funded qualifications and certifications delivered with our learning partners. 
• Be clearer about the value of mandatory learning programmes such as those that manage risk to our people in different roles, and induction and ‘early years’ programmes required in specific roles.
• Enhance internal and external communication to foster an environment where protecting time and space for learning is a practice that is key to our success. 
• Developing as a learning organisation, focus on measuring learning impact for individual and organisational development and performance, and being known for our delivery of a compassionate, person centred and trauma-informed service that strives for excellence.  
   

Leader and manager effectiveness is central to our success. Our managers and leaders will demonstrate their commitment to people being at the centre of what we do, through role-modelling, day to day, the actions and behaviours set out in our new management and leadership framework, and through fostering the culture and practices that this strategy envisages. Our leaders will actively step into leadership, taking opportunities to inspire our people and create positive workplaces. Our leaders and managers will lead our culture by having the capacity, competence and confidence to provide challenge and critical feedback to achieve high performance, while being empathetic, emotionally intelligent and sensitive to individual needs.

To achieve this we will:

• Define what excellent leadership and management look like from first line management stage.
• Provide supportive and timely learning programmes for managers across a range of experience levels.
• Encourage a culture of active leadership and accountability amongst leaders and managers.
• Develop and implement new education and learning programmes to support our people across all professions and job types to develop the knowledge, skills and behaviours required.
• Underpin central line management learning with professional and expert support, advice and guidance across HR and the Scottish Prosecution College.
• Underpin central line management learning with local coaching and mentoring of others by those who have participated in programmes.

Strategic workforce planning 

We are committed to ensuring there are opportunities for career movement and development for all people and our workforce planning strategies will set out our approach to having the right people in the right place at the right time to deliver business priorities. 

To do this we will:

• Develop and implement creative and inclusive recruitment strategies to attract the best people and to address skills gaps and recruitment challenges in specialist areas. 
• Ensure that our plans are flexible and capable of reflecting changes to our workforce and the external labour market. 
• Develop workforce plans aligned to business priorities and organisational design objectives, reporting to relevant governance committees for oversight.
• Consider the right mix of internal promotion by developing our people to fill internal gaps whilst achieving a balance of external recruitment to enhance skills, experience and working backgrounds to strengthen our workforce.

Talent management 

Our ambition is to have a trusted and robust system for identifying and nurturing talent in COPFS. A system that is fair and where opportunities are available for our people to grow in their chosen profession or be able to change to new and varied roles using their skills and experience. 

To do this we will: 

• Develop a systematic end-to-end approach to talent management, career development and succession planning, assessing development needs as part of performance discussions. 
• Consult on how we best use information from formal appraisal processes, skills assessments and both formal and informal feedback to inform the identification of high potential individuals. 
• Design an approach that includes formal development programmes with the aim of being transparent, objective and robust.
• Foster an environment of continuous learning supported by regular opportunities for formal and informal management feedback, coaching, mentoring and opportunities for career progression (both lateral and promotion opportunities).

Performance and maximising attendance 

It is essential that our people are provided with timely and purposeful assessments of performance to make sure that we are operating at our fullest capacity, especially in the context of a shorter working week which will be introduced in the later part of 2024. Similarly, we recognise that absence from work requires timely and supportive management intervention in order to help employees return to work and to minimise the impact on delivery of our priorities.   

To do this effectively we will:

• Consult and act on staff feedback so that formal and informal performance feedback discussions are meaningful and beneficial for everyone.
• Work with Functions to look closely at how we assess productivity and delivery through the lens of changes to working time, transformational change processes and employee wellbeing.
• Use learning from the wellbeing hour pilot to prepare for the introduction of the reduced working week (35 hours) from October 2024.
• Prioritise the delivery of management learning to support performance and maximising attendance. 
• Prioritise supporting colleagues with addressing their development needs identified during performance feedback discussions.

Organisational design

Over the period of this strategy COPFS will continually need to be flexible and agile enough to respond to changing demands. It is essential that our organisational structure and design are aligned to our strategic priorities but allow for restructure and reallocation of resources to priority areas of work where this is needed.

To achieve this we will:

• Support review outcomes that impact our corporate structure, with alignment of processes, roles and responsibilities to ensure our resources are used effectively and efficiently to achieve our strategic aims and deliver quality outcomes. 
• Take opportunities arising from the pay and grading project and Designed for Success programme to review existing roles and responsibilities. 
• Integrate our HR and College teams to create one People directorate, enabling a systems-thinking approach to ensure processes are linked and integrated, with  decision-making based on high quality metrics and information. 
• Incorporate transformational change programmes and technology innovation opportunities in planning to respond effectively to changing or emerging priorities through to 2027, responding in an agile way, developing valued, and challenging roles across all grades in line with business priorities.
• Align our decision-making to strategic workforce planning designed to deliver COPFS’ corporate and service delivery priorities in line with available resource. 

We recognise the importance of using the fullest range of data analytics to make informed management decisions which affect our people and workplaces and to support successful delivery of corporate outcomes. Equally we understand that our employees expect to have a choice in how and when they can access their personal and career development information, and to do so with ease.  

In order to use technology as an enabler for better decision making and to improve employee experience we will:

• Develop reporting and corporate data analytics capabilities to inform and enable data driven decision-making. 
• Transform our use of technology, with HR, College and ISD colleagues working together to continuously improve how we access and use our systems. 
• Continue to improve digital communications with our people, making the most of our intranet, Microsoft Office programmes and other tools. We will also help staff make the most of the communication tools available to them as technology changes.

We recognise the importance of implementing strategic plans and corporate initiatives effectively – in terms of the trust our people have in us, our ability to achieve organisational and individual high performance, and the potential impact on our external reputation. Therefore, detailed business, project and action plans and risk management will underpin our People Strategy.

It is essential for our people managers and leaders to have the confidence and capability to deliver on our priorities.  We recognise that no one team can deliver these outcomes, instead there is a need for collaborative and partnership working with our people across all parts of COPFS, and with our HR, Scottish Prosecution College and Corporate Communications functions maintaining leadership focus on this strategy.  

A key link will be to ensure a joined up approach with our Service Improvement and Digital enabled transformation work, to take a systems-thinking approach to delivering outcomes and navigating challenges, recognising the importance of coordinating our communities within COPFS and understanding that no single product or initiative can, in itself, generate success. 

Our implementation will have effective communications and engagement at its heart. Our employee engagement principles are: 

• A strong strategic narrative which explains our goals and what we need to do to achieve them.
• Engaging managers who own corporate messages with authenticity.
• Employee voice that is heard and acted upon.
• Our values are integral to our organisation and are reflected in the actions of all our employees.

We will use people data and information analytics to focus continuous learning and improvement in our people and organisational capabilities.

Business plans for the new single People Directorate incorporating measurement tools and risk assessment will underpin corporate governance and decision making and support our ability to measure and report on what we do. This includes the internal COPFS L&D Strategy to 2027, which supports the corporate People Strategy and also attaches College Business Plan for the relevant year; and our Inclusion Strategy which encompasses our approach to recruitment and promotion of a diverse workforce.  A range of corporate committees and sub-groups provide relevant governance of the priorities contained in this strategy. We also commit to reporting annually to the Executive Board.  

Operational performance indicators – productivity, quality, timeliness – are managed within each function. The People Strategy is intended to support improving outcomes across these areas with the following indicators for leader and management effectiveness and education and learning to help track our success.  

Leader and management effectiveness

• Improved employee engagement evidenced by increased People Survey indices across key areas.
• Confident line management decisions reflected in proportionate action taken at the right time within the scope of our HR policies.
• Low turnover in the first two years of employment, supported by positive exit information.
• Increase in diversity of applicants interviewed and appointed to entry level and promoted posts.
• Improved data-driven decision making, informed by HR and Learning management system reporting and metrics.
• Reduced absence aligning over time to below sector average.
• Performance management actions taken timeously with feedback informing our talent management approach.
   

Education and learning (a full evaluation framework is held corporately).

These will support a greater organisational understanding of the return on investment in education, learning and development and impact on our performance strategically and operationally over time):
 

• Increased and higher quality recommendations of our education and learning specialists on how to support corporate needs both BAU and transformative, through learning needs and skills gap analysis. 
• Improved learning design, quality and implementation plans based on a greater understanding of what learning interventions best meet defined needs, whether centralised (delivered through our College), decentralised (delivered through our functions, or delivered in association with our third-party partners.
• Improved equality of access to learning opportunities through improved governing education models and policies. 
• Improved quality of development discussions, and improved recording and implementation of the outcomes of those discussions, evidenced through our PAR process.
• Improved uptake of/participation in/retention and impact of learning and development activity on our corporate success, measured formally (Corporate projects’ outcomes, College Steering Committee, College prospectus, learning records, performance appraisal outcomes, evaluation outcomes, results of quality assurance checks by Scottish Qualifications Authority, Skills Development Scotland) and informally (feedback loops, unsolicited feedback))
• Identifiable improved links between development undertaken and promotion within or outwith COPFS.
• Improved ‘L&D’ People survey score across each of our functions over the course of the period,
• Improved external evidence on the impact education and learning has had on corporate success (internal governance, counsel-led Reviews, SPSO, HM Inspectorate for Prosecution)
• Clearer shared responsibility for protecting space for learning and development between learners, line managers, leaders, HR and our College.