Policy paper

Home Office Improvement Plan

Published 6 February 2014

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

Foreword

In 1782, in the aftermath of the American War of Independence, Government was restructured and the old Northern and Southern Departments became the Foreign Office and the Home Office: alongside the Treasury, the great departments of State. A generation later, at the height of the Victorian era, new premises were built in Whitehall (in which the FCO is still based) to house the India Office, the Foreign Office, the Colonial Office and the Home Office. They reflected the organisational culture of the age, from the imperial grandeur of the India Office to the austere architecture of the Home Office. Our mission hasn’t changed much since that era: to keep Britain’s streets safe and our borders secure.

In the age of austerity and in the digital era, the Home Office faces more scrutiny from Parliament and the media than most departments. That is partly because our performance hasn’t always matched our ambitions and partly because we have among the most challenging jobs in Government. I take huge pride in the daily achievements of the quarter of a million public servants who work in policing and criminal justice, security and intelligence, at the border, in the immigration system and in the enabling functions who support them.

After 2012’s Jubilee and Olympics, 2013 has been a year of solid progress as we strive to achieve consistent competence across our many responsibilities. Notwithstanding the ghastly murders of Lee Rigby and Mohammed Saleem, we have maintained our remarkable track record against terrorists and extremists, reinforcing, with the deportation of Abu Qatada, our relentless determination to bring them to justice, as old threats evolve and new ones emerge. Crime continues to fall, reflecting the dedication of our police forces, and the work of the Home Office to modernise policing, design out crime, build resilient communities, and tackle evolving problems such as sexual violence and online fraud. We have made progress throughout the restructured immigration system: reducing immigration and tackling abuse and backlogs, while improving Britain’s competitiveness as a destination for tourism and trade.

Less public, but as essential, we have begun to transform the enabling functions we provide to all these operations from the fragile, fragmented and old-fashioned systems we have inherited into a resilient, integrated modern platform. And we will deliver all this with half the money in 2020 that we had in 2010 – the central challenge of the age of austerity.

That is a daunting agenda, but there is no alternative to transformation: streamlining, digitisation and above all professionalism as we strive to deliver consistent competence by 2015, then excellence and thus earn the public’s trust anew. This plan sets out how.

Assessment

Overview

Since the last Capability Review in February 2012, the Home Office has taken major steps forward. The Department has successfully delivered one of the biggest peacetime security operations since the Second World War to ensure a safe and secure London Olympics. We have achieved historic reforms of the policing landscape. We have reshaped our own organisation to sharpen accountability and focus on our strategic objectives; abolished the UK Border Agency and created three distinct operational commands to drive improvements in our border and immigration functions; and streamlined our corporate services. We have significantly strengthened our reach abroad, working with international partners to tackle serious and organised crime and other threats to the UK upstream.

The task now is to ensure that we embed these changes and use them to drive stronger organisational performance, while continuing to cut costs and keep pace with rising public expectations.

In assessing our progress, we have drawn on a wide range of sources: performance data from our recently published Mid-Year Report, progress reports against the Civil Service reform plan; interviews with stakeholders and staff; feedback from over 2500 managers attending our Viewpoint events last summer; and the 2013 People Survey. These have all helped shape our plans for the next phase of Home Office transformation.

Performance

Summary

• Good progress delivering against our business plan commitments, but some challenges remain, particularly on immigration casework and enforcement.
• We need to improve performance on parliamentary questions, correspondence and freedom of information requests.
• Performance on major projects is mixed, with particular challenges on some of our technology projects, and we need to strengthen project and contract management more generally.
• Performance data is improving and is being used, but we need to develop better metrics, improve information quality, and streamline reporting.

Strategic priorities

We are making strong progress in delivering against the commitments set out in the Home Office business plan, as set out in our Mid-Year Report. Cutting crime: against a backdrop of a tough economic climate, recorded crime has now fallen by more than 10% since 2010. 2012/2013 saw the implementation of further ambitious reforms to improve police accountability, transparency and integrity, including Police and Crime Commissioners, the College of Policing, and the new National Crime Agency. We have continued to tackle emerging crime threats and develop preventative policy responses. Modern slavery, reducing sexual violence against children and vulnerable adults, and online crime are all priorities for further action between now and 2015.

• Reducing immigration: net migration is down by nearly a third since its peak in 2010. We have tightened up legislation, increased credibility interviewing and toughened enforcement against those who break our immigration laws. We have also introduced policy changes to attract and retain the brightest and best migrants who want to come to the UK to work, study and invest. The Immigration Bill currently before Parliament contains a raft of measures to reform our immigration system, to prevent access to services by people who should not be here and make it easier to remove them.

• Preventing terrorism: delivery of a safe and secure London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games was a major achievement for the Department and our delivery partners. We continue to strengthen and sharpen our counter-terrorism strategy to respond to the developing nature of security threats. The extremism taskforce established in the wake of the tragic attack in Woolwich is looking at all forms of extremism that lead to terrorism, building on our Prevent strategy as part of the Government’s counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST.

• Supporting growth: we continue to support the Government’s growth agenda by creating a safe environment for the public and for business, opening up public services and supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Our counter-terrorism framework and operations are now recognised internationally and are providing a new platform for growth in security exports. Our visa system is already very competitive but we are committed to building on the best of the current system so that by the end of this parliament we are leading the world in high quality tailored visa services.

Operational delivery

We have also continued to drive substantial improvements in our operational services.

• Policing: Police and Crime Commissioners are enhancing accountability and leading reform and innovation across the country, while the new College of Policing is driving improvements to policing skills and professionalism. National threats are being gripped. We have continued our significant investment in counter-terrorism policing; have increased our investment in regional organised crime policing units; and established the National Crime Agency to lead the UK’s fight against serious and organised crime. We are also continuing to focus strongly on police efficiency, making savings of over 20% over four years; modernising police pay and conditions by implementing the recommendations of the Winsor Review; and introducing a new Police Innovation Fund to incentivise collaboration. In 2014/15 we will give additional powers to the Independent Police Complaints Commission and strengthen Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary’s capacity and remit further so that the public can more easily judge the effectiveness of police forces.

• Borders and immigration: we have made radical reforms to our operational immigration services. The UK Border Agency was abolished in April 2013 and replaced by two Home Office commands, UK Visas and Immigration, and Immigration Enforcement, each with a distinct focus. These operate alongside Border Force, which became a Home Office operational command on 1 March 2012. It will take time to resolve all of the strategic issues which led to these reforms, and to strengthen our underlying capability, but we are making good progress.

  • Border Force is completing full checks on all passengers at the border in line with the Ministerially-agreed operating mandate. The challenge now is to maintain performance on security and service with rising passenger numbers and freight growth.

  • UK Visas & Immigration has been refocused as a high-volume service with a firm emphasis on national security and a culture of customer satisfaction for people who come here legally. The service is on track to close casework backlogs of workable cases in the temporary and permanent migration functions by April 2014, whilst continuing to roll out premium services across visa operations in key growth markets and improve decision quality.

  • Immigration Enforcement is focused wholly on immigration law enforcement. The service has delivered increases in enforcement visits and arrests and doubled the number of organised crime groups disrupted in 2013. The level of Foreign National Offenders removals is being maintained and detention casework capacity is being increased to deliver higher levels in future. More efficient and innovative ways of working are now being developed to ensure that negative immigration decisions have consequences.

• Passports: Her Majesty’s Passport Office, an executive agency of the Home Office, continues to maintain high levels of customer service and security, meeting their customer pledge of issuing 100% of straightforward passports within 15 working days. The agency also reduced the price of a passport by £5 in September 2012.

• Disclosure and Barring: as a newly formed organisation, created by the merger of two existing bodies in December 2012, the Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) has rapidly established itself as a high performing, dynamic and customer-focused organisation. In 2013/14 it implemented a number of service enhancements, most notably the Update Service which allows criminal record certificates to be kept up to date, reducing the need to make repeat applications.

• Animals: we are modernising our arrangements for protecting animals used in scientific procedures, including implementing electronic processing of licences and centralising administration. Legislation amended in 2013 increases the responsibilities of duty-holders and recently published guidance ensures clarity of accountability for all involved, so that animals are used only when justified, and with minimum of suffering, for the benefit of people, animals and the environment.

• Forensic science: we continue to support the regulation of forensic pathologists, surveillance camera systems and the quality of forensic science, working closely with the independent Forensic Science Regulator (FSR) and Surveillance Camera Commissioner.

Major projects

Performance on major projects, many of which will deliver critical capabilities for our operations, is mixed with some major challenges, particularly around technology.

A number of major projects have been delivered successfully over the last eighteen months, including establishment of the National Crime Agency, the Extend & Blend IT programme, which saved over £140m, our expansion of the detention estate, and delivery of a safe and secure London Olympics.

However, we need to do more to manage the overall portfolio more effectively. A key action in the Civil Service Reform plan is to improve delivery of major projects, and the Department is prioritising work to strengthen its programme and contract delivery. This includes an audit of our major projects and contracts; planned changes to portfolio management and governance; and a strong focus on developing project leaders through the Cabinet Office’s Major Projects Leadership Academy.

Data quality and performance analysis

Despite continuing improvements in data quality over the last year, we do not always capture, analyse and use management information effectively enough, and we need to be able to take a more consistent end-to-end view. Work is in hand to address this. Our new organisational structure has been designed to provide a much stronger end-to-end view, particularly across the border and immigration system. We have also reshaped our business performance teams to create a single departmental function to oversee performance and drive improvements in data and analysis across the organisation. Further development of data analytics and business intelligence will deliver a step change in how we use information.

We are also looking at how we can improve the data we publish so that the public can gain a full picture of how we are performing. The Department has a good track record on transparency, but we need to improve the timeliness of our responses to parliamentary questions, correspondence, and freedom of information requests which are below target level.

Efficiency and innovation

Summary

• We have a strong track record on meeting our spending reduction commitments.
• There has been good progress on sharing services internally and across government to make efficiencies but we need to join up more, strengthen contract management and cut costs further.
• We are progressively creating an efficient and modern workplace but we need to continue to modernise and improve accommodation, particularly at the ports.
• Overseas visa and passport services demonstrate how we are starting to deliver digital services, but there remains much more to do before we are digital by default. There are some strong areas of innovation around the department but we want to do more, particularly to encourage new approaches to delivering services through partners.

Spending reductions and productivity

We are delivering our objectives within budget and are on target to meet our spending review commitments, as a result of structured cost reduction planning and rigorous spending controls. We have cut administration costs by over 30% in real terms against 2010 levels and are on track to reduce these by 50% by 2015-16. Planning for the further budget reductions announced in the Autumn Statement is under way, including work to identify the scope for savings in our efficiency and contracts reviews.

Following reductions in staff in 2011/12, there has been a slight increase in payroll staff over the last year, and a temporary increase in contingent labour. This is to meet our need for flexibility, including using contingent labour to meet fluctuating (seasonal) and temporary demand during 2014/15. Workforce numbers are currently under review as part of planning for 2015/16 onwards. The underlying trend is towards a smaller overall workforce, shifting the balance more towards frontline roles.

We also continue to increase productivity. The number of days we lose to sickness absence is now below the Civil Service average. We have also taken decisive action to reform staff pay, terms and conditions. This will deliver savings for the department in future whilst also creating a fairer system for staff.

Shared services

We are making good progress on sharing services internally and across government to make efficiencies and are already saving over £60m annually since 2010 through shared services. All enabler services have now been consolidated across the Home Office Group, other than HM Passport Office IT services which will follow in 2014/15.

Further restructuring will improve services and cut costs to less than 10% of total operating costs by 2015/16. Our transactional HR, finance and procure to pay services are already delivered by the Ministry of Justice and other specialist HR, legal and procurement services are part of cross-government provision. We are supporting work to strengthen functional leadership and are looking to share more services across government, with commercial, security, property asset management and facilities management, and next generation shared services in prospect.

Contract management

We have recently reviewed our contract management arrangements. This has confirmed strengths in our control, risk and governance arrangements, and that our activities reflect recognised principles of best practice, with a clear focus on improving performance and value.

At the same time, there are areas where we can improve. Initiatives to address these include creation of a dedicated functional resource group for contract management services; further activities to focus commercial resources where they add most value and strengthen our core management skills; and a new three-tiered supplier management model. This will help us manage suppliers more effectively, extract maximum value and support the savings challenge.

Modern workplace

We are making good progress in reducing the size and cost of our estate, which we have cut by around 20% since 2010. Our office staff have moved into more efficient, modern workspaces and we are sharing with other departments to maximise site occupancy. We already lease parts of our headquarters at 2 Marsham Street (2MS) to the Department for Transport, and from mid-2014 will share the building with the Department for Communities and Local Government, saving around £13m a year. We are also taking this as an opportunity to redesign our use of space in 2MS, so that it sets the standard for modern, efficient working practices.

We recognise that accommodation for operational staff based at ports must be improved, and work to review and improve this has been commissioned. A refresh of our estates strategy is expected to identify further scope for modernising how we work and potential savings from releasing unsuitable and surplus accommodation. We are also on target to introduce the new common government pass which will facilitate movement between government buildings, and for introduction of the new government security classification scheme in April 2014.

Innovation

We can demonstrate some excellent examples of innovative approaches to delivering our strategic priorities. The Olympic Clearing House established for the London 2012 Games is an example of a highly successful delivery solution. This concept has since been adopted by those delivering the Glasgow Commonwealth Games and the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

The Home Office Science function develops and delivers innovative solutions to a range of real world problems. Its innovation strategy, ‘the exploration of new ideas’, sets out to create the right environment for people to put forward and pursue new ideas, working within a systematic network of relations with SMEs and academic establishments. The Home Office also supports the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) which enables innovation in products and services through the public procurement of research and development, with proposals on public order capabilities, drug detections, roads policing and border security innovations in the pipeline.

We have also strengthened our staff suggestion schemes, Switched On and Brightsparks. This is, though, an area where we want to do more, particularly to harness staff experience in solving problems and generating ideas, and develop new approaches to delivery, working with external partners.

Digital

In keeping with the Civil Service Reform plan, digital transformation is a key priority for the department, both in improving service delivery and cutting costs.

We continue to build on the success of police.uk, giving the public ever greater access to crime data online. The new data.police.uk page, launched in November 2013, provides more functions for the public, including smarter, more flexible searches and more detailed crime categories.

We are making reasonable progress in using digital technology to deliver border, immigration and passport services, and are working closely with the Government Digital Service to establish new digital services as exemplars by 2015.

In autumn 2013 new online channels were launched for some overseas visa applications and passport customers. The rollout of electronic gates at our borders is also being accelerated and expanded, with the first next generation gates introduced at Gatwick in October 2013.

Internally, we are making changes to business processes and culture to reduce our current reliance on paper, as part of moving towards digital services. All transactional HR, finance and procurement services across the Home Office Group are now online, and we continue to build on these, with e-recruitment introduced in 2013, and new finance and workforce planning tools planned for introduction in 2014.

We are also starting to use digital tools and techniques to engage with and consult the public, with our homepage and our public consultations now hosted at Gov.uk. However, there remains much more to do before we are truly digital-by-default, and this will be a key transformation priority.

Capability

Summary

• There is a strong focus on leadership and talent management but more to be done to strengthen these and address our priority skills gaps, particularly in our operations.
• We need to be clear about the current and future capabilities we need, recognising different requirements in operations, policy and enablers, and connect workforce planning, talent management and learning and development to these requirements.
• Although we have made improvements to our IT, our systems are still fragmented, outdated and do not support staff and the public well enough.

Skills

Everything we achieve in the Home Office is through people. Building our capability is about developing and supporting our people to help us deliver better as an organisation. Our skills plan sets out our work programme for building on existing capabilities and addressing any gaps, within the overall framework of the Civil Service capabilities plan, which has been cascaded to all line managers. The Civil Service competency framework self-assessment tool, which four out of five staff have now completed, has also been used to promote meaningful conversations about capability between staff and line managers.

Building on the annual skills review, we have identified eight priority capability gaps: required operational skills, basic management skills, operational leadership, working with Ministers, policy-making, commercial, project and programme management, and digital skills. We have already made progress in addressing these priority areas.

• A range of programmes are in place to strengthen required operational skills across our operational commands, including our international functions. Border Force has also achieved external accreditation of its core training pathway as part of its investment in the Civil Service operational delivery profession.
• A new core management development programme is being created for all staff in the department.
• The Home Office leadership offer, launched in 2013 and reviewed annually, develops and supports leaders across the organisation, using Civil Service Learning programmes and resources, peer learning, and ‘real time’ coaching for senior management teams.
• Open policy-making has also been a strong focus, with a new advanced policy school launched in October, an online network, new guidance and a range of face-to-face learning and development events, including Home Office policy week, master-classes and mentoring initiatives.
• Skills on working with ministers are being developed through a range of Civil Service Learning products and internal programmes.
• The commercial, project and programme management, finance, IT and digital professions all have capability building programmes in place. The department is a strong supporter of the Major Projects Leadership Academy and wider work across government to strengthen functional leadership.

Workforce planning and deployment

Building capability is not only about skills but also about effective support, including deploying staff flexibly through effective workforce planning and resourcing, and talent and performance management.

We established workforce plans throughout the Home Office to support delivery of the 2010 Spending Review and have now produced updated plans for the 2013 Spending Review period to 2015/16. We want to do more to integrate planning for workforce numbers and capability, working with colleagues in Civil Service Human Resources and other departments. This will be supported by the delivery of two new IT tools in 2014: Hyperion, which supports financial and workforce planning, and Talent Fusion, to support talent management and deployment.

Managing talent and performance and increasing diversity

The department’s senior talent board meets monthly and feeds into each director-general’s talent committees. This approach has enabled the department to have richer and more meaningful conversations about its most talented staff, improving decision making on the deployment of staff, particularly to critical posts.

This year the grade 6/7 talent review became part of wider career conversations we have with staff to encourage detailed consideration of aspiration, potential and personal development planning. All staff in high potential and star performer boxes have planned coaching conversations and attend dedicated development workshops. For junior staff the department launched a new, three year, integrated junior talent programme, ‘Aspiring Leaders’, which has a much more diverse take up.

Strengthening performance management has also continued to be a priority, with the focus on embedding relative assessment and supporting managers in having robust conversations about poor performance. Staff survey scores on performance management have not changed significantly in 2013, however, and we need to do more to build confidence in the coming year.

Our refreshed three-year Diversity Strategy assesses the impact of our equality, diversity and inclusion work against a number of external benchmarks and sets out action to deliver our four strategic aims up to 2016. Among other achievements, the Home Office has been recognised as being the most ‘gay friendly’ employer in government by Stonewall and is in the top ten public sector employers on both race and gender by Business in the Community.

IT systems

The department has upgraded IT desktop services and cut costs through the Extend & Blend programme, completed this year. However, too many of our major applications are old, fragmented and do not support staff and the public well enough, particularly in the border and immigration functions. Current security and technical limitations restrict the range and functionality of the tools we can provide, both in the UK and for our people overseas. Although the resilience and performance of critical business applications has improved significantly in the last year, they still fall well short of the needs of a modern, customer-focused business.

We need to replace these increasingly obsolete technologies with new common systems enabling us to deliver more flexible, responsive and customer-focused services and better tools for staff. The starting presumption is that technology, platforms and data will be shared across the Home Office. A common infrastructure will allow us to build shared operational and corporate applications, supporting the development of digital services, data analytics and better systems for knowledge, information management and intelligence. We will make more use of agile and modular approaches to development, where these are appropriate, and ensure active business ownership and involvement throughout the life of a project. Our 2013 Technology Strategy sets out how we plan to make this happen.

We are already starting to implement this approach, for example in the next phase of work to improve our immigration and border systems. Project and technology managers are being trained in agile delivery methods. We are working with key suppliers to disaggregate services and move progressively away from the expensive monolithic contracts of the past to a more commoditised approach to IT, using more cloud-based services, shared hosting and common networks.

This means that the department has a significant portfolio of IT change between now and 2015. This will be a sizeable challenge, and we will need, equally, to build our own capability to deliver it, working closely with the Government Digital Service and Cabinet Office, and partners across the wider technology sector.

Strategic risk and leadership of change

Summary

• Although we have a mature risk framework, we would benefit from a more systematic approach to reducing organisational risk, tackling the root causes of issues, and learning from experience.
• While staff feel more engaged in change than before, there is less clarity around the strategic vision and what transformation means in practice.
• Stakeholder relations and collaborative working with other government departments are on a positive trajectory but we could be more open and use our influence more effectively.
• We tend to rely on traditional methods of engagement and staff based outside the capital still feel that we are too headquarters-focused.
• People feel strongly that we need to do more to tell positive stories about our achievements.

Strategic risk

Our approach to strategic risk in the Home Office is closely linked to our leading role in preparing for and managing civil emergencies. We work closely with the Civil Contingencies Secretariat and partners across the UK to manage the risks and threats set out in the National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies. Many of our biggest threats also arise outside the UK, and we have significantly strengthened our operations internationally in response.

The Home Office also has a mature corporate risk management framework in place, which operates across the department. During 2013, the department reviewed how we manage risk and safety issues, and at whether lessons could be learnt from other organisations operating in similar environments. This concluded that, while an effective corporate risk management framework was in place, the department could do more to reduce risk systematically and tackle the root causes of issues. Action on this is being taken forward through our plans for transformation.

Horizon scanning is rising in prominence, both within the department and across government. There are pockets of this activity across the Home Office and its agencies, and a strong network at the analyst level. This capability has been brought together through the Home Office horizon scanning group which supports the sharing of good practice. Structures to establish a knowledge repository and to co-ordinate wider and cross-government interactions are being established, and a new senior level steering group is looking at how best to translate horizon scanning products into policy and operational impact.

Leadership of change

Many of our recent changes have been testing for staff, individually and collectively. The 2013 staff survey shows that, while overall engagement has risen, we still need to do more to support and engage our staff, particularly in leading and managing change.

The Home Office has taken action to strengthen change leadership during 2013. This included a series of leadership events for staff across the country, including ‘Viewpoint’ events for over 2500 managers, hosted by members of the Executive Management Board. This has helped change perceptions, with improved scores in 2013 for leading change (up to 34% from 30%), visible leadership (up to 45% from 41%) and overall engagement (up to 51% from 48%). However, this is still not good enough, and we need to do more.

We also still tend to rely on traditional methods of engagement, and feedback from staff outside London is that the focus still feels headquarters-based. Effective staff engagement is ever more critical in the current climate of uncertainty. Given the pace and scale of change ahead of us, we need to do this better.

In addition, while staff have welcomed the stronger focus on engagement around change, they feel that there is not enough clarity around the department’s vision and what transformation will mean in practice, and that the number of change initiatives remains confusing. This is something we need to address.

The Home Office board has therefore agreed a clear vision for how the department will transform between now and 2015, and then through to 2020, set out alongside our improvement plan in the next section. To support this, we are streamlining and improving how we manage our change portfolio, including establishing a new function to drive transformation and support the business in delivering change.

Leading change also requires us to build common purpose with our stakeholders and delivery partners. Previous reviews have highlighted this as a priority for development. We have made progress on this, and stakeholder relations and collaborative working with other government departments are generally on a positive trajectory. However, some stakeholders still feel that, while we have got better at engaging to achieve our own objectives, we are less open to what stakeholders need from us, and that we could build and use our influence more effectively overall.

Staff and stakeholders alike have also told us that we need to do more to address public perceptions of the department and to tell the story of what we achieve, as well as acknowledging openly where we need to improve. We have very many highly committed and hard working staff and we want people to be proud to work here. Transforming the Home Office is also about building confidence in the organisation for the future. Our improvement plan explains how we will help make that happen.

Improvement Plan

Transforming the Home Office

By 2020, the Home Office will need to be a radically different organisation. Keeping the public safe will continue to be at the heart of what we do, and crime, immigration, and counter-terrorism our major areas of focus. However, the nature of those challenges, in a global, digital era, is changing enormously. Given the budget deficit, we also need to operate with much less financial support from the taxpayer, while continuing to meet public expectations of our critical national functions and services.

The Home Office has shown that it can be a world leader, for example in our handling of the Olympics, and in many areas of policing and counter-terrorism. We need to do more to build on these strengths, and to work on bringing everything we do up to the level of the best. Transformation is also about increasing our impact and influence as an organisation, not just within the United Kingdom, but also internationally, as part of protecting national security and contributing to wider national growth.

This plan explains how we plan to transform ourselves as an organisation. Our focus between now and 2015 needs to be on consistency and competence: making sure we meet our current commitments and building our capability for the future. We will then build on this progressively, moving towards our longer term vision for the Home Office as a truly world class organisation by 2020.

By 2015 we want to be an organisation recognised for consistency and competence in the functions and services we provide to the public.

This means making sure we meet our public commitments and get the basics right, while also recognising and building on our strengths. At the same time, it means being ready for the future: cutting our costs, improving our capability and becoming more flexible, agile and outwards-looking. Everything in this organisation is done by people, so we need to build a more inclusive culture, making sure that people have the skills, tools and support they need, strengthening management and involving everyone in making change happen.

By 2017, we want to be an integrated organisation that sets the standard for excellence in modern public service delivery across government.

This means making a step change in the way we deliver our operations and customer–facing services, working with a wider range of external partners, nationally and internationally, in all sectors. We will be digital by default, with shared, integrated systems and high quality data supporting our operations and policy-making. Budgets will continue to reduce, so our resources will be focused on frontline activities, with all corporate enablers provided through shared cross-government services. Our people will be recognised for their professionalism, expertise and high levels of engagement and these will be the focus for continuing

By 2020, we want to be seen as a world class organisation, recognised internationally for our expertise and innovative delivery, and commanding strong public trust at home in the UK.

This means becoming a tightly-knit, expert organisation focused on our national functions of security and public protection, with services provided through arms’ length operational services and through a wider range of external delivery partners. The Home Office of the future will be built on effectiveness and expertise, not grade and function. Administrative functions will be as lean as possible, with the focus on equipping people with the best quality tools and support, and empowering them to deliver.

How will we make this happen?

To deliver lasting change, we need to look at all aspects of what we do – how we manage our performance and our resources, our capability and our culture – and how these need to change to deliver our goals for 2015 and then beyond. In doing so, we need to be ambitious but also realistic, making changes progressively and building our capability alongside.

We also need to recognise the significant differences in activity, focus and culture, across our four operational services, our headquarters policy and delivery functions, and our corporate enablers, and that priorities for transformation will therefore differ from area to area, while still contributing overall to a radical change in the way we work within the Home Office.

Above all, we know that change only happens through people. In developing these plans, we have talked to people across the Home Office about how we want to work in the Home Office, and have drawn heavily on feedback from the Viewpoint events and the 2013 people survey. People want a working environment where standards and expectations are clear, they know what they are responsible for, and have the skills, tools, information and support needed to do their jobs well. They also want a more inclusive, less hierarchical organisation where people feel trusted and valued, and that they have a voice.

We need to address these issues and build much stronger staff engagement to achieve the kind of change we want for the future.

Phase 1: consistent competence

This plan sets out the first phase of our plans for transformation by 2015, focused on achieving consistent competence across the organisation. Consistent competence means that we aim for consistently high standards of delivery, with each and every one of us clear what is expected of us and doing our best to achieve it. We will not get everything right all of the time. But consistent competence means that getting it right will be the default, and mistakes the exception, with action taken swiftly to remedy and learn from them when they do happen.

To deliver this ambition, the Executive Management Board has agreed eight areas for action, designed to drive forward the changes we need across the organisation. These will be overseen and supported at departmental level, with progress tracked through to delivery as part of the Home Office’s portfolio of change projects, overseen by a new transformation board. At the same time, each business area will have its own vision for transformation and supporting programme of change activities, aligned with the overall plan and contributing to its delivery.

Some of these changes are already in train: others are new areas of work agreed by the Board, for which we need to develop more detailed plans. Together, however, they will deliver a substantial change in the way we work as an organisation by 2015, and put in place a strong base for further radical transformation over the term of the next Parliament.

1. Meet our public commitments and improve our performance

Consistent competence means that we do what we say we will do, and keep our promises. Meeting our public commitments is critical. We must ensure, above all else, that we stay focused on our strategic and business plan objectives, and meet our commitments by 2015.

While many of our services and functions are performing strongly, we know that we need to improve in others. We need to get better at tackling the basic issues that stop us performing consistently well. We need to make a step change in the quality and use of management information, so that by 2015 we have become a ‘data driven’ organisation which prides itself on excellent analysis as part of driving for continuous improvement. We need to set clear responsibilities, standards and expectations, as part of moving to a culture where we aim to get things right first time.

We now have in place the framework we need to make this happen. Our new unified structure will help us drive progress against our key performance commitments at organisational level, overseen by the Executive Management Board on a monthly basis. We have agreed stronger arrangements for managing the performance of our operations and projects, supported by better data analysis, modelling and forecasting, and a Gold Lead to drive forward progress in responding to parliamentary questions, freedom of information requests and correspondence.

The newly established Performance and Risk Directorate will lead on driving improvements to our management information and performance management overseen through weekly discussions on performance at the Executive Management Board, while the new Immigration and Border System Directorate will lead on end-to-end systems analysis, planning and modelling. Improved performance on major projects will be driven by the new Home Office Transformation Directorate, working closely with the Major Projects Association.

Between now and April 2015 we will:

• Put a sustained focus on delivery of the Home Office Business Plan, and on providing accurate and timely responses to meet our statutory and parliamentary obligations
• Strengthen operational management and customer service across the border and immigration functions
• Implement end-to-end systems planning and strengthen performance management and forecasting
• Overhaul our major projects portfolio and arrangements for project and contract management.

UK Visas and Immigration’s purpose is to make millions of decisions every year about who has the right to visit and a culture of customer satisfaction for people who come here legally.

By 2015 we will have made real progress in becoming a consistently competent, high performing and customer focused organisation. We will have eliminated backlogs and will deal with new applications within more transparent service standards while robustly tackling abuse. We will have modernised systems and processes and our people will be clearer about our purpose and how they contribute to our objectives. We will have expanded our use of digital channels, tailoring products and services more effectively. Surveys will show our customers are more satisfied and we will be recognised for our contribution to the Government’s growth agenda.

Sarah Rapson, Director-General, UK Visas and Immigration

By 2015 Immigration Enforcement will be a respected, professional, law enforcement organisation which disrupts and prosecutes criminality and takes robust enforcement action against illegal migrants.

Through enhanced training, integrated IT with mobile capability, new uniforms and a modern fleet, we will ensure staff have the skills and tools needed to enforce the immigration laws. We will build effective relationships with national and local bodies, working together to ensure compliance. We will carry out highly visible enforcement operations, disrupt organised criminality in the UK and overseas through the effective use of intelligence, and take robust action against trafficking and modern slavery. Immigration Enforcement will have a culture of responsiveness, collaboration and flexibility, with law enforcement at its heart.

We will improve public confidence in our response to illegal immigration and increase compliance with immigration rules.

Mandie Campbell, Director-General, Immigration Enforcement

2. Do more with our resources

Consistent competence means meeting our financial commitments and using taxpayers’ money wisely. Continuing austerity means that we will continue to need to cut our costs, and find new ways of doing more with less: making sure our commercial contracts provide the best value for money; only doing ourselves what we need to do and working with and through other partners wherever possible; and cutting costs by streamlining and sharing administrative functions with other departments.

We have a strong track record on driving out savings across the organisation and will continue to build on this, working with the Treasury on our current efficiency review to identify further potential savings. The Home Office has a strong track record on shared services, and consolidation of our enabler functions during 2013/14 provides a strong base for further streamlining by 2015. Plans for moving to more cost-effective IT and estates solutions are being developed. We also have a series of further projects under way, working with other departments and commercial partners, to deliver services more cost effectively for the future.

Between now and April 2015 we will:

• Meet our spending review commitments
• Review our commercial contracts and put in place measures to strengthen our commercial capability and drive efficiency savings
• Transform corporate enablers and share more services across government
• Share our HQ building with DCLG and continue to consolidate and modernise our estate
• Work with external partners to find more cost-effective ways of delivering our objectives

By 2015, there will be a clearer, more streamlined Corporate Services offer - half its size in 2010/11 - closely aligned with cross-Whitehall functions, and the shared services agenda for finance, HR, IT and digital, communications, commercial and estates. We will be the driver of cross-departmental efficiency and the provider of quality services to our business areas. We will collaborate with other departments, where it provides value for money and makes business sense.

Our IT systems will be modernised and better integrated across the Home Office, fully embracing the digital agenda and with more of our customer transactions online. Delivery of major programmes will be more successful, through strengthened oversight and governance functions, and finance, IT and commercial professionals will be more integrated within each programme. A Home Office-wide assurance, compliance, risk and audit framework will give internal assurance and deliver more effective, robust and timely performance reporting.

Through a renewed focus on skills and capabilities, we will help to drive up performance to meet our expectations for 2015 and our aspirations for a transformed Home Office beyond that. We will engage our people more effectively in that change agenda through effective leadership and improved up to date communications.

Mike Parsons, Chief Operating Officer Kevin White, Director-General, Human Resources Simon Wren, Head of Communications

3. Move to digital ways of working

As part of consistent competence, we need to show that we can meet public expectations of modern service delivery, while continuing to reduce the cost to the taxpayer. While the Home Office has moved to digital delivery for some services, we have a long way to go before we are digital by default. By April 2015, we want to have in place three new digital services – for registered travellers, visit visas and passport renewals.

We also want to use digital forms of delivery more internally, both to help streamline our administrative functions and to improve how we manage, share and analyse data and intelligence. Alongside this we need to build much stronger capability around digital, both to support our existing plans and to start working towards moving many more of our public facing services and internal functions to digital delivery by 2017.

Our new chief digital officer will drive progress on this, working closely with the Government Digital Service. Early versions of visa and passport services are already up and running, with more functions due to go live in early 2014. Internally, new online services for finance and workforce planning, and talent management, are in planning, to supplement the digital services provided through Adelphi and its associated business intelligence functions. New knowledge and information management tools are becoming available, through the current SharePoint pilots and increasing use of information sharing tools like Huddle.

The new data analytics programme will conduct an operational trial of new data analytics capability, with a proof of concept project for Border Force data during 2014/15. It will then establish a core analytical service to the Home Office more widely, to help drive a step change in the way we use data in future.

Between now and April 2015, we will:

• Introduce more digital services for customers and use digital approaches internally to help us work more efficiently
• Provide better ways of using and sharing data and information, operationally and corporately
• Establish a core data analytics capability to make better use of information held by the Home Office

By 2015 HM Passport Office will be exploiting the best of modern technology to deliver a highly effective, secure public service to UK citizens worldwide. Our services will be flexible and affordable.

We will be leading the way as one of the cross-government exemplar digital projects in delivering a fully online passport renewal service. Working with key commercial partners and other government departments we will ensure that we provide assisted digital services to those customers who may not have the confidence, skills or technology to access online channels themselves. We will be on course to modernise civil registration systems in England and Wales.

We will have a highly skilled and capable workforce who are committed to meeting our future demands and have a real sense of pride in being a part of HM Passport Office. We will have secured Silver accreditation as an Investor in People and will be a top-performing organisation for staff engagement.

Paul Pugh, Chief Executive, Her Majesty’s Passport Office

4. Strengthen our skills

Having the skills we need for consistent competence is fundamental to delivery of the Home Office’s services to the public. We need to be clear on accountability, expectations of professional behaviour and standards, and develop strong managers and leaders in all parts of the business, harnessing our talent and promoting the diversity of our workforce in line with our Diversity Strategy. As the profile of our workforce changes, with fewer staff in enabler functions and more in frontline operations, effective workplace deployment will continue to be critical, as will embedding the major reforms we have made to our employment offer and performance management arrangements.

Our skills plan sets out our eight priorities to address by 2015: operational skills, getting the basics of management right, operational leadership, working with Ministers, policy making, programme and project management, digital, and commercial and contract skills. Strengthening our operational and international capabilities will continue to be key areas of focus, together with strengthening functional expertise more generally. We will implement this in 2014/15, with a new learning offer for staff, coupled with a continuing focus on the commitment to at least five days’ learning and development a year for every member of staff. We will also roll out the civil service maturity model for talent management and the new Hyperion workforce planning tool, and press ahead on implementing our diversity strategy.

Between now and April 2015 we will:

• Implement plans to address our priorities for skills development and build more flexible and professional operational capability
• Continue to build a strong talent pool through our talent programmes and provide better development and opportunities in priority areas
• Strengthen workforce planning and resourcing arrangements
• Continue to focus on strong performance management and an inclusive working environment

By 2015 we will be well on our way to becoming ‘The Best Border Force in the World’. From a people and skills perspective, we will deliver a modern, flexible workforce through a robust workforce planning model, the utilisation of seasonal workforce and a single set of terms and conditions.

The new uniform will give Border Force officers a single identity. Enhanced powers, a joined up intelligence and management information system, and a comprehensive training strategy will ensure staff have the authority, tools and skills they need, contributing to the wider professionalisation of the Home Office workforce.

Accelerated roll-out of E-Passport Gates will lead to improved customer service and enhanced security. We will be an intelligent, professional law enforcement body which is effective, efficient and the best at customer handling and stakeholder engagement, delivering our strategic objective ‘to secure the United Kingdom’s border and promote national prosperity.

Sir Charles Montgomery, Director-General, Border Force

5. Better tools for the job

Consistent competence can only happen if people have the right tools for the job. Though improvements have been made, our IT systems are old and unreliable and the tools we provide are outdated and do not support knowledge sharing and mobile working well enough. Replacing major IT systems can only be done incrementally and so will take time. However, over the next two years, we will make continuing improvements to existing systems, services and equipment, taking advantage of developments like agile, cloud and changing security classifications, as well as putting in place the key building blocks for the longer term transformation of our IT.

Plans for continuing improvements to our IT during 2014/15 include completing the current login upgrade, a major desktop software upgrade, introduction of more tools to support mobile working - like tablets and better video-conferencing - and continuing improvements to casework and border systems. By bringing together our IT functions across the organisation, we can now start to build a resilient, integrated modern infrastructure platform for the department, as part of preparing for the move to radically different IT arrangements after our major IT contracts end in 2016.

Between now and April 2015 we will:

• Continue to improve the performance of our existing IT systems and applications and provide a wider range of modern tools for staff
• Implement the first phase of our technology strategy to put in place common data platforms and infrastructure and upgrade or replace outdated systems and applications

6. Learn from experience

Consistent competence means learning systematically from experience and using it to improve what we do. The Home Office has many areas of excellence and we need to recognise and celebrate them, share and build on them, to help bring all parts of the department up to the level of the best. At the same time, we also need to be more systematic in how we learn lessons where things do not go so well.

Though we manage many aspects of risk effectively, there is more we can learn from other organisations in terms of taking a systematic approach to reducing corporate risk and tackling the root causes of issues. There are practical steps we can take to make processes safer, manage risk, strengthen assurance, and improve issue escalation and management. Above all, we need a sustained effort to develop ways of working which are more risk-aware and safety-focused across the organisation.

Work on reducing risk and error, and improving how we capture and share lessons, is already under way, with a strong focus on building a stronger safety culture and developing organisational learning, driven by the new Performance and Risk Directorate and the Lessons from Experience team.

Between now and April 2015 we will:

• Take systematic steps to reduce the root causes of errors and improve how we handle issues and incidents
• Put in place new arrangements for learning lessons from experience and make sure these are fed back into our ways of working
• Promote a strong culture of safety and risk awareness, and of ‘getting it right first time’

By 2015 we want to have made further progress in cutting serious and organised crime and terrorism. We will do this by rigorous implementation of our two cross-government strategies in close collaboration with Home Office colleagues, other government departments, and in particular with the intelligence and security agencies, National Crime Agency and police.

We will need to do more with our resources, driving efficiencies and increasing collaborative working. We will work closely with our security industry to support national prosperity, as well as national security. In this digital age, we will support profound change in the investigation of crime, including cyber crime and cyber-enabled crime. We will become more expert and skilled in our work.

We will have more local engagement around the UK, but also a stronger international presence. We will support the wider Home Office IT programme, enabling us to work across Government with classified material and make much better use of Home Office data. We will continue to learn from our experiences of dealing with threats to our security, and from those of other states, and will constantly refine our strategies so they remain effective.

Charles Farr, Director-General, Security and Counter-Terrorism

7. Look out and plan ahead

Consistent competence means that we have to be aware of how our world is changing and keep one step ahead. The pace of change is accelerating so we need to become more flexible, agile and much better at leading and managing change, both within the Home Office and in terms of our wider national role and our presence internationally. To do this we need to look outwards at our changing society and identify emerging trends, plan ahead effectively, and then put a much stronger focus on managing change well. This will be central, both for the changes we need to make now, and in building our capability for the next phase of transformation after 2015.

The next phase of leadership development will put a strong focus on leading and managing change well. Engaging staff in taking forward work on consistent competence will be a key element of this plan starting with a new series of Viewpoint events open to all staff. Senior leaders across the Home Office will soon be involved in communicating and implementing this plan, supported by a new team briefing process which will provide a two-way communication channel between leaders and staff at all levels of the organisation.

Between now and April 2015 we will:

• Strengthen horizon scanning, and how we plan for and manage change
• Develop plans for the next phase of transformation, looking forward to 2017 and 2020
• Make leading and managing change well a priority for leaders across the organisation

By 2015 we will be a centre of excellence and expertise on issues relating to crime and policing, providing innovative and soundly evidenced proposals to cut crime and improve the effectiveness of policing, based on strong relationships with the police and other partners across the criminal justice sector.

Our staff will have deep subject and system expertise on all matters relating to crime and policing. We will use that expertise better to inform policy making and influence change, seeking out relevant information across government, academia, law enforcement, business and the third sector, in the UK and abroad to help us do so.

We will have improved our ability to look ahead, to better identify new threats as they develop and to anticipate events. We will have strengthened our digital knowledge and our understanding of the impact of the internet and related technologies on crime and the policing response. We will have raised the standards of our outputs through enhanced drafting skills, improved analytical capabilities and greater responsiveness.

Mary Calam, Director-General, Crime and Policing

8. Involve our people and our partners in transforming the Home Office

Consistent competence involves everyone in the Home Office. Engaging our people, wherever they work in the department, and our partners, whether across government, in the wider public, private and voluntary sectors and internationally, will be critical for effective change. We need to build confidence and trust that we can make change happen, and that it will be for the better. We also need to ensure that our values and behaviours as an organisation underpin and support these changes. And we must recognise, celebrate and tell the story of what we achieve as an organisation, and build pride in the Home Office as a great department of state.

Work to improve how we work with external partners nationally and internationally will be taken forward through a range of initiatives, supported by new systems for coordinating activities and an annual survey for stakeholders to understand how we can work with them better. We are also increasingly taking the lead on cross-cutting home affairs issues, such as security and will aim to play a stronger role across government in 2014/15. We will also do more to tell the story of the continuing contribution that the Home Office makes to keeping the public safe, internally and externally.

Between now and April 2015 we will:

• Involve people across the Home Office in taking forward change
• Strengthen relationships with external partners, nationally and internationally, to extend our impact and influence, and take a strong lead on home affairs issues across government
• Recognise and celebrate our achievements and their real world impact

We must lead the Home Office to stronger collective policy making on international and European policy work and remain fully responsive to Ministers’ requirements on immigration and border policy and planning, on international criminality and extradition.

By 2015 we will be a professional, rewarding and supportive place to work, setting the tone and standards for work across all the Immigration and Border Commands and binding the Home Office into a more coherent and effective way of working to prevent threats from abroad. We will be a flexibly run Group with learning and development for all. With less money and fewer people we will need to operate differently: ruthless prioritisation; new ways of making policy; better leverage of outside knowledge; and more join-up of resources with other Home Office Commands. We will remain open to learning from others, especially on international issues and we should say ‘no’ to work of no value. Honest, open, professional.

Our Department’s mission is to keep Britain’s streets safe and our borders secure. Every single one of us has a role to play. We should continue to take huge pride in this calling and strive for the consistent competence we need to protect the public.

Mike Anderson, Director-General, International and Immigration Policy

Metrics to measure improvement

Meet our public commitments and improve our performance

Improvement being made	Metric used to measure progress	Date for review / who undertakes it	Trigger for mitigating action
Put a sustained focus on delivery of the Home Office Business Plan, and on providing accurate and timely responses to meet our statutory and parliamentary obligations	Delivery outcomes against plan Improved response rates to FOI requests, PQs and correspondence	Quarterly review by Executive Management Board	Delivery going off track Static or declining response rates
Strengthen operational management and customer service across the border and immigration functions	Delivery of operational objectives	Monthly review by Executive Management Board	Operational objectives not being met
Implement end-to-end systems planning and strengthen performance management and forecasting	Improved predictions on performance	Monthly review by the Executive Management Board	Inability to identify early and explain performance changes
Overhaul our major projects portfolio and arrangements for project and contract management	Improvement against MPA maturity model to achieve level 2 All GMPP leaders on MPLA by end 2014 Improved benefits delivery against business cases	Review with MPA in September 2014 and March 2015	Progress against maturity model and MPLA participation off track Benefits plans not in place

Do more with our resources

Improvement being made	Metric used to measure progress	Date for review / who undertakes it	Trigger for mitigating action
Meet our spending review commitments	Expenditure to meet spending review control totals	Quarterly review by Supervisory Board	Spend projections off track
Review our commercial contracts, and put in place measures to build our commercial capability and drive efficiency savings	Measures implemented by agreed dates	Review by Executive Management Board	Performance off track against plans
Transform corporate enablers and share more services across government	50% reduction in enabler administration costs against 2010	Quarterly review by Enablers Strategy & Delivery Board	Costs off track against projected profile
Share our HQ building with DCLG and continue to consolidate and modernise our estate	Move by mid-2014 Government workplace standard met	Quarterly review by Supervisory Board	Move-plan off track Plans to meet standard off track
Work with external partners to find more cost-effective ways of delivering our objectives	Successful exemplars by 2015	Transformation Director to review progress in Sept 2014 and March 2015	Delivery of milestones off track

Move to digital ways of working

Improvement being made	Metric used to measure progress	Date for review / who undertakes it	Trigger for mitigating action
Introduce more digital services for customers and use digital approaches internally to help us work more efficiently	Exemplars delivered successfully by April 2015: Implementation of Hyperion and Talent Fusion by agreed dates	Quarterly review by Business Design Authority	Implementation or performance off track
Provide better ways of using and sharing data and information, operationally and corporately	Data strategy roadmap and standards agreed and Phase 1 prototypes implemented	Quarterly review by Business Design Authority	Delivery of roadmap, standards and Phase 1 prototypes off track
Establish a core data analytics capability to make better use of information held by the Home Office	Delivery of programme to agreed timescales	Monthly review by Chief Digital Officer	Programme delivery off track

Strengthen our skills

Improvement being made	Metric used to measure progress	Date for review / who undertakes it	Trigger for mitigating action
Implement plans to address our priorities for skills development and build more flexible and professional operational capability	Increase in number of staff we have developed in skills priority areas Narrowing of our skills and capability gap	Regular review by Capability and Executive Management Boards Annual skills review Q3 2014	Our assessment against the implementation plan shows insufficient progress
Continue to build a strong talent pool through our talent programmes and ensure we provide better development and opportunities in priority areas	Civil Service talent maturity assessment improvement	Progress reviewed by the Senior Talent Board and Director General local talent committees	Insufficient progress against maturity assessment
Ensure effective workforce planning and resourcing arrangements	Workforce management delivered to agreed plans	Quarterly review by Group Workforce Management Committee	Plans are 2% off track against actuals
Continue to focus on strong performance management, and on an inclusive working environment	Increase in staff feeling that performance is managed fairly and poor performance is tackled robustly, as measured by the people survey Reduction in levels of discrimination, harassment and bullying, as measured by the people survey	October 2014 people survey Quarterly equality, diversity and inclusion assessments Progress reviewed by Diversity Strategy Board	Survey results show no improvement RAG ratings from the quarterly assessments do not improve

Better tools for the job

Improvement being made	Metric used to measure progress	Date for review / who undertakes it	Trigger for mitigating action
Improve existing IT systems to increase stability and resilience and provide wider range of tools	Reduction in time lost to system issues; more tools for mobile working	Monthly review by Chief Operating Officer	Underlying trend is neutral or upwards
Implement the first phase of our technology strategy to put in place common infrastructure and data platforms and upgrade or replace outdated systems and applications	Implementation of deliverables to agreed dates	Quarterly review by Chief Operating Officer	Project delivery is off track against plan

Learn from experience

Improvement being made	Metric used to measure progress	Date for review / who undertakes it	Trigger for mitigating action
Take systematic steps to reduce the root causes of errors and improve how we handle issues and incidents	Implementation of recommendations for improvement	Review in October 2014 by Executive Management Board	Implementation delayed; new arrangements not being followed
Put in place better arrangements for learning lessons and ensure lessons are factored into our ways of working	New arrangements implemented and embedded	Review in October 2014 by Executive Management Board	Implementation delayed; new arrangements not being followed
Promote a strong culture of safety and risk awareness, and of ‘getting it right first time’	Implementation of recommendations for improvement	Review in October 2014 by Executive Management Board	Implementation delayed; new arrangements not being followed

Look out and plan ahead

Improvement being made	Metric used to measure progress	Date for review / who undertakes it	Trigger for mitigating action
Strengthen horizon scanning, and how we plan for and manage change	Arrangements implemented and embedded. Evidence of more systematic approach in planning by 2015	Review by Executive Management Board in October 2014	New arrangements delayed or not being followed
Develop plans for the next phase of transformation, looking forward to 2017 and 2020	Plans developed by April 2015	Review by Executive Management Board in April 2015	Plans not in place by agreed date
Make leading and managing change well a priority for leaders across the organisation	Improved scores on leadership and managing change, as measured by the people survey	Quarterly pulse surveys and main survey in October 2014. Progress reviewed by EMB	Survey results show no improvement

Involve our people and our partners in transforming the Home Office

Improvement being made	Metric used to measure progress	Date for review / who undertakes it	Trigger for mitigating action
Involve people across the Home Office in taking forward change	Increase in scores on overall engagement, as measured by the annual people survey	October 2014 people survey. Progress reviewed by EMB	Survey results show no improvement
Strengthen relationships with external partners, nationally and internationally, to extend our impact and influence, and take a strong lead on Home Affairs across government	Infrastructure in place to coordinate and analyse stakeholder interactions systematically Interaction episodes recorded Annual 5 question survey for stakeholders shows improvement in perception of engagement	June 2014 September 2014 September 2014	To be agreed once infrastructure and baseline are in place
Recognise and tell the story of our achievements and their real world impact	Increase in staff feeling proud to work in the Home Office, as measured by people survey	Quarterly pulse surveys and main survey in October 2014. Progress reviewed by EMB	Survey results show no improvement