Annual Report

Transcription

1 Annual Report Sinclair Houston Service Manager 223 Castlemilk Drive Glasgow G45 9JY Tel: / 6112 Fax: sinclair.houston@ceg.org.uk

2 Annual Report CONTENTS Manager s Statement 2 Our Business Focus 4 Key Functions 5 Business Strategy 5 Business Objectives/Targets 6 Highlights from Our Management Board of Management 11 Human Resources 12 Quality Assurance 13 Working Environment 13 Equal Opportunities 13 Risk Management 13 Corporate Governance 13 1

3 Manager s Statement We are now well established in Castlemilk High School which provides us with comfortable, office accommodation and the ICT move to City Park provide a secure, access controlled purpose built computer room for our servers. The Gateway Business Plan was approved by the Board last October (2012) and provide staff with a clear range of targets to work towards. I make use of these targets when providing a quarterly progress report to the Board making it clear how we are performing in terms of meeting specific targets related to a range of services. In October 2012 five Gateway ICT staff transferred to Access by secondment from Glasgow City Council and Access now host our servers and provide Gateway staff with ICT support. We recently appointed a Junior Web Developer and an Admin Assistant in the work experience section and currently have a full complement of staff. As Gateway relies heavily on income generation through providing a range of services, sales and project work, we continue to grow our capacity in line with new work and income on a self-financing basis, deploying permanent and temporary staff and serving fixed term contracts as required. We have been working on a number of new projects including launching a new version of Continuing Professional Development Manager, an application to track and manage pupils involved in Vocational Education programmes, and a work flow management tool for Glasgow City Council Graphics Department. The Work Experience Management Service now underpins the delivery of the schools work experience programme in eight local authorities, reflecting the high quality of delivery and positive user experience. Our ICT Service team have had another positive year. The move to City Park was very successful and provides Gateway and its Partners with a much improved environment for their servers. Consolidation of the servers and moving additional services off discrete hardware and over to virtualisation continued. This strategy saves on future hardware and operating costs. The Editorial team updated the National 3, 4, 5 levels and Higher subjects within the National Qualification database in PlanIT Plus. Updates of the subject choice support material, within PlanIT, were completed by Glasgow City Council Graphics Department. A joint venture with SQA to update 32 subject posters was agreed and will reflect new options available within the Curriculum for Excellence and promote links between National Qualifications and career areas within PlanIT. A personal profile for P7and S1-S3 pupils was developed within MerIT to encourage pupils to record and reflect on their wider achievements. Several bespoke applications were also produced, for example, the Commonwealth Games Apprenticeship Initiative was further developed to include a Youth and Jobs Fund. This client and business web application advertises vacancies to a range of Glasgow residents, who meet specific criteria, to apply online. Also, a Management 2

4 Information System for Glasgow has been developed for the Child and Young People Support and Graphics Team and further developments are planned. These new developments have been achieved while we have continued to expand some of our core services, such as releasing a new version of CPD Manager incorporating functionality to record Professional Review and Development evidence for the General Teaching Council Professional Update. This has ensured that this was another highly successful operating year, with a healthy surplus and continued satisfaction of our partners and key customers. Of course, all of Gateway s achievements and successes are due to the dedication and professionalism of our staff, and to them I am grateful. I would also thank the Board members and the senior officers in GCC Education Services for the support, encouragement and direction that they have provided during the year. As we move forward into a challenging climate for all of the public sector, we remain confident and optimistic that the range and quality of our provision, provided at competitive costs, will allow us to continue to serve our Consortium partners well. 3

5 Our Business Focus As agreed by the Management Board, Gateway continued to focus primarily on the expressed needs of the core partners, providing high quality career resources in various formats and new web-based management tools to support educational provision. Some examples of this are the continued provision of our Work Experience Service for our partners in Inverclyde, East Renfrewshire and Renfrewshire, the successful completion of the new version of CPD Manager and developing additional functionality to manage the GTCS Professional Update for North Lanarkshire (which is piloting this), the completion of the Commonwealth Games Initiative which provides four different funding programmes one of several important bespoke programs developed for our Glasgow City Council partners. In order to meet rising costs, maintain partners contributions at virtually the same level as 1995, and continue to improve on the range and quality of services for the partners, Gateway has continued to generate income from a variety of sources and licensing our software and delivering our services to non-members on an expanding basis. 4

6 Key Functions The key functions agreed in the Business & Development Plan are: To collect and collate current, comprehensive information relating to the labour market, careers and learning in all its forms. To facilitate access to lifelong learning through publications, databases, on-line and personal guidance. To develop and promote the use of Information Communications Technology to underpin the delivery of mainstream education services by our partners. To work closely with all of our partners to develop and deliver a coherent, comprehensive, cost-effective, strategic approach to lifelong learning and social inclusion, which is inclusive, client-centred, and impartial. Business Strategy Our business strategy, as agreed by the Board featured the following strands: 1. To focus on the needs of our core partners, in order to provide them with the best resources available in our field, and to maintain their status as market leaders in the field of computer-based career resources. 2. To identify new unmet needs with our core partners in areas of our expertise and to develop products and services to meet these, incorporating these into our core provision where appropriate and affordable. 3. To licence access to, or to sell, our core products and services to other customers in the public sector to recoup some of our operating costs and to keep the costs for our core partners to a minimum. 4. To respond to requests to provide non-core products and services to our core partners as discrete income-generating provision, on a cost recovery basis. 5. To provide non-core services within our areas of expertise to other customers in the public sector on a full cost plus basis. 6. To provide the highest quality public services on behalf of our core partners and customers without generating a deficit. 7. To retain any further surpluses as a contingency fund. 5

7 Business Objectives 1. Retain existing business 2. Increase annual income 3. Build reserve funds Objective 1 In order to retain the existing core business, Gateway will concentrate on fulfilling three key aims: Provide excellent values for money to existing partners Continue to improve services to keep pace with changing user expectations Retain staff and build in-house expertise with development of existing products and services Business Targets The majority of Gateway s business targets were met or exceeded. There was an increase in the uptake of our services from within the Consortium and from external councils e.g. Work Experience Support, and our web applications WorkIT and CPD Manager. Two bespoke developments were also completed. Target Activity Outcome Target Status SDS purchased Gateway s Occupational Database, Scottish FE course data and 500 copies of Careers in Scotland. 30 Scottish Councils have a licence for PlanIT Target Met NQ database has been updated with Level 4 and Level 5 subjects. Updates of Subject choice support material (flash activities) have also been updated. Planit Plus Sell PlanIT content to other organisations. Incorporate changes to the National Qualifications WorkIT Sell WorkIT to 2 additional councils Falkirk Dumfries & Galloway The above councils have purchased a licence for WorkIT 22 Scottish Councils have a licence for WorkIT Target Met 6

8 Target Activity Outcome Target Status CPD Manager Transfer councils from current version to the new one move all councils by end of 2012 All 11 councils are now using the new version Target Met Contact the two consortium members who currently don t use CPD manager MerIT Further develop MerIT to reflect Curriculum for Excellence profiling requirements Gateway Engage (Content Management System) Create 50 new websites using the CMS Bespoke Web Development Develop one new bespoke web development service. Establish a Partnership with SQA NQ Subject posters One meeting took place and we provided a demo of CPD Manager. Invite sent to the other member and meeting to be arranged. Development work completed - P7, S3 and Senior Phase pupils can produce a profile and link it to the four Contexts for Learning 30 new sites have been added GCC Commonwealth Initiative Website Youth and Jobs Fund completed CPD Plan and Record for North Lanarkshire To meet requirements of General Teaching Council Professional Update Update the National Qualification subject posters to reflect the options available within Curriculum for Excellence and to link to PlanIT career sectors. Target carried forward to Target Met 60% of Target met Target Met Target Met Target Met Partnership agreed October

9 Highlights Gateway is committed to sustaining the highest level of service delivery possible through our quality management and continual improvement processes. Gateway s achievements during the year were: General Meeting our mission through the delivery of our core services and products: To support skills and economic growth by developing and providing products and services of the highest quality to support local authority education services and the delivery of careers education, information, advice and guidance. Delivering and enhancing our work experience management and administration services for seven local authorities, processing many thousands of pupils, to a very high standard and verified by a customer satisfaction audit. Information We have increased the size of the job profile dataset in PlanIT now 691 profiles, almost achieving our target of 700. We completed an update of the National Qualifications (NQ) database which is embedded in PlanIT Plus. This involved writing summarised course information descriptors for the new NQs at National 2, 3, 4, 5 and the revised Highers. Subject choice multimedia activities and related classroom resources in Equip within PlanIT were also updated to reflect these changes. We renewed the contract with Skills Development Scotland for 2013/14 to provide them with our job profile dataset and Scottish FE course data (5600 courses) for use in their web service My World of Work. We also supplied their career advisers with copies of Careers in Scotland (560 copies) We updated the PlanIT Plus Scottish course information database providing detailed information about 12,000 courses We developed a pupil profile for P7, S3 and Senior Phase which links to the four Contexts of Learning. We entered into a joint agreement with SQA to produce 32 A1-sized Career/Subject posters, to promote the links between National Qualification courses and career areas which are used in PlanIT Plus. All schools within the Gateway consortium were contacted at the beginning of term with details of PlanIT being available and their login to equip for Excellence (Careers Education Resource). Also, reference made to the publications which your schools receive: o Each school received five sets of 4 reference books and sets of 6 leaflets as a minimum. The four guides are Careers in Scotland (including a CD Rom of the data); Further Education in Scotland; Higher Education in Scotland and Job Seeking Skills o 100 of the Pupil/Parent Leaflets Going to College, Going to University, Planning Your Career, Making the Most of Career Exhibitions and Job Fairs and 200 copies of Preparing for the Senior Phase and Choices after 16 to each school. 8

10 Delivered six UCAS apply training sessions to school staff from all over Scotland with very positive evaluations. Web Development Producing several new self-funded, bespoke web applications to support GCC Education Services initiatives. We further adapted our work experience web application WorkIT, developing a facility to manage flexible placements for admin, health and safety, school staff and pupils. Launched a new version of CPD Manager by working with North Lanarkshire Council and the General Teaching Council (Scotland) we incorporated a facility to track and maintain the Professional Update for teaching staff. Now rolled out to 12 authorities using it and interest from 2 other Scottish authorities. Information site set up: Continued to increase the number of schools and other organisations using Gateway Engage to establish and maintain their website. We host over 300 sites using this system. Recently developed additional functionality including, a slideshow option to display an event or a range of photos, a multiple file upload option (docs and images) and a site to provide advice and video walkthroughs Added an additional option to the Commonwealth Initiative web application. It now has four different funding programmes all administered through the website. We have made extensive use of Video walkthroughs and developed and added these to CPD Manager, WorkIT, MerIT, Engage and to a number of bespoke developments providing users with an easy way of becoming familiar with the functionality of site. ICT In October 2012 Gateway s ICT team of five staff transferred to Access by secondment from Glasgow City Council. Access now host our servers; provide Gateway with ICT support and the ex-gateway staff will continue to provide this service. All Gateway PCs were refreshed at Castlemilk High Gateway s central server farm and IT support staff are now based at Glasgow City Council s Data Centre City Park which provides an access controlled, purpose built, Tier 2+ computer room. This facility has an uninterruptible power supply and generator for power resiliency, a dedicated power incomer from the national grid and N+1 redundant and efficient air conditioning systems. This environment is closely monitored with 24 x 7 automated call out support and 24 x 7 on site perimeter security. Gateway s server has been upgraded from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010 to enable a chat communication client, Lync, to be installed in all of Gateways desktops. This enabled staff to communicate easier across multiple establishments. SharePoint 2010 has also been implemented which enables 9

11 Gateway to move away from multiple file shares and store documents centrally and efficiently. Server consolidation continued and moved more services off discrete hardware and over to virtualisation. This improves user access to our web applications. In Gateway the home drives for all staff was restructured and moved over to SharePoint to improve internal communication systems and Windows 7 was rolled out. Quality and Marketing Successful re-assessment of ISO 9001:2008 and achieving Investors in People for over 12 years but this year (2012) to Bronze level. Undertaking surveys of our key websites and related services. Issued a Newsletter and calendar summarising our services and products to every school and Local Authority in Scotland Issued our Careers Resources order form to every school FE/HE institution and library in Scotland Issued a letter to partner schools summarising the services and products which they receive from Gateway Developed a new marketing strategy and plan which we plan to use during the financial year. 10

12 Our Management Board of Management We are grateful for the strategic direction Gateway s Management Board continued to offer, enabling us to meet the needs of our partners and customers. The Board comprises a representative from each of the eleven local authority consortium partners and the general manager. The Board met on two occasions during the course of the year. All meetings were in quorum, and all decisions were agreed unanimously. Retirements from the Board Janice McGoldrick East Ayrshire Additions to the Board John Wilson East Ayrshire 11

13 Human Resources Gateway benefits greatly from a skilled and enthusiastic workforce with an impressive range of skills covering guidance, ICT, programming, research and editorial, training, administration and management. Gateway continues to be a focussed and cost-effective shared service. With the ICT staffs transfer to Access Gateway s staffing levels reduced to 21; however, all vacancies have been filled. We continue to grow our capacity in line with new work and income on a self-financing basis, deploying permanent and temporary staff and serving fixed term contracts as required. The overall absence rate during was 0.9%, a 0.2% increase to the previous year. Quality Assurance Gateway s success over the years is largely based on the very high quality of service it provides. To ensure that these high standards are maintained, Gateway regularly and frequently consults its partners, customers and consumers. Feedback is invariably good, but any occasional complaint is responded to and resolved effectively. The key element of course is the calibre of our staff and their commitment to providing the best possible products and services. Gateway continues to be recognised as an Investor in People (Bronze Level) and to be entitled to display the Disability Symbol. Gateway was re-audited successfully for ISO 9001:2008, demonstrating our commitment to quality management. 12

14 Working Environment Gateway s accommodation complies with the requirements of environmental legislation and the Glasgow City Council codes of practice, as well as the quality measures to which we subscribe. There were no accidents on Gateway s premises during this period. Equal Opportunities In line with its partners, Gateway is committed to a policy of equal opportunities for all employees, workers and applicants and adhered to this policy at all times, review our working practices on an on-going basis to avoid unlawful or undesirable discrimination. Gateway treated everyone equally irrespective of sex, sexual orientation, marital status, age, disability, race, colour, ethnic or national origin, religion, political beliefs or membership or non-membership of a Trade Union and all staff met their obligations to respect and act in accordance with the policy. When recruiting, Gateway ensured that each candidate was assessed only in accordance with the candidate s merits, qualification and ability to perform the relevant duties required by the particular vacancy, adopting all aspects of Glasgow City Council s recruitment policies. Risk Management Gateway complies with Glasgow City Council s policies for risk management, and maintains a Risk Register and Business Continuity Plan which is reviewed by the Board quarterly. Corporate Governance Gateway adheres to the corporate governance model agreed with Glasgow City Council Internal Audit section, which empowers board members to hold the management accountable for their actions. 13