Letter from the Permanent Secretary to
the Chair, Communities and Local Government Committee
STAFF SURVEY RESULTS—SECOND QUARTER
2007
I wrote to you on 14 May enclosing a copy of
the results of the Department's first quarterly staff survey.
I am now writing to let you have the results for the second quarter.
The survey period for the second quarter covered
7 -28 June 2007. Questionnaires were issued to 900 staff and the
overall response rate was 63%, similar to the response rate for
the first survey.
The results from this second quarter were generally
encouraging, with the majority of responses (42 out of the 46
questions) showing improvement over Quarter 1. The largest increases
were amongst those saying that their views on things that affect
them and their work were taken seriously by senior staff (up by
18% to 51 %); those who felt that everyone in their team had a
chance to show what they could do (up by 15% to 66%) and those
feeling that morale was good within their team (up by 14% to 70%).
There was also a high degree of consensus on
a number of key indicators. 90% of staff said that they were committed
to helping the Department achieve its objectives, up 6% on the
first quarter. 99% of line managers now see it as their responsibility
to deal with inadequate staff performance amongst the people they
manage, again up 5% on the results from Quarter 1.
While these results are encouraging, there is
still work to be done on other issues. For example, despite a
small increase, only a third of staff feel that it is safe to
speak up and challenge the way things are done in the Department
(as opposed to in their team).
In this survey we asked five specific questions
on bullying and harassment along the lines of the ODPM 2005 survey.
Ipsos MaRl who conduct the survey on our behalf say their judgement
is that employees' attitudes on these questions remain broadly
in line with those of two years ago.
These are difficult issues to gauge, as definitions
are inevitably subjective. We know from benchmark data that staff
perceptions here match 2005 central government benchmark figures,
and the incidence of grievance cases in this area is very low.
We continue to take these issues seriously however and have a
range of work in place in improve policy and practice in this
area which I am, of course, happy discuss with you and the Select
Committee.
Peter Housden
1 October 2007
TECHNICAL DETAILS
Questionnaires were distributed online on 7
June 2007 among 898 members of staff at Communities and Local
Government.
Fieldwork ran from 7 June until 28 June 2007.
Reminders for the online survey were sent out
on Friday 15 June, Thursday 21 June and Wednesday 27 June 2007.
Results are based on a total of 570 questionnaires—564
online questionnaires and 6 paper based questionnaire. A response
rate of 63%.
Trend data comparisons (where available) are
shown, as are comparisons to Ipsos MORI Norms, Central Government
norms, data from the CLG surey in 2005 & data from the Senior
Civil Service Survey 2006 (all where possible).
Where results do not sum to 100, this may be
due to computer rounding or multiple responses.
An asterisk (*) indicates a finding of less
than half of one percent, but greater than zero.
Unless otherwise stated, results are based on
all respondents.
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