The kick-off meeting of the Project Board was held.

It was recognised that Joined up Jobs was not about creating new front end customer facing services, nor imposing replacement of back end systems.  However, these back end systems might need additional export modules creating, to make portal-ready content available for re-use.

Three types of stakeholder were identified:

• content originators (councils etc.)
• content re-users (those we share our data with)
• the standardisation community (through which we aim to establish Joined up Jobs as a common approach)

The tender process to identify and select a Technical Advisor to the Project commenced.

Pearson's was identified as the preferred Technical Advisor.

The Technical Team commenced work on 21st November.

An online survey was established to assess current practice and ensure content originator stakeholders in the region were engaged.

Invitations to complete the survey were issued to ‘vacancy originator’ stakeholders on 19th December 2005.

D2.1, D3.1 and D5.1 (which are all draft reports with final versions at a later date) were made available for the Project Board meeting on 9th  January 2006.

A presentation was given to the Steering Group of the Public Sector Academy project.

Research and communication with the Local eGovernment Standards Body has revealed that there is an HR related standard already included as ‘recommended’ in eGif, the UK Public Sector interoperability framework.

This ‘HR-XML’ standard may provide much of the basis of a jobs information schema, although it is understood to have originated outside the UK and will need development for wider use in the UK public sector.

An investigation of HR-XML will be undertaken as part of D3 and reported through those channels.

Responses to the survey are being collected.

Discussions have commenced with colleagues in Legal Services regarding commercial licensing of data and the Re-use of Public Information Directive.  Their investigations will be fed into the options appraisal in March 2006.

Key research deliverables were produced.  Abridged versions of these will be made available on our Downloads page.  In the meantime, if you have any questions please contact Graham Jordan .

D2.2 Catalogues responses to originator surveys and interviews with reusers and standardisation stakeholders.

Key findings:

• Variation in number of vacancies advertised (from 11-1800 in 2005)
• Although there are some elements of similarity within vacancy data management practices, no two organisations follow the same process
• There is a general lack of IT systems supporting recruitment or vacancy advertising processes. Most HR operations have dedicated personnel systems that are used for managing the personnel process rather than the Vacancy initiation and advertising processes.
• Job Vacancy data transfer represents a low % of overall costs - about 2.2% of internal costs to hire
• All our survey respondents currently use web-based advertising, and can provide vacancy data electronically
• E-Recruitment is being considered and there is a recognition of the drivers and constraints
• There is a lower level of interest in electronic channels other than web
• Councils don’t have one to many relationships – all but 4 use the same third party media placement agent, and they have the one to many relationships
• There was a commitment to the concept of Joined up Jobs from all reusers, both current and future. They could easily identify the benefits to their organisations e-agenda, and the practical benefits of having standard data formats and legal agreements.
• It has been suggested through discussions with the standardisation bodies that there is a gap in the information infrastructure where projects and initiatives like Joined up Jobs can be promoted and taken forward towards recognition and standardisation.
  

D4.2 is the specification of the Joined up Jobs vacancy data exchange protocol.

• The Joined Up Jobs vacancy data exchange protocol has adopted the HR-XML schema, which is an international recommended standard for data-systems relating to human resource processes in their widest possible form covering everything from appointment to payroll and pensions. HR-XML is cited in the UK Government Interoperability Framework for public sector information sharing, eGif.
• Relevant elements have been taken from this schema and used it as the basis for developing an easy-to-use Joined Up Jobs schema that can be implemented by councils who wish to share and exchange vacancy data.
• Long term the governance will have to be determined. 
• Joined up Jobs might be recognised as best practice and made mandatory by local government on a national basis through its inclusion in eGif. Existing Policies, procedures and guidelines could then incorporate the schema roll-out and development.
• In the short-term this schema needs to be verified and adopted as a regional standard with a best practice consensus.
  

D5.2 considers the commercial and legal aspects of reusing job vacancy data and identifies options for taking Joined up Jobs forward to Phase II.

• From 1 July 2005 a new European Directive came into force which allows people to apply to re-use information held by a Council. Re-use means using the information for a purpose other than the purpose for which the document was originally produced. This could include a commercial purpose.
• Councils are able to recover costs in respect of providing information for re-use.
• It is necessary for any newly developed or bought-in e-recruitment or vacancy management systems to conform with the Government Interoperability Framework, eGif, which strongly promotes use of the HR-XML standard upon which Joined up Jobs is based.
• There are efficiency savings to be made. For councils with job vacancy databases, or any agencies they use for each re-user channel they feed they will need to establish separate legal agreements, map data fields and test data transfer and transformation.
  • This could cost a few thousand pounds per channel in real or opportunity costs.
• Most councils in the north east don't have a job vacancy database and enter vacancies to their website, and only send data to an agent (which then feeds other channels) and to Job Centre Plus.
  • This takes the councils 10s of minutes per job
• Joined up Jobs offers a 'one size fits all' approach, so export procedures need to be set up once only, regardless of the number of channels served.
• The costs of establishing a Joined up Jobs feed will be shared across the number of jobs being advertised.
• If all reusers that councils have to manually enter data into were to allow a Joined up Jobs format feed from either council databases or agents, councils in the north east could save 10s of minutes per job.
  • This represents about 2.2% of the internal cost to hire
  • This could save lots of time in councils that they could use for more valuable tasks.

D5.2 recommended that the Project Board consider the following additional activities for inclusion in Phase II:

• Develop a data transformation engine
• Develop a data interface for kiosks
• Develop a data interface for interactive digital television (DigiTV) and 3G mobile phone services
• Develop guidance on how to generate a RSS feed from a Joined up Jobs compliant data system
• Research and produce a Phased Road Map to e-Recruitment which set outs the benefits/efficiency savings of various stages from establishing a simple inhouse system to full e-recruitment.
• Promotion and take up marketing of Joined up Jobs and enabled web, kiosk, digital TV and mobile phone services
• Work towards national standardisation of Joined up Jobs through verification of the schema
• Lobby re-users to take data feeds and save councils significant data entry costs.

Decisions about Phase II of Joined up Jobs were deferred until after consideration of strategic issues at the regional e-government group North East Connects / North East Centre of Excellence e-recruitment summit which was organised to raise awareness and have a regional strategic discussion of e-recruitment processes.

It was decided that in order that the region capitalises on the findings of Joined up Jobs and to link any emerging regional e-recruitment strategy to Phase II of Joined up Jobs, then Joined up Jobs would be open to influence from North East Connects / North East Centre of Excellence as to how Phase II funds would be allocated, the activities included in Phase II PID and how any future management structures for Joined up Jobs might look.

It was accepted that this meant Phase II could not begin as scheduled on 1st April 2006; NECE did not see this as problematic.

Before a new PID (Deliverable D7) for Phase II is produced a meeting will take place between representatives of Joined up Jobs and North East Connects / North East Centre of Excellence.

Decisions about Phase II of Joined up Jobs were deferred until after consideration of strategic issues at the regional e-government group North East Connects / North East Centre of Excellence e-recruitment summit which was organised to raise awareness and have a regional strategic discussion of e-recruitment processes.

It was decided that in order that the region capitalises on the findings of Joined up Jobs and to link any emerging regional e-recruitment strategy to Phase II of Joined up Jobs, then Joined up Jobs would be open to influence from North East Connects / North East Centre of Excellence as to how Phase II funds would be allocated, the activities included in Phase II PID and how any future management structures for Joined up Jobs might look.

Phase II did not begin as scheduled on 1st April 2006 pending the outcome of discussions at the North East Connects Online Recruitment Group.

This group, comprising senior HR officers, NECE representatives and chaired by the CX of Northumberland County Council is considering how to further work towards electronic vacancy advertising for the north east of England Region.

The North East Connects Online Recruitment Group was seen to be a more appropriate governance structure for work on eRecruitment and online vacancy advertising and in September 2006 is seeking regional CX approval to move ahead with an electronic vacancy advertising solution for the north east of England Region.

A Joined up Jobs Project Board meeting was held in September 2006 at which it was decided not to proceed with Phase II of Joined up Jobs nor to make any further claim on NECE for funds allocated to Phase II, instead leaving further developments in online recruitment to the North East Connects Online Recruitment Group.

Commitment was made to make the assets and knowledge from Joined up Jobs available to the regional initiative and to suggest that Joined up Jobs Phase II activities are considered as part of the regional initiative.

The contact for the North East Connects Online Recruitment Group is:

Andrew De'Ath

Programme Manager
North East Connects
The Guildhall
Quayside
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 3AF
Direct (0191) 261 3903
Mobile 07770 53 79 53

mailto:andrew.de'ath@northeastconnects.gov.uk
http://www.northeastconnects.gov.uk