As an organisation, we are committed to carrying out our regulatory duties efficiently, effectively and transparently, to deliver the best value for money for all stakeholders. We have made excellent progress against last year’s business plan deliverables on developing and supporting our people.

We have continued to invest in modernising our ways of working and are on track to meet our commitments in our 2020 three-year Technology Strategy, with a focus on cyber security and information technology. To provide a more effective approach to document and information management within the organisation, we are migrating from our existing system, Box, to MS365, which involves moving a total of 4.7 terabytes of data.  This has been a high profile and complex project with significant risks, which we are managing.  Excluding case management, the migration was completed in March 2023, with over 2.1 million files equating to 4.2 terabytes of data successfully transferred.  

Plans for two regional office relocations were progressed successfully during the year, to reinforce our regional presence. The phase 1 move to an interim Glasgow office was achieved and we are on track to move to the permanent office by the end of 2023. The 2025 move to a new government hub in Manchester was also agreed in principle. 

Earlier this year, ORR’s Smarter Working approach was assessed as 'mature', the highest attainable level, by the Government Property Agency (GPA), as part of a mandatory programme to assess all government departments and executive agencies. A key theme acknowledged throughout GPA's report was that Smarter Working principles are so embedded in ORR’s ways of working that the majority of our people are unaware of the term ‘Smarter Working’ or its meaning – it is simply our way of working life.

A priority this year has been embedding our new and more engaging learning management system ‘MyLearning’. We introduced a number of mandatory training courses as part of our growing investment in organisational knowledge and skills. Fraud awareness training was provided to all staff following an update to ORR’s fraud prevention policy and a new module on bullying, harassment and victimisation was completed by more than 92% of all staff with directors managing those that still need to complete the course. Our new drugs and alcohol policy and an update to our whistleblowing policy were both introduced as planned. 

ORR is committed to getting the best out of our people – developing talent and creating a modern, inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive. 

We continued our investment in leadership and management, with our 2022-23 cohorts for both the Senior Leadership and Management Development programmes successfully completing their training. Designed with a focus on managing change and strategic leadership, it ensures ORR values and behaviours are front and centre in our thinking. This is part of the foundation we are setting for our existing and future leaders, with an emphasis on ‘engage, focus and embed’.

Our ongoing commitment to develop talent and progress diversity and inclusion (D&I) was reflected in a number of ways this year. Following a Talent Inclusion & Diversity Evaluation (TIDE) assessment by the Employers Network for Equality and Inclusion (ENEI), ORR was awarded silver, building on our bronze award in 2021. We came 22nd out of 155 entries and were advised that we scored consistently above average compared to other public sector organisations. 

We were also shortlisted for the ENEI Annual Inclusivity Awards in November 2022 in the category ‘Creating an Inclusive Workplace’. Fellow nominees in this category were Active Prospects, Birmingham Women’s & Children’s NHS Trust and Brodies.

As part of our outreach to help young people think about careers, develop future talent and support social mobility, we held another series of 'Business Insight' events arranged through the Mayor of London's Access Aspiration scheme. We hosted a visit by twenty 16-18-year-olds to our head office in London, where they heard from a variety of colleagues about their career journeys and opportunities within ORR and the wider civil service.

Moving forward, we want to ensure everyone is able to contribute to building an inclusive culture within ORR. It has been agreed that all ORR staff will have their own D&I objective, set and reviewed just like any other objective in our performance management system. Guidance on the type of objective and how to evidence it at different grades has been created to support colleagues and we plan to launch this during National Inclusion Week in September 2023.

Table 3: Key highlights in the Our People and Performance activities