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Public Services Employers' Forum

The role of the Public Services Employers' Forum (PSEF) is to enable the exchange of ideas and experiences on pay and workforce reform in public services. It helps to track cross sector issues and problems, to take joint action where appropriate and to provide a collective voice of public sector employers.

The purpose of the PSEF is to:

• provide a collective voice that represents the interests of public sector employers on employment matters;
• exchange experiences, ideas, principles and approaches to employment matters with a view to sharing good practice across the public sector;
• provide an early warning system that identifies developments and potential problems in employment matters that may affect the public sector; and
• take joint action, where appropriate, on employment matters.

Workforce modernisation and reform are critical to the delivery of public service reform and key PSA targets. For services to be designed around the customer requires excellent leadership, commitment and greater flexibility in employment and working practices.

The PSEF was re-launched in 2003 to align its purpose closely with supporting this large scale change, bringing together key players from the NHS, education, local government, the civil service and other public sector bodies to work together on issues of shared interest including pay negotiations, performance management, training, recruitment and retention, and employee engagement.

The Forum has a number of roles:

• it allows exchange of information to enable public service employers to be better informed of key trends at critical stages in the pay round;
• provides a sounding board for government policies and initiatives on workforce reform to ensure they are well-informed by experience of the front line;
• enables public service employers to bring forward – for discussion and resolution – a specific problems or barriers they are facing in implementing workforce reforms
• helps to disseminate best practice across public services; and
• it can commission project groups to undertake specific investigations of innovative approaches to modernising the workforce.

The PSEF also plays a crucial role in supporting the employer side representatives on the Public Services Forum, contributing to the agenda and, where relevant, taking forward resultant actions.