‘Is there ever a time when it's not the case? But change is the big thing in local government at the moment,' says Sandra Farquharson, president of the Public Services People Managers Association (PPMA).
Farquharson, who is also director of HR and OD at Hackney LBC, took up her presidency of the PPMA earlier this year at a time of flux for local government. From reorganisation and transformation to political turnover and uncertainty, she and her human resource director (HRD) colleagues are juggling workforce support amid a tornado of change.
The pace of change in the sector has hit warp speed and it shows no signs of slowing any time soon. Managing political change is often harder than it has ever been with the influx of new politicians. Officers face working with a regime that has little or no experience of working in local government. ‘The relationships are not there…there's also a trust issue,' Farquharson explains.
It is down to her and her colleagues to help stabilise their organisations, while at the same time they face rising issues of civility in public life. What was once the rough and tumble of working in politics and public services is often now vitriolic and abusive. ‘We are having to advise and uphold behaviours,' she says. ‘We have to be exemplars, [otherwise] we will risk a lot of damage on a societal level.'
Nowhere more so than when it comes to equality, diversity and inclusion [EDI] as the political debate on equality burdens rages. While HR professionals have fought hard for equality over decades, there is an increasing backlash. She warns: ‘Whenever we don't pay attention to EDI the problems come up elsewhere.'
In Hackney, Farquharson says they have stepped ahead of legislation and already have data for the equality pay gap. While the sector has seen plenty of large-scale equal pay claims based on gender pay gaps, it is a phenomenon that is yet to spread to other protected characteristics.
If equality is not built into everything, she says, ‘you might be investing, but you are investing in all the wrong places'.
In Hackney, Farquharson says they have stepped ahead of legislation and already have data for the equality pay gap. While the sector has seen plenty of large-scale equal pay claims based on gender pay gaps, it is a phenomenon that is yet to spread to other protected characteristics.
In addition to the Employment Rights Act 2025, the upcoming Equality (Race and Disability) Bill will put in place mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting. Could it spark a raft of new large-scale equal pay claims? ‘Possibly,' she says.
She is less convinced there will be a spate arising from local government reorganisation (LGR). Instead, the challenge in LGR councils will be transformation. She warns: ‘We've also got an ageing workforce, where change is not necessarily as easy.'
Farquharson began her career at what was then the Department of Social Security – now the Department of Work and Pensions – almost 40 years ago as an admin assistant, but it was within the Ministry of Defence (MoD) that she really found her home.
Her uncle, part of the Windrush generation, had served in the armed forces and the MoD became akin to a supportive family. ‘My boss was amazing,' she says. ‘It really made me understand what a work family means.
‘I've never been career-led – if I see something where I think I can make a difference, I will go,' she explains. ‘I will go to whatever sounds exciting.'
She moved around with the MoD, before heading to Bristol City Council, States of Guernsey – which was ‘local and central government wrapped into one' – Kingston LBC and now Hackney.
Now representing her peers in the president's role one of her key goals is to ‘raise the profession of HRD to being statutory officers'. While she and her colleagues have all the responsibility of workforce issues, they have none of that statutory power, she says.
It would take primary legislation and may not be possible during the lifetime of her presidency, but she wants to see it discussed and to see HRDs be more robust – particularly on civility.
Do her colleagues have the skills and courage to speak truth to power and sit in a statutory role? ‘Some,' she suggests – but clearly not all. ‘One of the intentions [of the PPMA] is to look at the skills.'
‘The pace of change has to align with the capability of change,' she warns. She sounds doubtful that it currently does – but there are solutions. ‘We need to be really focused on succession planning,' she says.
As more people move around – including to retirement – succession planning has never been more urgent. She warns: ‘You do have to acknowledge that one day you won't be there. Do your bit and move on.
‘This change, it's not optional,' she tells The MJ. ‘We have to believe that change will have outcomes that are better for all.' Otherwise, what is the point?
‘Even things that are not great can end up with something good.'
