Agenda Item: 8
Ref: CM/01/11/05
BOARD MEETING – 16 FEBRUARY 2011
CQC Business Plan 2011-12 to 2014-15
PURPOSE
1. To provide a final draft of the CQC Business Plan for Board agreement,
prior to it being submitted to the Department of Health for approval.
RECOMMENDATION
2. The Board is asked to approve the draft Corporate Business Plan; and
note the next steps in terms Directorates working on their individual plans;
risk registers and scorecards.
BACKGROUND
3. CQC is required to agree an annual business plan with the Board and the
Department of Health. The key components of our plan – including the 8
delivery priorities – were agreed by the Board at their January meeting.
4. The DH planning guidance was received in January. Broadly our planning
had already covered the key DH requirements:
o Business plans to cover 2011-12 in detail, and known activities/ content
for 12-13 to 14-15; to include a scorecard of key measures.
o Large ALBs are expected to submit their high level plans to DH only.
There is an expectation Directorate plans sit beneath them.
o There is a focus in the guidance on communicating the ALB transition
programme aims to staff, and the management of the HR and
knowledge management aspects of the changes effectively. There is
also a focus on identifying implications of government economy
measures, such as recruitment freezes, and business case
requirements regarding procurement.
5
There are some documents DH asks ALBs to submit to them in addition
to the business plan, at the same time. These are:
o Copy of strategic risk register
o Copy of Estates strategy
o Investment funding template showing our proposed significant capital
spend
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o Forecast business case template showing for each Quarter of 11-12
the business cases we will be submitting to DH for procurement of
certain types of services.
6 The documents above are not included in the Board papers – although the
Risk register is discussed elsewhere on the agenda.
Directorate planning and next steps
6
Directorate level planning has begun, and the focus here for
Directorates will be on capacity/ workload planning; identifying
interdependencies and identifying an overall delivery map which will enable us
to manage key pinch points. The expectation would be that by the end of
March there will be a set of approved directorate level business plans that will
align with the priorities set out in the corporate plan. Including a scorecard of
key success measures and a risk register. To support this, a workshop is
planned for each directorate during February focusing primarily on the risk
framework and guidance, and starting to develop some of the risks. This will
be supplemented by a discussion on the scorecard. The other aspect to
highlight is a proposal to hold a series of meetings early March to ‘stress test’
draft plans, with directors presenting their plans to a small Executive Group,
including the Chief Executive, challenging the robustness, clarity and
deliverability of plans.
KEY ISSUES
7 The consideration at the January Board meeting of the paper on risks has
been followed by a number of specific actions relating to the business plan to
reflect the need for careful prioritisation and management of the many
challenges CQC faces:
o A Leadership Group event held on the 3 February, focused on working
together to consider the challenges of delivering our new regulatory
model at a time of unprecedented change in the health and social care
sector, and integrating new functions, within a limited resource
envelope.
o The Leadership Group discussed the 8 delivery priorities and
suggested some small changes to the grouping of activities with them,
in order to do more grouping of ‘like activities’ with the result that we
are proposing to the Board that the wording of them should change
slightly. The revised priorities are attached as Annex A – they can be
compared with the original wording in the plan at Annex B, which we
have not changed as yet. If the Board approve these proposed
changes, we will reflect them in the final version of the plan sent to DH.
They will result in some of the deliverables in the plan moving to
different sections – as follows:
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
Priority 2 – this now refers to delivering the regulatory model, and
evaluating its impact (embedding the model moves to 3, making
sure it is valued and understood moves to 5);

Priority 3 – now refers to embedding, improving and refining the
model, as well as equipping staff with tools, competences and skills
– moving in work on Better regulation and our approach to
innovation, from Priority 7;

Priority 5 – now includes work on ensuring our regulation is
understood and valued with our work on providing information and
other work with stakeholders

Priority 7 – now has a tighter focus on internal efficiency and
performance
o The event proved to be a good opportunity to review the priorities and
the work ahead and discuss taking forward the detailed capacity
planning that is required, and considering how different parts of CQC
need to work together to ensure successful delivery. The next stage of
Directorate level planning is critical in achieving this.
o A number of caveats and assumptions have been set out in the
Foreword to our business plan and in the Resources and business
improvement section. The aim is to be absolutely clear with DH that our
focus is on delivering our model of regulation, and the changes
currently expected as a result of the Health and Social Care Bill and
Public Bodies Bill, but to make clear that anything else would require
additional resources or would require a discussion around a
compromise around the regulatory model.
8
The business plan has been shared informally with the Department of
Health. Early informal feedback from DH is that they feel the material on risks
and caveats should form part of our Risk register, and that our comments on
the controls on recruiting and Healthwatch don’t sufficiently take account of
the business case process through which we can request exceptions to the
controls.
LINK TO STRATEGIC AND CORPORATE PRIORITIES
13
See Business plan
NEXT STEPS
20
As set out above.
CONCLUSION
21 The Board is asked to:
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o
o
approve the revised wording of the Delivery priorities, and their inclusion in
the draft business plan
agree to formal submission of the plan, revised as agreed, to DH, together
with the requested accompanying documents, including the finalised
strategic risk register, discussed elsewhere on the Board agenda.
Name: John Lappin
Title: Director of Finance and Corporate Services
Date: 16 February 2011
ANNEXES
A – Delivery priorities – revised wording
B – Draft CQC Business plan 2011-12 to 2014-15
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