Your ESR News

Update from National Programme Director

When I wrote my December 2017 update, I referenced 326,000 unique NHS employees had accessed the ESR Portal since it was launched earlier in the year. Today - a year on, I am delighted to advise that over 1.08m unique employees (as at the end of November) have now accessed the ESR Portal, with usage continuing to grow. This rate of growth is a clear demonstration of how NHS staffs are embracing the enhanced functionality within ESR.

Employer and employee feedback about the ESR solution has remained positive; and in June we surveyed Employee Self Service (ESS) users - via the Portal - to help us get early insight into how ESR users felt about the improved solution. In total, 997 ESS users took part in the survey, with the following headline response:

• 76.23% of users told us they access ESR weekly or at least monthly;
• 58.07% of users told us they access ESR via a desktop PC and 45.44% access via a mobile phone;
• 49.45% of users told us they access ESR at home.

The diversity illustrated within the feedback of how and when ESR is being accessed is very positive; particularly considering the design principles included achieving such flexibility of access and user choice.

• 95.89% of users told us they access their online payslip;

This is further evidenced by our latest statistics, showing at the end of November over 679k employees have opted out of receiving paper payslips.

• Accessing Personal Information, TRS, My Compliance, My e-Learning Enrolments and My Annual Leave were the most frequently accessed portlets.

As the number of employee users continues to grow, it is important that we give users the opportunity to share views and experiences. It is our intention to build on the survey we ran in June and invite direct user feedback going forward – ultimately to ensure the solution and service remains fit-for-purpose and continues to meet user needs.

Development and Release…

Consistent with previous years, the ESR solution has not stood still during 2018.  Having completed the strategic development roadmap and introduced a new ‘agile’ approach to the release of change into the solution, ESR has continued to improve, from both a technical and functional perspective, including: 

• Upgrading to Oracle 12.2 – further future proofing the solution and service;
• Migrating from N3 to the new NHS Digital Health and Social Care Network (HSCN);
• Implementing new Gender Pay Gap Reporting;
• Developments in OLM for Learning Administrators;
• Implementing the Organisation Chart for Managers;
• Implementation of IAT changes to further support NHS Streamlining;
• Implementing the Pay Award for the NHS in England (and a separate Pay Award for the NHS in Wales);
• Continued enhancement of reporting in Business Intelligence as part our Reporting Strategy - that will culminate in the decommissioning of the Discoverer reporting tool at the end of December 2018;
• Decommissioning of the non-portal access route (mhapp and legacy access routes into ESR), so that all ESR users log into ESR via the Portal – my.esr.nhs.uk.

…plus much more.

Working in partnership with our user groups and strategic partners, we will continue to progress continuous service and solution improvements throughout 2019.

Stability and Performance…

I am pleased to report that the ESR Service has once again been robust and reliable throughout 2018.

However, as I have separately referenced, we have experienced isolated issues with the stability and performance of Business Intelligence (BI) reporting. These issues have understandably caused concern amongst our users – not least of which as we enter the final stages of our reporting strategy that will see Business Intelligence as the only reporting solution from January 2019.

Working in partnership with IBM and Oracle, a number of solution changes have already been deployed to address the issues and improve resilience of the BI service. As with all aspects of ESR service, we will continue to closely monitor and implement continuous service improvements.

Take you own journey of ESR Discovery…

Throughout the year, ESR Account Managers and Functional Advisors have worked with NHS workforce teams to undertake a number of engagement and project planning sessions. 

This engagement included completion of the ESR Annual Assessment – very much a spring board for HR Directors and teams to evaluate what ESR can do from both a strategic and operational perspective.  As at 30 November, 79% of Assessment are completed or booked in calendars – which is a great position to be in and demonstrates again the positive level of engagement across the NHS.

On 1^st November we launched our latest initiative - Discover Your ESR.  Developed to work alongside the ESR Annual Assessment, this web based tool uniquely presents the ESR solution in a business driven format, to help NHS teams understand how strategic workforce and business challenges can be addressed using your ESR solution.

The increasing demand on NHS budgets, alongside a need to further maximise productivity and efficiency presents constant challenges for today’s NHS.  The Annual ESR Assessment and the new Discover your ESR tool can provide you with the right level of detail about your current use of ESR and importantly, how ESR can help you overcome such business challenges.  You can read more about the Assessment process and how it is supporting HR Directors in this edition of ESR News.

NHS Business Services Authority (NHS BSA) – Aligning and enhancing NHS Workforce Systems and Services…

In the March edition of ESR News, I referenced how the ESR Programme was joining NHS BSA from 1 April 2018.

Within a new NHS Workforce Services directorate, ESR is part of a wider portfolio of workforce systems and services including NHS Jobs, NHS Pensions and an HR Shared Services team.

Gordon Coyne, Director of NHS Workforce Services comments:

'I am delighted to see the positive engagement and progress with use of the ESR Portal. Supporting NHS organisations and their employees remains a clear objective for NHS BSA, as we strive to be the delivery partner of choice.

Looking forward, we recognise the challenges of supporting the NHS workforce and we will aim to maximise the strengths and learning across all of our Workforce Service offerings to the NHS, with a view to optimising use of technology and improving the user experience – for employers and current employees as well as future employees and retiring members.

ESR has already started this journey with the Portal. NHS Pensions is undergoing a programme of modernisation and service reform, and the NHS Jobs platform is currently being transformed – so as to present a modern, fit-for-purpose solution to the NHS and applicants.'

If you wish to find out more information, please visit the NHSBSA website

Thanks and Best Wishes…

Finally, I hope that you find this December edition of ESR News interesting and on behalf of the ESR Programme and the NHS BSA, may I express our thanks for all of your support throughout 2018, and wish you a Merry Christmas and offer Best Wishes for 2019.

ESR committed to supporting Pay Progression

The new pay progression system will come into effect on 1 April 2019 for new starters or those promoted to a new role on or after 1 April 2019. 

We are working closely on the detailed policy requirements with our colleagues at NHS Employers so that ESR can be updated to support the delivery of the new pay progression framework and appraisal system.

 In order to support organisations to implement the new system we are committed to providing a solution that:

• Updates our Manager and Self Service offering to ensure that:
  • meetings to discuss pay progression can be recorded as a new ‘review’ type;
  • Improved workflow notification for managers and employees in years when the Pay Step update will lead to an increase in pay;
  • Ability to record any reasons for non-progression – as a national set of values to facilitate national and local reporting;
• Changes to the ESR increment process for new starters, or existing employees with a grade change, from 1^st April 2019;
• Functionality to enable non-Self Service HR organisations to manage this process in the transitional period (April 2019 - April 2020).

Guidance on the progress with work towards the implementation of the new pay progression system can be found on the NHS Employers website.

Discovering Your ESR

Annual ESR Assessment

The NHS ESR Team introduced the Annual ESR Assessment for all user organisations in 2016, in readiness for the planned launch of the new Portal and enhanced functionality in 2017.  Designed to help organisations understand what steps they needed to take to be ready for the new capability, the Assessment enabled HR Directors and ESR Leads to prepare plans that would enable them to be able to roll out the new Portal as soon as it was launched.

Two years on, the Annual ESR Assessment has become an important benchmarking tool, providing HR Directors and their teams with a comprehensive overview of how their organisation has progressed with its use of ESR functionality, and more importantly, how the data in ESR is supporting local workforce strategies. 

Split into two parts the Assessment:

• provides you with a comprehensive set of statistics taken directly from the ESR solution, looking across a broad range of functional areas within ESR. This easily identifies gaps in usage and highlights where you can gain further efficiencies;
• gives you an opportunity to discuss your current agenda, your key priorities and your organisations objectives - as well as helping you identify how ESR can support you in addressing these objectives.

Earlier this year the NHS ESR Team conducted an in-depth review of the Assessment tool, taking into consideration feedback that had been received during the previous years and the reports that are produced.  The 2018/19 Assessment round is now well underway across all regions in England, and significant progress has been reported across a wide range of ESR functional areas. Since the 2018/19 Assessment round began in late spring, 79% of all NHS user organisations have completed their Assessment or have a date committed with their NHS ESR Regional Team.

Following the Assessment, three reports are produced to help organisations digest the data and the recommendations that derive from the Assessment itself:

• Executive Summary - Illustrates overall progress regarding the implementation of various elements of ESR functionality, highlighting key areas where there is scope for further advancement;
• Summary Statement - Headline summary of progress made within your organisation towards maximising use of ESR functionality;
• Action Plan – Detailed summary of the ESR utilisation made by the organisation.

One of the core objectives for the Annual ESR Assessment is to help HR Directors and their teams to better understand the breadth of functionality within the ESR solution, and identify where ESR can support them to meet workforce and organisational business challenges. 

Optimal use of ESR can help you address these challenges; whether that’s reducing sickness absence, improving compliance, streamlining recruitment, realise back office efficiencies, monitoring workforce diversity, managing staff costs, empowering your workforce, improving the quality of workforce data or all of these areas.

The Isle of Wight NHS Trust and Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust both completed their 2018/19 Assessments in June and provided the following feedback;

'We welcomed the opportunity to discuss our progress with our NHS ESR Account Manager and Functional Advisor.  We looked at what ESR functionality we are currently using and the options for the future.  This was particularly useful because at that time we were considering the transition to Manager Self Service (MSS) and Oracle Learning Management (OLM).  We had recently rolled out Employee Self Service (Limited Access) and felt that this was going to be the next natural step, although we weren’t sure what it involved.

The Assessment and discussion helped us define our approach to rolling out MSS and OLM, and provided the framework and evidence we needed to ensure we secured Board and Exec team buy in.  We could use the recommendations within the report to help us reinforce where we could get more from ESR and increase our information transparency with line managers. Both our NHS ESR Account Manager and Functional Adviser were very knowledgeable and supportive with our questions around MSS, making our investigative process more efficient and rapid. 

The NHS ESR team gave a presentation to the wider team including our Training and Education Department, which was gratefully received.

As a result of the Assessment and the support from our NHS ESR Regional team we have now commenced our roll out of Manager Self Service in liaison with the Training and Education team, who are building up their knowledge of OLM in readiness for full roll out.  We found the ESR Assessment and the support provided by the NHS ESR Regional Team was the push we needed to bring our plans to fruition'.

Calum Robertson, Operational Lead – Workforce Information  and Barbara Fitch, Workforce Information Officer

'As a Trust we have been gradually increasing our usage of ESR functionality, initially transferring from our existing training system to OLM. Realising the potential of the solution for the Trust and our employees with the new ESR Portal, we further developed our training offering through ESR by implementing competencies and applying competency requirements.  Having seen the efficiencies this has provided we were keen to understand the solution further, so keen to undertake the ESR Assessment to help us better understand our current usage, and what further functionality is available.

Overall, everyone who took part in the Assessment found it to be extremely helpful, especially as there were a lot of things we discovered we could do with ESR that we were not aware of.  The various Assessment reports are very informative and provided us with key information on areas of ESR functionality that we should focus on.  They also enabled us to further discuss and formulate plans with Trust Senior Management to obtain their support and direction.

Since receiving our Assessment reports we have set up a new ESR steering group to focus on how we can make better use of ESR in order to meet our strategic workforce agenda.  So far we have successfully moved our core skills e-Learning back to ESR and are in the process of planning our launch of Manager Self Service.  We are also in the final stages of testing devolved access for our trainers, so that they can update class attendance using a tablet, as well as enabling employee self-enrolment for our face to face courses.

We are continuing to work with our NHS ESR Regional team who are supporting us further with our ESR development to aid us to achieve our objectives'.

Craig Stewart, Head of Workforce Intelligence

The new Discover your ESR tool

The NHS ESR Central Team has recently launched a new online tool – Discover your ESR.  

The tool has been designed to work alongside the Annual Assessment process, and uniquely presents the ESR solution in a business driven format, segmented into current strategic workforce and operational business challenges.

Across the NHS it is recognised that the pace and scale of change to the ESR solution over the last 18 months has delivered tangible benefits – both in terms of enhancing and transforming the user experience and presenting HR Directors and their teams with the opportunity to re-evaluate how ESR can support a wide range of workforce challenges.   

The Annual Assessment, as we have detailed earlier in this article helps organisations identify gaps in their ESR usage, what workforce challenges are currently a priority and provides a range of recommendations that are designed to support the organisation to move forward.

By using the Discover Your ESR tool HR Directors their operational teams can work through  those challenges and develop a better understanding how they can address them using ESR. 

The two elements; the Discover your ESR tool and the Annual Assessment gives HR Directors and teams the complete package that assists local planning of next steps to  increase their use of ESR.

Two Workforce Leaders have recently told us what they think about the new Discover Your ESR tool;

'I have been impressed with the new functionality of ESR to support our ‘digital employee journey’ plans and found ‘Discover Your ESR’ online tool really helpful to support the business case for change.  The tool is really easy to use and gives you a fantastic overview of how ESR can support a range of workforce strategies, national and regulatory policy and productivity goals.’ 

 Lynn Demeda, Director of Workforce Programmes, Guys and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust

'Delivering change is impossible without clear workforce data that is fundamentally reliable – principally due to its link with payroll.  The launch of the new Discover Your ESR web based tool is a great innovation that builds upon the solid platform ESR provides.  This tool enables strategic leaders to understand how they can use the data within ESR to understand their workforce needs and plan for the future, really maximising the potential within the ESR system'.

Mike Gibney, Director of Workforce and Innovation, The Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust.

'The ‘Discover Your ESR’ tool aids in bridging the knowledge gap between Senior Leaders and HR teams in terms of their understanding of the ESR solution and its capabilities , thereby enables constructive conversations about workforce challenges in a useful and easy way'.

Cheryl Samuels, Deputy Director of Workforce, STP Education & Training, North and Central London 

If you haven’t completed your Annual ESR Assessment for 2018/19 yet, want more information about how the Assessment and its reports can support you, or want to learn more about how Discover Your ESR can help you, please contact your NHS ESR Regional Account Manager.

New for 2019 - My Compliance Portlet

ESR Release 41 will introduce changes to the My Compliance Portlet

The changes planned will help users interact more easily with the learning they are required to do in order to meet the competence requirements set for them. This will include:

• Ability to view percentage compliance, both in numerical and graphical format for all or a single assignment.
• A consolidated list of required competencies by RAG status.

The process to enrol on and complete the learning that will deliver required competencies has been significantly simplified and integrated in to the My Compliance Portlet. Some of the key features are:

• Play the e-Learning associated with the competency.
• Automate renewal of the Learning Certification, the learner will no longer need to select renew before playing the course, where the Learning Certification can be renewed.
• Search for and enrol on learning that will deliver required competencies.
• View the classroom course details you are enrolled on.
• Easy navigation to the ‘Compliance and Competency’ page.

Examples below show the My Compliance portlet collapsed and expanded:

'The development of the My Compliance Portlet will simplify how users identify their training requirements and find the appropriate learning from the ESR Portal Dashboard. This will make it a more streamlined process for the end-user as it will reduce the amount of questions and queries our team receives relating to statutory and mandatory training and e-Learning completions. I am really excited about the imminent release,  and this will improve the overall experience for staff.'

Liam Marshall, Learning Management and E-Learning Training Lead

Reporting Strategy draws to a close

2018 has been a significant year in the ongoing development of ESR Business Intelligence (ESR BI). ESR Release 41 (at the end of December 2018) will see the conclusion of the ESR reporting strategy with the final decommissioning of the Discoverer reporting tool (subject to final testing). The strategy has seen significant enhancements and changes to ESR BI, with many new reports to support users in their business processes and in their move to the BI reporting platform. This key and final stage of the strategy ensures that ESR reporting is based on a future-proofed/fully supported solution that we can continue to drive forward.

Key developments this year have included:

• Gender Pay Gap Reporting
• Certification Reporting
• Working Time Regulation Reporting
• Apprenticeship Reporting
• Index Tabs to support navigation
• Updated BI Syllabus and Course
• Further replication of Disco reports (Travel and Subsistence, Vehicle Management, Recruitment, Emergency Contacts)

The NHS ESR BI Team continues to develop and enhance the range of standard BI dashboards. Over 250 change requests have been raised and implemented this year, including the 1000^th change in total, in order to provide the reports that organisations have requested and require to support their business processes.

Nottingham CityCare Partnership was one of the organisations that made the transition to reporting from BI early as Tom Tomlinson explains:

'Moving from DISCO to BI was an interesting process.  Our organisation relied on the ‘Organisation Profile’ report that was reported from Disco, so this was one of the main reports for us to re-create in BI. This was a challenge, but not impossible, finding the right criteria and elements when creating an analysis in BI was the longest part, but with ESR Support it was made significantly easier. BI is really very user-friendly once you spend a bit of time digging around the national dashboards and learning what does what, the fact that you can copy filters from an existing analysis to a custom-made analysis definitely helps. Some of the other reports we heavily relied upon included staff requirements like Professional Registration, DBS and Appraisal reports.  By ensuring we had consistent data between the two reports in Disco and BI we were able to ensure data accuracy before Disco was withdrawn, and we have actually completed our process of moving to BI well ahead of time.  With the second and third phases of Disco reports being having recently been withdrawn, I would encourage everyone to start creating their dashboards, two clicks and you can have a suite of information at your fingertips. If you need a set of data regularly, no matter what it is, creating your own dashboards is a must and saves a significant amount of time.'

Tom Tomlinson, HR Management Information Officer, Nottingham CityCare Partnership

As Discoverer will be completely withdrawn from ESR on 28^th December 2018, it is imperative that any remaining local Discoverer reports still being used are replicated in ESR BI as soon as possible (and before this date). 

To support the transition to ESR BI, the centrally provided BI education course was redeveloped and has been well attended during the year - with 443 reporting users attending in order to improve their skills on creating and modifying analyses in ESR BI.

There is a Reporting section on our website where you can find out more information about ESR BI, including helpful documents and a report writer's guide that you can download.

If you need guidance about how to get started with ESR BI, have specific questions about the functionality, or need support in relation to the withdrawal of Discoverer, please contact your NHS ESR Functional Advisor.

 

Payroll Stakeholder events are a hit

The ESR Programme team has recently been delivering a series of ESR Payroll Stakeholder Events, throughout England and Wales.  The aim of the events is to help ESR Payroll users have a greater understanding of the system and some of the third party interactions that they may not have been aware of.

The events are aimed at those people who predominantly run the payroll processes for their Trust or Client(s), who use ESR extensively, and who understand the day to day demands of working in a busy NHS Payroll department.

The first three of a series of four events were delivered during November and covered the following items;

• BACS, Bank Accounts and PAYE references
• How to set up a new payroll
• Payroll Processing
• Retro versus Retropay by Element
• To update or Correct?
• How the queues work
• RTI Regular Queries
• RTI Reconciliation
• AfC Pay Progression
• User Notices
• Downtime
• Helpful Hints

The events have been very well received with very positive feedback from the delegates.

Overall, these events have proved to only be a great networking opportunity, but have also enabled the NHS ESR Team to gain a greater appreciation of what Payroll professionals are dealing with on a daily basis, and that in turn will help in developing Payroll specific guidance and with future service delivery.

Cardiff, 8^th November 2018:

'When the ESR payroll events were announced we were pleased to get involved as these gatherings are very useful to gain up to date knowledge of the system, to talk with the people at the centre of the operation and share experiences with our peers from other Trusts. The event in Cardiff was undertaken in a very user friendly way and whilst serious subjects were discussed,  they were given a humorous touch from time to time, and what was particularly pleasing was how receptive the presenters were to particular processing problems raised, and the joint ‘work arounds’ which came from the whole meeting. I found it a very positive day and learned a few new things.'

John Meacham, Head of Payroll, University Hospitals Bristol

Sheffield, 12^th November 2018:

'The Payroll Stakeholder’s Event held in Sheffield on Monday 12th November was firstly very well attended.  It was great to catch up with familiar faces and meet like-minded payroll professionals. The event was very well run; speakers kept the flow really well and kept to timings and the agenda.  We have just started running our weekly payroll, so found the Interlocking and RTI sections were both highly relevant and helpful.  The speakers, Fiona, John, Tracey and Nicola are extremely knowledgeable and engaging.  Looking forward to the next event!' 

Tracie Thomas Pay, Pensions and Benefits Manager, Nottingham University Hospitals

Fleetwood 13^th November 2018:

'I attended the ESR Stakeholder Event held at Fleetwood on 13^th November 2018. This was hosted jointly by IBM/NHS ESR Central team in an environment where the audience had free reign to ask questions and participate in interactive sessions. All the presenters where extremely knowledgeable and at ease with the questions that arose during the day. I certainly picked up a few tips and also used the opportunity for a little networking. Unfortunately due to local operational issue’s I was unable to bring my payroll team leaders with me as planned but hopefully next time round I will be able to make this happen.'

Neil Evans, Payroll Services Manager, NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership

Still time to book your place

The last event in this series will be held at the IBM Southbank Office on 9^th January 2019. There are still places available so don’t miss out!

To book your place, send an email to ESR.IS-ESRCourseReg@nhs.net , completing the Subject Heading as ‘ESR Payroll Stakeholder Events”

The body of the email should contain the following;

• Name of Delegate
• Email address of delegate
• Payroll Provider or Trust name
• Stakeholder event : London Southbank

The national agenda and ESR’s role

The NHS ESR Systems Integration Team develops and supports interface processes, to enable ESR to exchange information with third party systems and solutions. Currently, there is  approximately 2000 interfaces in operation across the ESR footprint.  Some of the third party systems sit internally within NHS Trusts and others are external interface processes; for example supporting links to systems such as those at NHS Pensions and the General Medical Council (GMC).

Health Care Professions Council Interface

In response to a number of requests from the ESR Special Interest Groups, and following a significant consultation period with the Health Care Professions Council (HCPC), an interface with the HCPC was delivered in October 2018.   Whilst the update and notification works in the same manner as that of the links with the GMC and the Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC), the initial capture of data from the HCPC Register is different and built in house by the NHS ESR Systems Integration team.

Within a week of the interface going live in October 2018, the registration details of 150,000 HCPC registrants recorded on ESR were checked and updated. The interface process facilitates the weekly check and automatic update of up to nine data items for each HCPC registrant. The HCPC interface process works by interrogating the HCPC public (online) register, using the HCPC registration numbers that are stored on ESR. It then applies updates to the HCPC data on an Employee record where the information on the register differs from the data held within ESR.

Felicity King from Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in East Grinstead says:

'The new HCPC interface with ESR has allowed us to save time. This interface process has given us assurance that staffs are up to date with their registrations. Now that this service is in place users will no longer have to manually type or check the HCPC registration. This will make substantial efficiencies overall in the area of professional registrations using ESR.'

Digital Maternity Exemption Certificate

Working with colleagues within the NHS Business Services Authority, we have been supporting a   Digital Maternity Exemption Certificate Project - which is currently being piloted with a small group of midwives, GPs and their patients.

Currently,  expectant mothers are issued with a maternity exemption certificate (a plastic card), to allow them to access free dental care and free NHS prescriptions during pregnancy and the 12 months following the birth of their child. The new digital service offering from the NHS BSA will allow patients to receive their Maternity Exemption Certificates electronically by email, rather than receiving the plastic card.

Following positive feedback, the NHS BSA is looking to increase the number of midwives and GP’s included in their pilot. Clinical users of the new service must be authorised and their professional registration must be validated in order to allow them to access the new service. The ESR Systems Integration Team is currently exploring how they can assist in automatically validating a midwife or GP’s professional registration, thus enabling access to the digital service. Further updates will be provided as the project progresses..

A new online portal for Consultant activity

As part of the National Clinical Improvement Programme, the ESR Systems Integration Team has been working with NHS Improvement to build a new interface process. The National Clinical Improvement Programme (NCIP) aims to support clinicians with learning and continuous self-development with respect to the services they deliver. This programme will deliver an online portal that will provide Trust level activity, such as surgical and procedural outcomes data to NHS consultants in England. The interface will provide specific consultant details from ESR for participating Trusts to the NCIP system, which will facilitate the registration of consultants onto the Portal. The deployment includes a pilot phase scheduled for April 2019.

Doctors in Training

NHS Improvement, together with Health Education England, is overseeing a new national programme to improve the on-boarding and induction experience of Doctors in Training (DiT), when they rotate from one training post to the next. The programme will address national barriers to support local improvement and will sit alongside existing regional streamlining programmes.

The NHS ESR Team is supporting the programme to implement the Streamlined Doctors in Training Interface  (which sits between ESR and the Trainee Information System or TIS); and assisting on defining plans to roll out the Occupational Health (OH) Clearance (Bi-directional) Interface between ESR and third party OH systems.

Further information about the national programme will be made available in due course, and details of regional streamlining programmes, which include information about the rotation process for DiT, can be found at https://www.nhsemployers.org/your-workforce/recruit/streamlining-programme.