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The Assembly Commission |
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Meeting Venue: |
Presiding Officer’s office, 4th floor - Ty Hywel |
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Meeting date: |
Thursday, 28 February 2013 |
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Meeting time: |
10: - 12:30 |
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Minutes: AC(4)2013(4) |
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Committee Members: |
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Rosemary Butler (Chair) Peter Black Angela Burns |
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Officials present: |
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Claire Clancy, Chief Executive & Clerk of the Assembly (Official) Dave Tosh, Director of Information and Communications Technology (Official) Craig Stephenson, Principal Private Secretary to the Presiding Officer (Official) Carys Evans, Principal Commission Secretary (Official)
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Others in attendance: |
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David Melding, Deputy Presiding Officer Mair Barnes, Independent Adviser
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1. Introduction
1(i) Introduction and apologies
Apologies were received from Sandy Mewies AM and Rhodri Glyn Thomas AM.
1(ii) Declarations of interest
There were no declarations of interest.
1(iii) Minutes of the previous meeting
The minutes were agreed subject to an amendment on item 3.
2. Reporting Corporate Performance
During its scrutiny of the Commission budget, the Finance Committee recommended that the Commission should publish annual performance indicators. Commissioners discussed a range of proposed indicators that would demonstrate progress being made towards the Commission’s Strategic Goals. These would be published regularly and were likely to evolve and be refined over time.
Commissioners agreed that the indicators would need to be qualitative as well as quantitative, and that progress against targets would be shown, where appropriate. Benchmarking against other organisations would also demonstrate the extent to which progress was being made, although this would not be possible across all areas.
Emphasis was placed on the need to include indicators that were relevant to the performance of the Commission. Changes to the proposals in the paper were suggested in the following areas:
· Bilingual services and increase in the use of Welsh;
· Public engagement through the website, Senedd TV and social media;
· Media coverage inside and outside Wales, including through non-traditional media outlets;
· Links with international representatives;
· Levels of engagement with civic society;
· Improved engagement with hard to reach groups;
· Risk management;
· User satisfaction with ICT.
It was agreed that the Finance Committee would be consulted on the performance indicators.
Action: Management Board to revise the indicators.
3. ICT Progress and Performance Report
Progress had been made in a number of areas since the last update to the Commission at the end of January 2013. These included:
- The new transition manager had taken up his post and would be responsible for the Exit Management Plan that would underpin the transition from the Atos contract;
- Some Members had been trialling the use of the mod.gov app for Committee and Plenary papers;
- The use of outlook web access had been extended to include a wider range of devices providing more convenience for users;
- A number of information management sessions had been arranged for Members and their staff to raise awareness of their duties in relation to Data Protection.
A further update would be made available at the Commission’s next performance meeting.
4. Financial Performance Update 2012-13
Commissioners received an update on the budget for 2012-13, as at the end of January 2013. The value for money target of £470k for the year had been achieved and was expected to increase a little further by the year end. It was also likely that there would be an underspend of approximately £0.3-0.4 million at the end of the financial year, but that this was well within the 1% target. A contingency of £175k had been made for the Members’ Pension Provision which would increase the underspend if not required.
Commissioners discussed the way in which the monthly forecast outturns were used by the Management and Investment Boards to make effective use of the Commission’s total available budget, and commented that these financial management processes had been well-managed during the current financial year.
5. Framework for the Assembly Commission annual report and statement of account 2012-13
A proposed outline for the Annual Report was presented to the Commission for consideration. The framework was agreed.
Action: Officials to proceed with the work on the report.
6. Feedback from 21 February Audit Committee
Angela Burns AM provided an oral update on the Assembly Commission Audit Committee meeting that had been held the previous week. The Committee had discussed the Value for Money programme and the efficiency savings that had been achieved, and were supportive of the Commission’s ongoing work in this area, noting that a workshop for relevant staff had been arranged to continue to strengthen this work.
Audit Committee had questioned the ‘low’ residual risk rating for the risk relating to future ICT changes.
Commissioners noted that Lynne Flux and Ian Summers would be leaving the Assembly and expressed their thanks for their valuable and high quality work on governance and audit.
7. Commissioner updates
8. Any other business
There were no other items of business.
Secretariat
February2013