Meeting Venue:
Conference Room 4B - Tŷ Hywel
Meeting date: Thursday, 2 February 2017
Meeting
time: 11.00 -
12.30
|
Category |
Names |
|
Management Board Members: |
Claire Clancy, Chief Executive & Clerk of the Assembly Adrian Crompton, Director of Assembly Business Anna Daniel, Head of Strategic Transformation Non Gwilym, Head of Communications Elisabeth Jones, Chief Legal Adviser Nia Morgan, Director of Finance Mair Parry-Jones, Head of Translation and Reporting Service Mark Neilson, Head of ICT and Broadcasting Kathryn Potter, Head of Research Service Matthew Richards, Head of Legal Services Craig Stephenson, Director of Commission Services Sulafa Thomas, Head of Commission and Member Support Dave Tosh, Director of Resources Christopher Warner, Head of Policy and Legislation Committee Service Gareth Watts, Acting Head of Governance and Audit Siân Wilkins, Head of Chamber and Committee Service Lowri Williams, Head of Human Resources |
|
Management Board Staff: |
Liz Jardine (Secretariat)
|
|
Others in attendance: |
There were no apologies.
There were no declarations of interest.
Kathryn Potter would draft a note of the Management Board discussion for the news page.
The minutes of the 12 January Management Board meeting were agreed with the clarification to MySenedd actions, that Non Gwilym would be a standing invitee to the MySenedd Board to improve integration with Communications service planning.
The Board welcomed Robin Parkin and Yvonne Jennings to the meeting to demonstrate the new finance system called Microsoft Dynamics NAV. This would replace the current system at the beginning of April 2017. The system would come with bilingual functionality and provide an integrated self-service reporting feature, being able to drill down into committed spend. A second package of reporting would be available in phase II of release. Reconciled transactional data from the current system would be imported to retain past information and enable reporting on long term trends.
As well as being an easier and better system to use, with efficiency features such as an automated invoice capturing system and electronic remittances, it would mean service areas could access information themselves, enabling the Finance team to change their focus from manual tasks to analysis and support.
The project is currently user acceptance testing with training of service area finance staff in March, close to when they need to use the system, and individually with teams to meet their specific needs.
Claire Clancy first noted, with appreciation, that the Finance Management Report for January 2017 had been produced on 1 February. Nia Morgan then presented the Board with expenditure details for the current financial year and for 2017-18.
Nia outlined the current budgetary pressures and actions to mitigate the risks at year end, and those pressures going forward.
In relation to 2017-18 budget, the Investment and Resourcing Board would be scrutinising several large and variable costs, with a view to prioritising and ascertaining where cost efficiencies could be made and the impact of capacity planning. IRB had agreed not to submit a supplementary budget this year, to provide time to give more accuracy to figures that were estimated at present.
ACTIONS: Service Heads were asked to
· keep the budget team informed of any day to day changes to their forecast spend for the current year to ensure that informed decisions could be made regarding planned project expenditure.
· provide Directors with information on items earmarked for inclusion in the 2017-18 budget, in terms of timing, priority and risk associated with not proceeding.
The Commission would be considering the 2017-18 budget at a future meeting.
Management Board reviewed the Assembly’s existing and emerging corporate risks. The risk register reflected the current status of risks and the changes agreed at 12 December 2016 meeting. These were agreed but an update was requested on designation of the estate in terms of security.
The Board agreed the recommendations to
· leave the risk around changing the name of the Assembly on the corporate register, but with a control around being proactive about encouraging those who were positive about the changes to have their voices heard;
· add Cyber threats to the corporate register;
· add reputational risks around financial pressures to the corporate register but reworded to be broader than the reform programme;
· remove risk on Wales Bill “settlement” from the corporate register and manage risks at service level.
· add accommodation proposals to the corporate register. This would also be receiving a critical examination at the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee on 6 February.
Lowri Williams presented the quarterly HR Dashboard, which provided a range of information on staffing levels and absence and provided the Board with an overview of the organisation and the opportunity to identify any issues.
Following the capacity planning process and the VES exercise, the per capita number had dropped in May 2016 but had subsequently increased as expected, with churn reducing. Absence had improved although there was a spike in January, reflecting last year’s spike in February.
Further narrative would be added to the dashboard to provide greater clarity of the data.
There would be a further capacity planning round in March and the Service Heads were asked to provide Nia Morgan with detail of any items that would impact on costs. Lowri Williams and Gareth Watts would provide information to prepare for the process shortly.
The next meeting would be the Governance Statement challenge session on 6 February, and would be attended by Hugh Widdis, one of the Assembly’s Independent Advisers.