Meetings

Management Board had undertaken their annual review of service plans and capacity needs for the following two years and received an overview from each Directorate. This was prefaced by the need to identify capacity requirements balanced with making savings to keep within the establishment maximum. This would rely on regular up to date finance and HR information, to be agile in making decisions about recruitment or changes to procedures, for example.

The main areas of pressure on capacity were on the Business Directorate, largely in relation to Assembly reform work and Brexit where specific skills and knowledge to support this work to the necessary level was needed for the period. The legal team were liaising with Welsh Government lawyers who had done a lot of groundwork on government reform and were willing to share, but with Assembly reform timescales now being ahead, more legal capacity in this area may be needed for a period of time, whether through recruitment, secondment or training.

Other areas of pressure were on Finance, where a senior post vacancy had been held for some time. The Resource Directorate had been looking at changes to Pierhead opening times to make better use of resources and financial savings to create capacity. Assembly reform would require a potential large contribution from the Resource Directorate to accommodate and support the changes.

Commission Services capacity pressures focussed around managing demand for Welsh learning. Voice to text technology was being scoped as potential for saving time on English editing.

The monthly Financial Management Report would include the up to date posts available after the RADs being considered.

Overall, the Board felt the needs identified were conservative and discussed how to meet them within the establishment maximum. It was agreed that Service Heads would consider a plan for the year, looking at posts across the organisation, to address which needs could be recruited to immediately; which would be phased in as vacancies arose, and priorities for current vacancies.

A costed future projects list would be shared with Heads and the prioritisation tool that had been used to prioritise projects could re-run based on organisational pressures.

ACTIONS:

HR to confirm post spaces available (not filled or allocated) and up to date vacancies. 

RADs to include an explanation of their effect on establishment and affordability long term.

Heads to prepare a plan and timescale for the identified posts needed, for discussion at the Leadership Team meeting on 16 April, to go to the Executive Board thereafter.

Discussion

Dave Tosh led an interactive session to discuss the main themes to come out of the report, which the Phase II Steering Group were focussing on. The Steering Group were undertaking a ‘deep dive’ into each theme to develop proposals for change or action and identify how this would be done.

The Board were asked to contribute their thoughts to help shape the deeper thinking on each theme. The Steering Group would be meeting again on 14 March.

Dave Tosh outlined progress on the Capacity review. Following the formal Survey undertaken in December - including discussions with Assembly Members, AMSS and Commission staff - ideas and suggestions for improvement were identified, together with a number of actions, to change the Commission’s organisational capacity and capability to improve the effective use of resources.

Dave presented the terms of reference for Phase II, and the plan for a steering group of senior representatives from service areas to facilitate delivery of an action plan, considering in detail the themes identified and feedback, and based on the priorities and what can be reasonably achieved.

Both the Assembly Commission and Chairs’ forum had been appraised of the Capacity Plan and were engaged with its aims and objectives. The Capacity Review report would also be provided to the Finance and Public Accounts Committees as part of the Commission’s response to their scrutiny of the accounts. Gareth Watts and Phil Turner were preparing a digest of individual’s feedback from the survey and some further qualitative information to add to the final report.

The Board discussed communication to staff and the importance of instilling confidence that their views and concerns were being listened to and how they could feed into the next stage of the review. All-staff meetings would be arranged for early March with more detailed discussions within services thereafter.

ACTIONS:

·                Non Gwilym and Lowri Williams to finalise a communication plan to be shared with Commissioners on 26 February and feed into an extended senior management meeting on 16 April on engagement strategy.

·                Two or three meetings for staff to be arranged for early March and Heads to ensure staff are enabled to attend.

·                Management Board to feedback to Dave Tosh on Phase II Terms of Reference.

·                An update on Phase II progress to be provided at the next meeting on 5 March.

Oral item

Dave Tosh thanked everyone for their input into the report, which would be presented to Commissioners on 22 January. They would be asked to ratify and support the four key themes identified in the review. Following this, the actions arising from the report would lead to the next phase of the review, looking at the implications of the findings and resources needed to take it forward, develop a realistic action plan and a way of delegating actions to deliver outcomes.

Other pressures on the organisation would need to be evident in the paper to help prioritisation, including those not yet defined but which would impact on resources, such as Brexit and the Assembly reform programme and some flexibility should be built in to allow for priorities to change. It was also important to reflect accurately the whole structure of the organisation and how all service areas supported the work of the Assembly.

A Steering group would be tasked to consider how to take forward the outcomes of the review with representation from each of the Directorates.

ACTIONS: Dave Tosh to develop the Terms of Reference for the Steering group for phase 2.

Oral item

Manon Antoniazzi provided an update on progress of the Capacity review. The conclusions were emerging with some high level principles, but there was still work to do to bridge the gap with practical guidance and actions. The draft report would be taken to the Commission meeting in January. It was not possible in the timescale to give a level of detail but it would build on what the review had identified and give shape to the high-level proposals.

The Directors would be meeting on 18 December to clarify the distribution of the established posts and start to articulate the proposals. A draft paper in progress for that meeting would be circulated to the Board for input.

Work was also progressing on budgetary models to put to the Finance and Public Accounts Committees when reporting on the capacity review, and the service planning process early in 2018 to plan for pressures and the resources needed to support them, would also inform that. The Capacity review was due to be published in February and the Board briefly discussed communication to staff and stakeholders.

Oral item

Gareth Watts and Phil Turner provided an update on the Capacity review.  The Board were asked to reflect on the emerging themes and topics, and to provide comment and challenge. It was anticipated that the recommendations of the review would be framed around these four themes.

The review was facilitating a good exercise in bringing together a lot of evidence that already existed, looking at data, discussing with stakeholders and benchmarking against other parliaments. Management Board discussed how the objectives of the report were being met, particularly around the setting of priorities and allocation of resources.

Initial findings would be reported to ACARAC on 27 November and to the Commission on 4 December.

Following the review in August by Management Board and Investment and Resources Board in preparation of the draft budget, which challenged and reduced the list of resource sought, a broader Capacity Review was being undertaken to evaluate whether the current allocation provides the most effective deployment of resources to deliver the Commission’s objectives.

Heads were updating their Service plans to clarify service priorities, impacts on other services and pressure points, which would contribute to the Capacity Review. The Directors provided a summary of their Directorates highlighting the challenges to delivering increasing service provision and new projects within the current financial and staff resource.

·           Assembly Resources Directorate – the high priority areas of focus were undertaking the capacity review; resources for security including cyber security; preparing for GDPR ahead of the May 2018 deadline; and the work force strategy and forthcoming pay negotiations, including increased HR involvement in tactical support for the Youth Parliament project, Official Languages Scheme, capacity, engagement and the wellbeing of staff. There were pressures on existing accommodation and potential future needs, and around corporate social responsibility, including sub-contractors, to ensure that suppliers were fair and equitable to their staff.

·           Commission Services Directorate – Members’ Business Service was experiencing increased complexity of Members’ HR needs relating to employer responsibilities, and support for the work of the Remuneration Board and their AMSS review. A light touch review of the Protocols office work was underway to ensure necessary procedures were up to date. With the establishment of the Parliamentary Venues and Visitor Service and the resulting financial efficiencies, effective collaboration with Communications and Estates and Facilities Management services and streamlining of procedures were now priorities. Priorities around increased translation needs, supporting the new requirements of the Official Languages Scheme and the roll out of the project to improve accessibility of the Record of Proceedings were also creating pressure on resources.

·           Assembly Business Directorate – alongside supporting increasing plenary and committee business, the Directorate had been preparing for constitutional change and the Wales Act 2017; developing procedures around the new financial powers; supporting the review of the Expert Panel on electoral reform and the outcomes due in November; and managing the impact and uncertainties of Brexit and providing advice to the Llywydd and committees on amendments to the UK Government’s Bill. Other priority areas were in supporting the ambitions of the Remuneration Board for Members’ needs, undertaking the Youth Parliament project and engagement work, the ongoing MySenedd programme, including the work to move to a digital parliament.

Management Board recognised the need to ensure staff across the organisation had the right skills to deliver the needs and ambitions of the Assembly, which was a priority for the HR strategy, but also to clarify the division of support provided to Members for Assembly and constituency work and establish the Commissioners’ priorities for what is necessary.

The Capacity Review would show the level of services provided and how they were used by Members.

ACTIONS:

·                Heads to submit individual service plans to Phil Turner, Business Analyst, to inform the review.

·                Structure the Highlight Report to the Commission to give more information on the levels of service and how used by Members; consider how to use communications more effectively (e.g. Chief Executive’s update).

Manon Antoniazzi explained that the Llywydd had asked her to formalise the capacity planning exercise currently underway in order to inform the Commission’s discussion of priorities in the Autumn.  This meeting would contribute to that process by reviewing the outcome of the service planning round in March, to scrutinise it robustly and test the arguments presented. Manon thanked everyone for their preparation for the meeting and noted that the documentation presented a comprehensive picture of what the organisation was doing, in line with the strategic objectives.

This would inform the next meeting of the Commission, when they would finalise the budget proposals to go before the Assembly in the autumn.  The organisation was currently undertaking a number of internal reviews across areas and projects, including efficiency and effectiveness.  These reviews would help to contextualise the budget and provide factual clarity.

Discussion

Lowri Williams followed by inviting the Board to contribute to a SWOT analysis of the capability needs for the future, which would help provide a focus for the coming months.

Ahead of the new financial year and at the mid-point between the Annual Capacity and Service Planning exercises, Management Board had dedicated the meeting to an interim Capacity Planning Review. The objectives of the review were to check on the progress of the decisions made last October and to discuss any new, essential, requirements that have arisen since, that require a decision before the next annual review.

The Directorates had prepared a note to present at the meeting of:

• progress made on appointing to those posts approved at the Annual Service and Capacity Planning exercises and where appointments have not yet been made, details of why and whether the case for the post remained valid;
• any new resource requirements, arising since the last annual capacity and service exercise and that need an immediate decision, accompanied by a supporting business case; and
• a view of any expected capacity challenges, looking forward to the next annual capacity and service exercise.

Claire Clancy provided the context for the meeting, to provide a backdrop to all the decisions on capacity planning, stating that it had been a year of continuous growth in the organisation. It had been possible so far to keep pace with demand but it was becoming more difficult, with new work emerging fast.

The next year’s budget would be tighter than in previous years and, whereas in the past it has been possible to deliver all that was planned, this year costs had been deliberately  moved to the next financial year to stay within the 2016-17 budget. The consequence of this would be a tightening of next year’s budget.

The IRB had decided not to do any work towards a supplementary budget in June but to consider that option again for January 2018.

In preparation of the Governance Statement for the Annual Report published in July, there was a heavy emphasis on competing pressures. It was, therefore, necessary to make prudent, efficient choices on the budget, ensuring they are robust and that we do not incur costs that are not absolutely necessary, and do consider alternative ways of meeting resource needs.

Claire asked the Directors to briefly outline the:

·                total new bid for resources;

·                the prioritisation, including drivers and evidence for why the new posts should be a high priority for the organisation; and 

·                suggestions for work that could be stopped, changed or delivered differently in order to release resources.

Commission Services

Craig Stephenson outlined the Commission Services Directorate bid. An Internal Communications role was currently being developed but was not yet part of the request. MBS was experiencing a peak in demand and consideration was being given to ways of working, particularly on HR matters, to accommodate the needs.

There had been a 15% increase in demand for simultaneous translation and the Record of Proceedings (RoP). Staff who were multi-skilled were being drawn in to support leaving fewer text translators and contractors were less cost effective and had some resilience problems. The proposal was for additional trainees to support text translation.

As a result of the RoP review there had been some efficiencies, with some activities stopped; additionally, staff were not being released for recruitment boards and there had been a slow down on secondments. There had been collaboration on the events work and a proposed structure that would have potential savings, where staff in reception, for example, would be used differently to enable more resource in bookings.

Business Directorate

Adrian Crompton outlined the posts and identified the top priorities:

·                Two G7 posts in Communications (News and Digital), which would result in only a relatively small additional cost;

·                An HEO post project managing the Legislative Software project and a post in STS supporting MySenedd equivalent to EO/TS;

·                Deputy Director post reporting to Director to provide support at senior level due to the amount of work needed on the reform agenda.

Efficiencies were being achieved through: reining back on new innovative initiatives; by being tougher on reviewing efficiencies and outcomes; and changing work patterns to give flexibility without losing effectiveness.

Further work was needed on supporting legislation. There had always been a dedicated team working on individual Member legislation, but there was also likely to be Commission-led legislation, together with Committee legislation, so there was a need to look at efficiencies. There were also new initiatives to resource that were driven by the aim for parliamentary excellence, with proactive engagement in communications and the development of networks with external research organisations.

Resources Directorate

Dave Tosh outlined the new bids, including those deemed essential:

·                AV technician needed to cover the new committee rooms, events and functions to supplement the two currently in the team;

·                Accommodation manager;

·                dedicated senior resource for recruitment;

·                temporary training and development post to give time to consider requirements.

An ICT restructure is due to take place, which may bring savings and efficiencies, with consideration across the Directorate of the use of flexi, leave and internal secondments to make efficiencies.

Summary

Claire Clancy summarised by commending the Board for doing a good job of presenting evidence as to why the resources were necessary that had been rigorously scrutinised within the Directorates. It would be necessary to make a compelling case in the new budget proposals to cover all of the resource requirements, with a clear evidence base. It would be necessary to demonstrate the need to invest in roles that would maintain the quality of services.

The case for the resources would need to highlight the levels of demand and pressures, and the determination to drive out inefficiencies with better collaboration and project management.

Due to lags in recruitment is may be possible to progress all the resource bids, but the work was so important to the future of Wales that it would be prudent to consider a supplementary budget if required in January and, if supported by a robust, evidence-based case, it was more likely to be supported by the Assembly.

It was also important to consider vulnerabilities of not resourcing appropriately or without a forward plan, such as the impact on staff motivation and morale.

Claire outlined her recommended actions for taking forward the capacity work, building it all into the budget, but possibly in a phased, prioritised way over a year, and

·                Work out the costs and implications for 2017-18;

·                Identify the uncertainties, and monitor until not uncertain;

·                Prepare for a supplementary budget well in advance;

·                Keep Suzy Davies, Commissioner, sighted on plans;

·                Be transparent with PAC and Finance Committee;

·                Keep workforce effective, possibly through the use of VES, recruitment to part-time or term-time posts and matching skills to tasks.

It will clearly be necessary to consider the constitutional, electoral reform, and Brexit work on the horizon. Work on the budget strategy for 2018-19 has started, but there may not be sufficient information on these to plan definitively, so scenario planning will provide Commissioners with options and assurance.

The Board continued its discussion from the meeting on 10 October, revisiting the posts not agreed at that meeting in order to explore further and consider timing and prioritisation. An updated spreadsheet was provided showing in-year and year-on-year costs to 2020 for the approved proposals and those to be revisited, to ascertain the impact of the proposals on the budget.

To add context, Nia Morgan provided an outline of the latest financial management report for October, following adjustments to the forecasts received from Service areas. Taking into account the effect of the capacity plans that had been approved on the committed expenditure, Nia asked Heads to provide accurate forecasts, early intelligence on commitments and a reduction in the occurrence of retrospective orders, to help manage the increased costs and mitigate any risk of overspend. Heads should let Nia know if any extra support was needed from the Finance team.

Craig had considered each plan and whether there had been sufficient consideration of bilingual capacity to deliver our services.  While he was content that all capacity planning documents had provided some focus on this, it would be important for Service Heads to consider regularly their bilingual capacity in the light of the ambitions in the draft Official Languages Scheme.

Dave Tosh provided the Board with an overview of the Security proposals having prioritised the requirements. In line with the aspiration to be world class but with a growing demand on the existing security team and the necessity for greater flexibility around the working day, the review had identified the need for a revised structure and additional posts, the cost of which would be offset to an extent by reduced overtime and agency costs. The Board supported the proposal and agreed that it should go to the Investment and Resourcing Board (IRB).

The Board also discussed ways to help the security team feel more a part of the organisation, for example, through secondments to other service areas and Heads arranging visits to their team meetings, in such a way to fit with the constraints of the security rotas, to update them on projects and activities. It was noted that the Welsh Language Tutor Manager was already considering meet and greet training for them ‘in situ’.

The remaining proposals were considered and it was agreed that the ICT, Strategic Transformation, Communications, Coordination Unit and Policy and Legislation Committee Service proposals would be taken forward to IRB for further scrutiny. Furthermore, the Board agreed that:

·         Sulafa Thomas would liaise with Non Gwilym, Lowri Williams and Anna Daniel to explore further the function and location of the internal communications proposal;

·         The agreed TS role in Coordination unit would be deployed wherever needed to provide support to other service areas;

·         Non Gwilym and Nia Morgan would look at the Communications requirements to assess the budget implications; Non to provide a structure chart with the request to IRB; and

·         Chris Warner and Siân Wilkins would attend IRB to discuss the requirements for support to committees.

The remaining posts were not required imminently and so put on hold to review as projects and anticipated activity progresses. The Board agreed there was no need to review the proposals that were not approved at the previous meeting.

The Board also briefly discussed:

·         the MySenedd programme and the support that would be needed to take ideas forward into deliverable projects. It was agreed to extend a marker around project management for the future;

·         the implications and pressures on teams who have people who are seconded; and

·         what was needed in terms of HR and accommodation to support the proposals.

Action: Heads to review the 2016-17 costs and confirm, or advise if anything could be delayed or needed to be added.

Claire Clancy thanked the Management Board members for the well-prepared work that underpinned the capacity planning process, which meant that full account, based on sound evidence, was being taken of the challenges that the Assembly was facing.

The Management Board meeting had been dedicated to workforce planning, as part of the annual capacity and resource planning cycle. The purpose was to discuss what each Directorate had identified as being the different or additional resources needed in the short, medium and longer term to deliver the strategic goals of the organisation in light of the significant challenges of the Fifth Assembly.

The aim of the meeting was to identify where it was possible to give a clear indication in principle for funding resources and challenge any areas of doubt.

As background, Nia Morgan provided an overview of the recently laid draft budget for 2017-18, which was based on an increase of inflation plus one percent. The Finance Committee were due to publish their report on the scrutiny of the budget on 21 November. Nia also outlined the financial impact of increasing staff numbers and the amount earmarked to projects already, meaning prioritisation was necessary.

Claire Clancy thanked the Board for their work in preparing and articulating the options and arguments, commenting on the strong sense of challenge that had already taken place prior to presentation at the meeting.

Management Board began the scrutiny of service area plans with the Business Directorate, with Adrian Crompton outlining the key challenges affecting resource needs, being: an increase in the number of committees; an extended business week; and the new Commission and LLywydd’s priorities.

Other factors affecting resources were the increased emphasis on engagement in committees, the MySenedd programme, which would impact working practices and skills across the organisation, and constitutional changes as a result of the Wales Bill and Brexit. Despite restructuring staffing and skills there was still a resource requirement, the immediate priorities being to support digital engagement and the new committee structure.

Dave Tosh followed by outlining the Resources Directorate’s identified requirements, in particular, the challenges for Security around the extended business week and committee schedule and the pressures on Estates to accommodate the number of committees. Other requirements would be driven by structural changes with a plan to reorient services over time.

Craig Stephenson outlined the priorities for Commission Services Directorate, with CAMS’ focus being on preparations for the new Chief Executive and providing resilience and good delivery of the LLywydd’s key messages. A driver for efficiency was the current review of Events, the outcome of which would be considered by the Investment and Resources Board (IRB) in November. TRS were seeing greater activity impacting particularly on interpretation.

Management Board then considered the full list of proposals and where the top priorities lay, agreeing 20 proposals to be taken forward to IRB. Two further posts in ICT were agreed in principle with a request to consider further how to spread the resource across the team. The posts not agreed would be revisited at the next meeting in order to explore further and consider timing and prioritisation. The extent to which proposals had taken adequate account of the Official Languages Scheme would also be considered then.

Management Board would need to be clear about future requirements over the next few months in order to prepare effectively for the following year’s budget.

ACTIONS:

• Nia Morgan to amend proposal spreadsheet to account for those that have received initial agreement;
• Dave Tosh to review the Security proposals and prioritise the requirement;
• Lowri Williams would review HR requirements in light of the proposals and consider what would best alleviate the pressures.

Management Board also agreed to discuss at the next meeting the issues raised by the mental health awareness session given by Time to Change Wales earlier that day (ACTION)

As part of the annual planning cycle, Management Board reviewed the Service plans for each service area in order to understand the range of activities planned for the rest of the Fourth Assembly. Dave Tosh complimented the authors for their work and asked the Board to consider how the service planning process was working and discuss:

·               whether there were obvious risks that stood out?

·               did the plans reflect the capacity planning process and outcomes?

·               how well were dependencies described and were they reflected in each other’s plans?

·               what were the opportunities, innovations and efficiencies coming out of them?

The overall view of the Board were that the plans were effective in translating the Commission’s goals into a tool for managing each service area, but might be improved further to make them more useful for the wider organisation.

The Board agreed that there was a need for more clarity around dependencies, that they linked clearly in each related service plan and were identified at an early stage in the planning cycle. A focussed exercise, similar to that undertaken for capacity planning, was suggested.

Actions: the outputs from the discussion would be collated and shared with Management Board after the meeting and would be built into the guidance for development of service plans.

• Brief presentations and challenge of predictions for future demands for staffing from:

-     Communications

-     ICT

-     Governance and Audit

-     Finance

-     HR

-     EFM/Security/FoH

·         Pressures on our capacity to deliver

These were identified as: project management skills; internal churn of staff and the ‘recess effect’; the flexibility of staff terms and conditions; the risk of failure to recruit; and the prioritisation and duplication of work.

Papers as distributed for Review and Planning Board meeting 24 Nov

• Financial Management Report                                         paper 3
• Investment and Resourcing Board update – 20 Nov / 1 Dec         oral

Our financial future

Nicola Callow outlined the Assembly’s financial position and the corporate investment fund available for investment in the 2015-16 and 2016-17 financial years. The figures had been compiled to release the maximum funding possible and used the latest staff forecast information available, taking into account the agreed funds for EFM projects and ICT’s development fund, but setting aside a ring-fenced budget for election related expenditure. Nicola also outlined assumptions that had been made including the effect of external factors, such as the future Spending Review and Employer National Insurance changes. The two biggest risks concerned the lack of contingency in the figures and the assumption that the 2016-17 budget would be the same cash figure as 2015-16.

A calculation had been made on the total costs of the additional resources that had been requested by each service area. The potential costs were compared with the available investment fund year on year. In theory, and based solely on those calculations, it looked as if it would be possible to afford the proposals put forward.  However, each proposal would need to be considered extremely carefully as spending on staffing would give far less flexibility for other investment spending opportunities in future.

The Investment and Resourcing Board were looking carefully at investment expenditure for 2014-15, in particular in ICT and Estates where there was considerable flexibility, to manage the financial position and ensure it comes in under budget at the end of March 2015. Nicola advised that a supplementary budget motion was being prepared to go to Plenary in February to adjust the Annually Managed Expenditure for the Members' Pension scheme.

Pressures on our ability to deliver

The Board discussed the pressures that were creating current pinch points on resources and those that would make a difference to the capacity to deliver in the longer term.

The current concerns related to the capacity of specific service areas: Strategic Transformation; Communications; Members’ Business Service; and Finance; business analysts; Legislation; and HR.  Factors that make a difference to our capacity to deliver were considered to include: project management skills; internal churn and availability of staff; recesses; failing to recruit when we try; and the prioritisation and duplication of work.

Human Resources had prepared a substantial document of management workforce data. The Board discussed the data and the pressures that influenced the different teams’ working patterns. The requirement to manage business need and progress projects over the summer recess, ensuring that staff were working effectively and efficiently through the year, had to be balanced with their health and wellbeing.

Service area proposals

The Board considered the specific proposals for additional resources from service areas.

Commission and Member Support

The CAMS service area is currently adequately staffed to provide its services in the most part but is undertaking a review of Members’ Business Services. This is likely lead to an increase in the staffing complement into the Fifth Assembly, due to the increasing responsibilities of the team. It was anticipated that additional resources would be needed incrementally over the following two years at TS, EO and/or HEO level. The Board agreed that MBS were a high priority area for increased resources.

Supporting legislative scrutiny

Chris Warner introduced the business case for supporting legislative scrutiny, which had recently been presented to the Investment and Resources Board. The volume of legislative scrutiny undertaken by the Assembly is increasing rapidly and is expected to remain at a significantly high level going into the Fifth Assembly. The increase includes more Bills, more complexity, more subordinate legislation and more Member engagement. This increase in legislation means a greater overlap in the passage of Bills through their various stages. The analysis of the combination of volume, complexity and overlap showed that, to maintain the current levels of professional support to manage the passage of legislation, additional resources would be required. 

Additionally, the Business Directorate restructure has meant that staff had been released to resource the Strategic Transformation team.

Heads of Service areas connected with the legislative process provided further information relating to their specific areas. Siân Wilkins outlined the successful pilot in the Chamber office of an in-house bilingual service. This, together with taking on responsibility for cross-party groups had produced more work than anticipated. That said, costs had been saved by removing the need for external translation.

Elisabeth Jones explained the rationale for the additional requirement in the Legal team, for example, the significantly increased workload to support Bills at all stages and the anticipated increase in the number of LCMs. There was a need to start recruiting now for one post due to the extended recruitment timeframe needed for legal posts. Kathryn Potter outlined that demand on the Research team was increasing, particularly for more specialised and complex work. Additional expertise and capacity was needed within the Finance and Statistics team in direct response to the amount of legislation being considered by the Finance Committee and further devolution of tax and fiscal powers.

Mair Parry-Jones explained that the work of the Translation team would also increase in order to meet the needs of the legislative programme. Within the review of the recording of proceedings, work was underway to identify each Members’ needs and to consider ways of intelligently prioritising translations.

Non Gwilym outlined the pressures on the Communications team, which included supporting committee work, embedding the youth engagement strategy and managing the increase in demand from Members to engage in the constituencies. Proposals had been put forward for immediate consideration to address business outreach, media and senior management arrangements.

The proposal across the Directorates (PLCS and CCS; Research; Communications; Legal) was for 21-22 posts: 16-17 permanent posts, including filling five or six existing vacant posts, and five fixed-term posts.

The Board considered the risk that the legislative programme may change. The programme had increased, for example, the Health Bill had been divided into two bills, but this had been factored into the plan where possible. The quality of legislation coming from Welsh Government was also driving some of the workload, however our input at the early stages could impact on the amount of work required at later stages of the legislative process.

Claire outlined that the recent work of the Remuneration Board had focussed on increasing resources to meet the growing responsibilities of the Assembly. Similarly, in order to deliver outstanding parliamentary support, including world class committees, service areas must be able to deliver quality and efficiency.

In conclusion, the Board agreed to the thrust of the proposals for supporting work on the legislative programme as it was a high priority. Individual cases should be taken to Investment and Resources Board as soon as possible, taking a phased approach to match demand.

Strategic Transformation

The Strategic Transformation service has been in place since June 2013, during which the team has seen substantial churn of staff. Anna Daniel advised that the team needed additional resource for the constitutional change and Remuneration Board work, which are taking precedence at present. The pressures of these critical areas of work, as well as developing the programme of transformation and prioritisation, have meant that time for strategic thinking has been squeezed. The service has been piloting a programme approach which is currently being reviewed, and further consideration of the expectations of the service are needed.

The Board felt that the Strategic Transformation service had produced a positive change in the organisation, in particular having a team able to respond actively to important work like constitutional change. It was agreed efforts should focus on the delivery aspects of constitutional change while further consideration is given to the programme side.

The Board agreed the proposal for a TS post to be made permanent in order to provide much needed admin support to the work of the team.

Research

The Board agreed to Kathryn Potter’s request for a full time temporary post to undertake GIS/mapping work for Assembly Members (the work is currently being undertaken on an a two day a week secondment basis).

Communications

Non Gwilym provided an overview of the structure of the Communications team that was needed to deliver the priorities identified by the Commissioners and where the points of pressure were, in particular as a result of the large number of secondments from the team. There was strong support for the proposal and the Board agreed in principle that it was necessary to get the structure right, with the emphasis on prioritisation and managing the strong appetite in the organisation for the team's work. It was agreed a business case should be put to the Investment and Resourcing Board (IRB) as soon as possible, covering the ongoing management and review of priorities and delivery by staff.

ICT

Bedwyr Jones outlined the three posts that had already been agreed by IRB and that would be funded through the ICT investment fund. The Board then discussed the proposals for a new specialist desktop service engineer to provide support on Apple Mac. The proposal was agreed in principle with the proviso that the business case had sufficient evidence that the service could not be provided within current resources and that an effective skills exchange was put in place within the team.

The Board was also supportive of the up-skilling of the service desk support.

Governance and Audit

Virginia Hawkins advised the Board that, on the whole, the team was in a stable, resilient position, but there was a concern around the increasing workload of the business analysts and the difficulties around predicting forthcoming priorities. The Board recognised the benefit of their work in assisting all service areas to solve capacity and prioritisation pressures and agreed the proposal.

Finance

Nicola Callow outlined the changes that were to take place in Finance due to a retirement and the proposed changes to the team structure. These included a new Team Support (TS) role, to be trained with a view to a future move or progression when needed.

A new post of Head of Finance was proposed to free the Director of Finance from daily operational management matters.

Management Board agreed that the post of Head of Finance was critical to build resilience in the team and enable pace and flexibility to respond to issues at a senior level. The TS post was also agreed and Nicola was asked to ensure a case articulating the business needs would go to IRB as soon as possible.

Estates and Facilities Management / Security / FoH

Mike Snook advised the Board that, although there was no proposal for additional resources, there were some issues of capacity and some work was being undertaken with the Business Analysts and HR to explore the best use of staff resources in the Security team. Also, as a result of an audit being undertaken on vetting, a business case for a post to be made permanent would be presented to IRB.

The Board discussed the opening hours in the Senedd, in particular during quiet times of the year, and whether these should be reviewed.

Human Resources

Lowri outlined the business pressures on HR and that almost half the team were currently either fixed term, temporary or acting up. Some changes had already been implemented in the team in order to build in more resilience. However, there was a need for a dedicated SEO role on the HR/Payroll project and redesign of reward, a 12 month graduate post to review all policies or backfill to fulfil that task and a three month post to support the Remuneration Board.

Following discussion of the essential support function that HR provided to the other service areas, the Board agreed the proposals and asked that ICT assist HR to look at their technological requirements.

Conclusions

As a result of the discussions it was agreed that Nicola Callow would draw together all the proposals to determine overall costs and consequences. In the meantime, those proposals that were considered of high importance should be taken forward to IRB, immediately.

It was suggested that the overtime and flexi package policies should be reviewed to ensure the principles support each other.

It was acknowledged that there were different levels of turnover in different service areas, and that service-specific approaches would be required.

Project management and change management capability

The Board agreed that a programme of change management development opportunities should be developed, open to staff at all levels across the organisation who need to manage change, to equip them with the skills and tools to deliver that change effectively.

Dave Tosh would also consider a sustainable plan for developing and growing staff in these specific areas (PM, SRO, and Change) to ensure we have the skilled staff we need. This also included reviewing how Business Analyst resources are allocated.

Recesses

The different working patterns of different service areas make it challenging to get people together at the same time to work as multi-disciplinary teams. It was agreed that Directors and Heads of Service should make sure that interdependencies across their teams were mapped out well in advance and that plans were put in place to ensure corporate priorities are delivered.