Agenda and minutes

A welcome was given to Sulafa Thomas, who was attending the meeting to present draft Commission papers on the transition to the Fifth Assembly.

Apologies were received from Nicola Callow (Head of Finance).

There were no declarations of interest.

Anna Daniel would draft a note of the Management Board discussion for the news page.

The minutes of 23 March meeting were agreed as a correct record.

Management Board were asked to comment on the draft paper that would be presented to Commissioners at their meeting on 25 June. The purpose was for decisions to be taken on dissolution matters, including the use of Commission resources and on outplacement services for Members and their staff.  The paper also provided an update on the public awareness campaign, which had been agreed to in principle at their meeting in January.

The Board made recommendations on the draft, including that:

·                the covering paper should more clearly set out statutory functions and timeline;

·                Appendix 1 - should include an outline of what happened at the last dissolution in relation to resources, but the annex on the full legal position was not necessary;

·                Appendix 2 - Vote 16 could be revised as a separate paper as decisions had been made in principle already; and

·                Appendix 3 - risks could be strengthened and the range of options appropriate for Members separated from those for their staff.

A discussion on the transition project work would also be taking place at the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee on 8 June. It was noted that a dashboard would be provided at the next Management Board meeting, to update the Board on progress, key risks and issues for all strands of the project.

Action: Management Board members to consider scenario planning for the period of dissolution from April to September, to make best use of staff resources, including where there are inter-dependencies.

Selina Moyo (Black Minority Ethnic Action Plan Coordinator, HR) and Razaque Roap (BME Staff Network Chair) were welcomed to the meeting to update the Board on activities and progress on the BME Action Plan and further recommendations in light of their experiences.

They presented a report to the Board and Selina provided an overview highlighting the barriers to progress in increasing diversity of the workforce. These included the need for greater awareness, frequent internal advertising of posts and that those advertised externally were at team support level.

The project was seen as a starting point for ongoing work. There had been some success engaging with BME communities who wanted to know more. Internally, BME staff had not felt that the Assembly wanted to engage with them or to encourage their progress. However, since the implementation of the action plan a change had started to take place.

The following recommendations were made:

·                HR to continue working on recruitment policies to link these with the equalities duties;

·                external engagement needed to continue; and

·                line managers needed more understanding of diversity issues.

Razaque updated the Board on the work of the BME Staff Network, which was established two years ago. Dave Tosh had been appointed to champion the activities and progress of the BME Action Plan. They had networked with other organisations to discuss common issues and had arranged a BME networking day on 24 June, hosted by the Assembly and sponsored by the Presiding Officer. The vision was to have an All-Wales BME forum led by the Assembly.

It had been found that BME staff felt a lack of motivation and confidence to ask for development opportunities, and social barriers created isolation. The recommendations to help overcome these issues included:

·                organisational KPIs and scorecards to monitor recruitment;

·                consideration of recognition awards for BME staff to boost morale;

·                more transparency in selection and recruitment;

·                diversity training for line managers; and

·                talent programmes and skills registers to recognise and develop skills such as languages.

The aim was to make the Assembly an employer of choice for BME staff and to be an exemplar to other public sector bodies. The Management Board agreed the following action, in order to progress the plan and embed practices into the culture of the organisation:

·                the Equalities team to work with HR to determine roles;

·                options for awards and benchmarking to be considered; and

·                the Communications team to work with HR and the Network to maintain the dialogue with external organisations.

The Management Board thanked Selina and Razaque for sharing their experience and recommendations and complimented them on the report presented.

The Board carried out their periodic review of the Corporate Risk Register and whether there were any emerging risks of corporate significance.

The Board agreed to remove the Business Continuity risk, following further progress and the successful continuity exercise undertaken in April. The risks would continue to be managed through the Business Continuity Management System.

It was also agreed to remove the risk around the use of social media due to the controls put in place. This risk would be managed at service level.

The Board also considered the ‘static’ risks (those that were always facing the Assembly but require a longer term focus). It was noted that the Board needed to ensure the static risks and issues had sufficient prominence.

Actions: It was agreed that when corporate risk was discussed next, it would be placed first on the agenda to allow for a full review, with a focus on where risks should be managed and which classified as issues.

Service plans – the plans would be reviewed at the meeting on 15 June and Dave Tosh advised Heads that more work was needed on identification of dependencies and descriptions of risks over the timescale of the plans.

The next meeting of the Management Board would be held on 15 June.