Agenda and minutes

There were no apologies.

There were no declarations of interest.

Non Gwilym would draft a note of the Management Board discussion for the staff news page.

The minutes of the 5 March Management Board meeting were agreed as a correct record. 

It was agreed that Chris Warner would Chair for the first term of the Leadership Board, commencing 16 April.

Manon Antoniazzi commended everyone, and in particular the Bill team, for their work to progress the Law Derived from the European Union (Wales) Bill through the legislation process efficiently and to a high standard, and for its successful debate in plenary on 21 March when it was agreed by the Assembly.

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.

The timeline had been developed to support better planning across the organisation on risks that were interrelated, capacity planning, budget strategy and strategic communications. The Board considered its value and how it might be used in future.

It was considered a good document to support collective discussions on risk and pressures, and would help to create a shared understanding if it could be presented in a suitable format for staff. The document would need to be updated in real time to be useful and may need some simplification and a possible solution would be a simplified version in Sharepoint with links to detail. 

Kathryn Hughes was thanked for her work in preparing and updating it.

The Board received the new Leadership Team/Executive Board combined work programme format. It was noted that the Capacity Review Phase II work would likely need to be regularly on the Leadership Team agenda for the next few months.

This was the last of the current format of Management Board meetings ahead of the change to Leadership Team and Executive Board.