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.
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