5. LG received a briefing from MRO on upcoming media-related issues.

Transcription

1 LEADERSHIP GROUP MINUTES OF MEETING HELD ON MONDAY 25 FEBRUARY 2013, 09:30AM, Q1.04 Present: Paul Grice (Chair) Alan Balharrie Colin Chisholm Derek Croll Susan Duffy Stewart Gilfillan Michelle Hegarty Ken Hughes David McGill Bill Thomson Lynda Towers In Attendance: Jane McEwan (item 4) Judith Proudfoot (item 5) Billy McLaren (item 5) Miranda Jackson (items 5-8) Liz White (items 5-8) Jake Fenton (item 6) Lis Craig (items 7 & 8) Dan Sutton (items 7 & 8) Tommy Lynch (item 9) Janet Foster (items 9-13) Jon Orr (items 9-13) Sam Currie (items 9-13) Andy Munro (item 10) Lisa Marie Miller (item 11) Becky Thomson (item 11) Jaclyn Kaye Alli Williams (Secretary) 1. Apologies were received from Jerry Headley. Item 1: Minutes of LG Meeting: Monday 28 January The minutes of the meeting were approved. Item 2: Matters Arising 3. None. Item 3: Constitutional Issues Advisory Group (CIAG) Update 4. LG received an update on CIAG. Item 4: MRO Update 5. LG received a briefing from MRO on upcoming media-related issues. 1

2 6. It was noted that planning was underway for the next Parliament Day scheduled to take place in Stornoway on Friday 15 March. Item 5: SPCB Agenda (LG (2013) Paper 007) 7. LG noted some changes to the SPCB agenda for Wednesday 6 March and the forward plan for the remainder of the year. Item 6: Health & Safety Leadership (LG (2013) Paper 008) 8. A recent internal audit had confirmed that the SPCB had appropriate H&S management arrangements in place to cover key risks and meet legal requirements. Derek and Jake Fenton, H&S Adviser, presented a paper outlining possible further improvements to reflect recommendations from the audit as well as issues raised at a recent H&S briefing for LG members. 9. LG agreed that it should have a collective role in setting direction for the H&S management system and in approving future audit/risk assessment programmes. It asked that the document setting out H&S responsibilities be amended to reflect this collective responsibility, while still making clear individual responsibilities, including those of Stewart as strategic lead for H&S, the responsibilities of Group Heads for operational H&S in their area and the role of the H&S Committee. 10. It also agreed that a new H&S audit process should be incorporated into the H&S management arrangements. To free up time for the H&S Adviser to lead this work, Group Heads responsibility for risk assessments should be strengthened in the responsibilities document. 11. A summary report covering both H&S and fire safety should be presented to LG annually, with the first of these coming to the meeting in June Prior to this, Derek, as chair of the H&S Committee, should consider whether there was a continued need for a separate Fire Safety Committee or whether the issues covered by this group could be effectively dealt with by the H&S Committee. Action: Derek Croll/Jake Fenton Item 7: Secondary Financial Systems Review and Project Proposal (LG (2013) Paper 009) 12. One of the recommendations from the Finance Office review had been to look at the potential for improving the management of financial information by individual offices. Having contacted offices across the organisation, it was clear that most office maintained secondary financial systems as back-up to the primary financial system (SEAS). 13. LG agreed that, in principle, it would be good to standardise secondary reporting systems to improve regularity, reliability and quality of forecasting information and asked the Finance Office to: 2

3 o work with offices to develop a template that all teams could use to monitor financial information not held on SEAS; o work with the Scottish Government to get further improvements to meet SPCB needs; and o report back to LG in April/May on the consultations with offices and views on the resulting feasibility or otherwise of pursuing the project to the next stage. The report to LG should include more accurate costings for taking the project forward. Action: Derek Croll/Lis Craig/Dan Sutton 14. Further work would only be endorsed if LG could be assured that a standard template would meet the needs of offices and not lead to the creation of tertiary reporting systems. 15. Should approval be given by LG for the project to continue to the stage of piloting the template, it was agreed that further consideration should then be given to which areas to include in the pilot to ensure that it was sufficiently representative. 16. It was noted that the project proposal had not contained a range of options for improving financial reporting, nor a remit for the project. Derek agreed to liaise with the Projects and Best Value Manager to make sure that guidance was produced to assist those developing review proposals. Action: Derek Croll Item 8: Finance Report Period 10 (LG (2013) Paper 010) 17. LG approved the period 10 report for onward submission to the SPCB, subject to one minor amendment. 18. Derek reported that offices would be contacted soon to begin consideration of budget phasing for 2013/14. Item 9: Business Continuity Next Steps (LG (2013) Paper 011) 19. Tommy Lynch, Business Continuity Manager, presented a paper proposing a 2-year programme for business continuity (BC) at the Parliament. 20. LG approved the programme, including: o Changes to incident management such as large, cross-team exercises being run once a year backed-up by smaller exercises used to practice particular skills for one or two teams per exercise; o Training for LG (and subsequently other incident team members) on crisis leadership; o Workshops to identify requirements for delivering emergency plenary, emergency committee meetings and normal business; o Greater integration of BC with both risk management and project delivery; 3

4 o Increased certainty that workarounds identified by offices could deliver required services; and o Greater clarity on services that could be delivered from the IT disaster recovery site. 21. Once the detailed programme had been signed-off by the Business Continuity Advisory Panel, updates on overall progress would be provided to LG quarterly. Action: Tommy Lynch 22. LG also agreed to make sure all staff completed the mandatory BC e- learning course before end March Item 10: Internal Audit Plan (LG (2013) Paper 012) Action: Leadership Group 23. LG considered the draft internal audit plan for and endorsed the plan for submission to the Advisory Audit Board subject to: Further consideration with Stewart on the length of time needed for the scheduled audit of environmental management; and Agreeing with Derek the appropriate timing for an audit of Government procurement cards. Action: Andy Munro 24. Andy Munro agreed to share the scope and objectives for the best value review of efficiency prior to commencing work on this. Action: Andy Munro Item 11: Attendance Management Follow-up and Interim Report (LG (2013) Paper 013) 25. LG noted an HR update on the management of SPS staff attendance. A paper providing data for the full reporting year would be presented to LG in May but interim data indicated that absence levels were below the corporate target. LG encouraged HR to continue with its practice of working in partnership with line management to manage absence effectively, welcomed the other steps the HR Office had taken to improve its processes in this area and endorsed the further actions being proposed. 26. LG agreed that interim reports half way through the reporting year i.e. November should continue to be brought to it so that any issues identified could be addressed well before the end of the year. It asked that future reports highlight any trends needing detailed consideration, including any recommendations for action as well as comparative data for other organisations. Action: Colin Chisholm, Becky Thomson, Lisa Marie Miller 4

5 27. LG approved a corporate target of 6.8 working days lost per employee for , in line with the CIPD Annual Survey report Item 12: Communication Plan 28. LG agreed which items on the agenda were to be included in the communication briefing for staff. Item 13: Any Other Business 29. None. Action: Secretariat Leadership Group Secretariat February