Scottish Government

SB(07)4th Conclusions

STRATEGIC BOARD MEETING

22 FEBRUARY 2007

Agenda item 1: Minutes and matters arising

1. The minutes of the previous meeting (SB(07)3rd conclusions) were formally agreed for publication, subject to amending paragraph 5 to record the strong concerns which had been expressed about the signal that a move away from a Departmental control regime would send to bodies such as Health Boards, which were required by the Executive to live within their resources.

2. Nicky Munro commended the paper on Top Team effectiveness which had been submitted on behalf of the Leadership Group, and reflected a useful session with McKinsey & Co on what makes Boards effective. The Board agreed to use the paper as a basis for reflecting on its own aspirations and performance, and to do so when reviewing the agreed set of leadership behaviours in March. (Action: Secretariat)

3. Owen Kelly presented paper SB(07)07 which advised on a narrative for the Executive; how to explain the structures created to follow-up on Taking Stock, and how to communicate with staff about the Board's work and progress.

4. Owen proposed a possible narrative which, appropriately personalised, could be used to explain the distinctive nature of working for the government of Scotland and the expectations which shape and drive that work. This was not intended to be a script as such, but a set of messages which, once agreed, could form the foundation for communications activity, and be adapted to a variety of purposes when the Executive required to talk about itself, rather than about Ministers or their programme.

5. The following points were made in the course of the discussion:

• The narrative might not be appropriate for staff in all Executive Agencies, but generally speaking it should be capable of being adapted to fit local circumstances, while retaining the key messages;
• Aspects of the role which might be more clearly stressed in the narrative included: connectivity and the positioning of the Executive within the wider Scottish public sector; the distinctive ethical framework of central government; the change story of the Executive from devolution to 2007 and beyond, and the role of civil servants as custodians of the longer term and bigger picture;
• The 2 paramount messages were about taking pride in a successful organisation which has a commitment to getting things done, and highlighting those things about the Executive's ethos which made it distinctive;
• It was important that the narrative was felt to be authentic by people throughout the organisation;
• For some purposes, it would be useful to distil the narrative into some key words which could be widely used and would act as a simple expression of what the Executive was about;
• Establishing this narrative within the organisation would be a long term process, and an even longer term one for it to be acknowledged and accepted outwith the Executive. The strategy must be underpinned by consistent and imaginative use of the agreed language at senior levels, utilising all opportunities to reinforce it from recruitment and induction through to every day management communications.

6. The Board agreed:

• That further work should be done to identify the communication strategy that would flow from the broad narrative which had been endorsed by the Board (Action: Owen Kelly);
• That a monthly communication to staff should provide an update on the Board's activities and progress against the Taking Stock change programme in particular, and that a draft of the first such communication should be circulated shortly, highlighting achievements in the change programme to date (Action Owen Kelly and Kate Vincent);
• That Owen Kelly should write to all members of the SCS in the terms proposed, subject to agreed amendments, highlighting where to access relevant information about the activities of the current structure (Action Owen Kelly and Sarah Davidson);
• That Owen Kelly, in his role as Director of Communications, should be the usual channel for communications from the Board, other than on occasions when it was appropriate for a message to come directly from the Permanent Secretary.

7. David Middleton and Alisdair McIntosh presented paper SB(07)08, which outlined work under way to review the functions of central teams in the Executive in order to improve the effectiveness of challenge and monitoring. The purpose of the discussion was to give the Board an opportunity to validate the scope of the work, and to approve the proposed next steps.

8. The team made a number of introductory points: challenge must be viewed and experienced as a positive intervention, supporting the integrated delivery of policy; it was taken as a given that there was concern about the existing challenge capacity within the organisation; and, given the nature of the work, it was possible that issues might emerge in relation to the current location and relationship of the central teams. In addition, achieving effective challenge would require the promotion of a set of cultures and behaviours across the organisation. The ongoing work would examine whether the current systems and processes supported or frustrated challenge and there were obvious links to the planning and performance management systems being reviewed elsewhere. While it was too early to know what the conclusions of the review would be, these were likely to require a clear statement of roles and responsibilities around challenge; an understanding of the various levels at which challenge could occur; clarity about the landscape of challenge arenas, and the timetable for challenge.

9. The following points were made in the course of the discussion:

• It was helpful to approach an examination of challenge from the viewpoint of what was necessary to ensure effective delivery of Ministers' programme, and what information needed to be available to the Strategic Board in order to play its role of overall scrutiny and driving delivery;
• The Strategic Platform had been a significant experiment with a sophisticated and innovative form of challenge, encapsulating challenge on strategic; policy; evidence; efficiency and value for money grounds;
• It would be helpful for the next stage of the work to draw out the following points and to be clear about the accompanying language: the cultural issue of seeing challenge as support; the accountability inherent in challenge; the circumstances and point at which challenge is escalated, and the relationship to performance management;
• The communications function could present a form of challenge through posing the question, "what do you mean?";
• Given other pressures on the organisation, any new system or process should be designed with the capacity of teams in mind. The review should consider what it is that a team needs from the organisation in order to be tasked clearly at the outset and thereafter to be monitored with the minimum of intervention in normal circumstances;
• Challenge should support, rather than constrain, innovation;
• Some challenge mechanisms would be constant, but others might be conducted in an intensive way at appropriate intervals, (eg the Strategic Audit or Futures work). In the latter case, resources should be redeployed between times as appropriate;
• The role of Ministers in the challenge system was important. There were potentially distinct roles for the FM, DFM and the Finance Ministers, depending on how Ministers wished to conduct challenge within and across portfolios. The Minister for Parliamentary Business and the Law Officers were already engaged in an internal challenge process with colleagues to ensure delivery of the legislative programme;
• Once an effective and standardised Business Planning system was in place across the organisation, the use of the associated performance management information would of itself introduce an effective challenge mechanism.

10. The Board commended the work to date as a very strong basis for the review, and reiterated their support for the remainder of the task. Specifically, the Board agreed that:

• The review should be complete and reported to the Board by the end of March; and
• That the work being undertaken by the Delivery Group on challenge should be integrated into the review being led by Alisdair McIntosh and David Middleton to ensure that there would only be one piece of work at the conclusion ( Action: Kevin Woods and Kate Vincent).

11. The Board agreed in principle that a common scoring system should be applied in considering the applications of those seeking early release. The detail of the system would be discussed further between the Permanent Secretary and the Senior Staff team. ( Action: the Permanent Secretary).

Any Other Business

12. The Board agreed that it would have been helpful to have had a strategic discussion about the aims and objectives of the SCS reward system prior to the issue of the coming year's reward framework. It was agreed that the opportunity to have that discussion in some form or other should be explored as a matter of urgency. (Action: Secretariat).

Date of next meeting

13. Thursday 8 March at 0830.

Cabinet Secretariat

February 2007