SB(08)9th Conclusions
MEETING OF THE SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT STRATEGIC BOARD: HELD ON THURSDAY, 26 JUNE 2008
Present
Sir John Elvidge KCB (chair)
Robert Gordon CB
Philip Rycroft
Richard Wakeford
Kevin Woods
David Fisher
Bill Bound
Apologies: Andrew Goudie
In Attendance
Bruce Robinson, Permanent Secretary, Northern Ireland Civil Service
Paul Gray (part of meeting only)
Norman McFadyen
Alyson Stafford
Angiolina Foster
Sarah Davidson
Andrew Watson
Elspeth Hough
Yvonne Strachan (For Agenda Item 2 only)
Lesley Fraser and Maureen Bruce (For Agenda Item 4 only)
Jim Mackinnon and Fiona Simpson (For Agenda Item 5 only)
Alistair Brown (For Agenda Item 7 only)
Ken Thomson, Gerald Byrne and Donald Cameron (For Agenda Item 8 only)
Clive Martlew, Thea Teale and Fiona Neep (For Agenda Item 9 only)
Agenda Item 1: Minutes and Matters Arising
1. The Permanent Secretary welcomed the observers and Bruce Robinson, the new Permanent Secretary of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, to the meeting. The Strategic Board noted the minutes of the meeting held on 15 May; and noted that, since that meeting, David Thomson, from the Department of Finance and Personnel in the Northern Ireland Civil Service, John Ewing, Director of Transport, and Lindsay Montgomery, the Chief Executive of the Scottish Legal Aid Board, who also served as the Chair of the NDPB forum, had been nominated as members of the Programme Board on International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).
Agenda Item 2: Improving Organisational Delivery on Equality (SB(08)28)
2. Yvonne Strachan introduced paper SB(08)28, which sought the Board's approval of a corporate action plan pulling together next steps on integrating equality across all government activity.
3. The Strategic Board:
(a) Agreed the proposals put forward, including the development of an internal communications strategy to refresh key messages to staff about the importance, relevance and benefits of the equalities agenda;
(b) Agreed that important strands of work in this area continued to be the embedding of equality and diversity issues in the policy-making process; ensuring corporate recruitment processes meet the highest possible standards; and demonstrating the behaviours within central Government that would enable the organisation to lead continuous improvement across the wider public sector in Scotland;
(c) Agreed it would be helpful to bring the Equality and Human Rights Commission up to date with progress on the implementation of the Crerar review (Action: Robert Gordon);
(d) Agreed it would be helpful to return at a later date to the read-across between action to reinforce the importance of equality and diversity issues and the Scottish Government's work on building cohesive communities (Action: Robert Gordon);
(e) Agreed that some further work should be undertaken to identify a set of measurable success factors, linking as appropriate to the National Outcomes. (Action: Philip Rycroft/Yvonne Strachan);
(f) Noted that the Equalities Unit would shortly be circulating some summary material on the main provisions in the Single Equalities Bill. (Action: Yvonne Strachan)
(g) Recorded the Board's thanks to the team for the high quality of the work that had been undertaken on the action plan.
Agenda Item 3: Finance Director's Report (SB(08)29)
4. Alyson Stafford introduced paper SB(08)29, which set out the provisional outturn for the Scottish Government Departmental Expenditure Limit (DEL) budget for 2007/08 and recorded an anticipated underspend of £42 million.
5. The Strategic Board:
(a) Noted the Finance Director's report and the anticipated provisional underspend;
(b) Noted the arrangements for auditing and publication of the Consolidated Accounts in September.
Agenda Item 4: Horizon Scanning (SB(08)30)
6. Maureen Bruce introduced paper SB(08)30, which took stock of the ways in which the Strategic Board might now wish to engage with horizon scanning / futures work following the restructuring of the organisation and the different role played by the Strategic Board in comparison with the old Management Group.
7. The Strategic Board:
(a) Noted that decisions about the nature of the work the Board might wish to commission in future, and the way in which it was used to inform policy development, needed to take account of the unpredictability of world events and the risk of nugatory work;
(b) Agreed that the most cost-effective approach to horizon scanning was likely to involve both in-house work and drawing effectively on futures work undertaken by other bodies, where it was publicly available; and that the Strategy and Performance Unit should undertake some further work to examine the range of external sources of relevant and high quality information and offer further guidance on how such information could be fed effectively into policy making (Action: Lesley Fraser);
(c) Agreed that there was scope for the Board to devote additional time to the horizon scanning part of its remit and that the Board should in due course provide the team with a view on the areas/sectors in which it would find further work most useful. (Action: Strategic Board);
(d) Agreed that the team should present the Board with some additional structured consideration of existing and possible future workstreams that differentiated between areas where there were variables that were very difficult to predict and those where trends analysis could be more certain. (Action: Lesley Fraser)
Agenda Item 5: Strategic Environmental Assessment (SB(08)31)
8. Jim Mackinnon introduced paper SB(08)31, which updated the Board on the move of overarching responsibility for SEA into Planning Directorate.
9. The Strategic Board noted that the move had been successful and agreed that it would be consistent with Ministers and the Board's commitment to SEA that the logical next step would be to build on that success by increasing the resources available to the team so it could play a greater role in spreading best practice, both internally and across the wider public sector. (Action: Jim Mackinnon)
Agenda Item 6: Embedding the Concordat
10. The Permanent Secretary gave the Board an oral report on the recent meeting between Cabinet and CoSLA.
11. The Strategic Board:
(a) Noted that the meeting had been extremely positive and the First Minister had reaffirmed his strong personal commitment to the principles of the Concordat between the Scottish Government and CoSLA;
(b) Noted that there had been helpful discussion on both the delivery of outcomes and the policy making process;
(c) Agreed that it would be important for the Permanent Secretary and the Board to play a leading role in communicating the benefits and implications of the Concordat for staff's day to day work. (Action: Sarah Davidson)
Agenda Item 7: Finance Director: Update
12. Alyson Stafford updated the Board on the timescales around work that would need to be undertaken to finalise laying the 2009-10 Scottish budget before the Scottish Parliament. The Strategic Board agreed that it had an important role to play in ensuring that work in individual policy areas was effectively integrated with the Government's cross-cutting strategic objectives. (Action: Strategic Board)
Agenda Item 8: National Conversation Update
13. Ken Thomson updated the Board on recent progress in taking forward the National Conversation and the developing parliamentary context for this work.
14. The Strategic Board:
(a) Agreed that, given the cross-cutting nature of the National Conversation, it would be appropriate for the Board to assume the role of a programme board in relation to the exercise; (Action: Strategic Board)
(b) Agreed that there was a role for the Board in ensuring that the team received effective, high quality input from relevant policy areas as and when required; (Action: DGs)
(c) Agreed that the cross-cutting nature of the work meant it would be important to convey clear messages to staff across the organisation about their role in relation to the exercise; (Action: Gerald Byrne/Sarah Davidson)
(d) Agreed that the policy team should provide the Board with a programme plan outlining key milestones and points at which the Board would be expected to input. (Action: Ken Thomson)
Agenda Item 9: Talent Management
15. Thea Teale introduced paper SB(08)32, which sought approval to hold an internal Deputy Director board, aligned with a new initiative to recruit internally for a Band C Emerging Leaders programme.
16. The Strategic Board:
(a) Agreed the proposals and agreed that there was a role for Directors General in offering guidance to Directors as part of the process of endorsing applications to the board; (Action: DGs)
(b) Agreed that as the exercise was a second part to the internal/external board that had been run in 2007, Philip Rycroft should once again act as chair. (Action: Philip Rycroft)
(c) Agreed that there was a need for consideration to be given at a future meeting to the organisation's long-term recruitment strategy, drawing on the Normington review of SCS recruitment. (Action: Thea Teale)
Agenda Item 10: Any Other Business
Update on the Scottish Government Main Pay Negotiations
17. The Strategic Board noted the latest position in relation to discussions with the Trade Unions on pay and agreed it was content for Paul Gray to formally notify the Trade Unions of the terms of the pay offer.
Date of Next Meeting
18. The next meeting of the Strategic Board would take place on Thursday, 14 August in St Andrews House at 9.00am.
Cabinet and Corporate Business Secretariat
July 2008