Senior Management Team Meeting - minutes - 12 October 2021

Attendees

Roy Brannen – Chief Executive (Chair)
Alison Irvine – Director - Transport Strategy and Analysis Director
Frazer Henderson – Rail Directorate
Hugh Gillies – Director - Roads
Peter Grant – Bus, Accessibility and Active Travel Directorate
Kerry Twyman – Director - Finance and Corporate Services
Lawrence Shackman – Director - Major projects
Martin Ritchie – Aviation, Maritime, Freight and Canals Directorate
Stuart Greig – Director - Low Carbon Economy
Danny Chalmers – Head of Communications
David Swanson – Head of Corporate Services
Andy Pope – Transport Scotland (TS) Secretariat
Jodie Lafferty – TS Secretariat

Agenda

General Update

TS Senior Management Team (SMT) noted that Hugh Gillies has now stepped over to the COP26 position, with Stewart Leggett acting Director Roads, and George Henry stepping into cover for Stewart in the meantime. Directors updated on their current stakeholder engagements.

COP26 update

Stewart Leggett provided an update on the current COP26 position.

It was noted that the arrangements planned across modes are all in good place and the ongoing exercises and workshops have been successful. There was a discussion on the IR issues, and the methods of grant agreements for cost recovery for Bus. Danny highlighted that the sources of media have went live, and all messaging is out.

There is still clarity needed for the core centre operating hours and what is needed, along with the resilience through SMT.

Morna Cannon joined the discussion to go through the policy programme preparations. Morna provided the master programme sheet highlighting the current arrangements, followed up with a discussion about the scheduling of programmes within the different zones

Action – Alison, Stuart and Morna to have a discussion about the round table and bilateral (TSSMT211012-01)

Finance Update

Kerry highlighted that one of the main priorities just now is the publication of the Budget next month, noting that the savings target delivery is going well and any new commitments being made are being reviewed closely.

Kerry explained the revenue numbers and there was a discussion on what this means for TS. There are plans in place to present the Minister with a plan on how this would look and what this impact would be. Finance business partners are reviewing and working closely with directors on this.

Risk Update

It was noted that there have been two new risks added to the Corporate Risk Register, which are COP26 and Rail.

There was a discussion on the scoring of risks and the impacts, noting that Roy is content with raising the ScotRail mobilisation risk.

Action - Kerry and team to reviews the dates within the Corporate Risk Register (TSSMT211012-02)

Correspondence and Corporate Update

David presented slides showing the correspondence figures, there are currently no concerns but it was noted that that there have been a few drops for PQs and FOIs.

There are ongoing discussions looking at the central allocation of FOIs, and there will be a staff note to go out on FOIs, which will detail the importance of the allocations and responses completed within the deadline. Lorna and team have introduced a lessons learned exercise on late cases to address any problems going forward.

Roy reminded Directors the importance of FOI responses within the time frame and that this is a legal requirement, asking Directors to put their attention towards these late responses and look into it thoroughly to make sure it doesn’t continue. One of the main issue has been Directorates not wanting to take cases and lack of clarity of where this belongs.

David presented slides to show the approach being taken for the Corporate Plan 2021 – 24.

There was a discussion on how TS are going to achieve these strategic objectives and where we are going, we need to be cautious of the number of live documents that require teams to monitor

Action - Directorates to look at the Directorate objectives for the next 3 years and return to David (TSSMT211012-03)

Remote Sensing Briefing

Trevor McIlhatton and Vincent McInally joined SMT to provide further background on the remote sensing used to monitor vehicle emissions, and the briefing that went to Ministers last week.

Supplements

This item was for TS Directors only.

David presented the supplement options table. Directors had a discussion on these pay supplement options, retention and recruitment, and affordability.