Senior Management Team Meeting - Minutes - 27 September 2022
Attendees
Chair
Michelle Quinn (MQ) – Chief Executive
AMFC
Frances Pacitti (FP) – Director
BAAT
FCS
Kerry Twyman (KT) – Director
LCE
Stuart Greig (SG) – Director
Susan Cameron (SC)
Major Projects
Lawrence Shackman (LS) – Director
Rail
Bill Reeve (BR) - Director
Roads
Scott Lees (SL) – Director
TSA
Alan Shirley (FB) – Director
Workforce Planning
Hugh Gillies (HG) - Director
Secretariat
Gillian McCole (GM) – Head of Chief Executive Office
Pamela Yorke (PY) – Head of Secretariat
Steven Wyllie (SW) – Corporate Governance Manager
Apologies
Bettina Sizeland – Director BAAT
Fiona Brown – Director TSA
Stewart Leggett – Director Roads
General Update
The Chief Executive and Directors gave updates on their areas of work. The key points of note were:
Rail
BR updated the SMT on the ongoing work related to the sleeper franchise and ScotRail holdings and the continuing talks around pay .
Finance
KT discussed the Treasury announcement from last week and that a Scottish Government budget update meeting had taken place yesterday. KT also highlighted some points TS should consider while planning for the 2023/24 budget. She added that Finance Business Partners will be working with teams to ensure their planned budget accurately reflects proposed spend.
AMFC
FP noted the report from BBC Disclosure. She also highlighted the ongoing discussions with CALMAC on a pay deal. MQ asked for her thanks be passed on to the Ferries team for their hard work recently, and made special note of the extra work undertaken over the bank holiday.
Major Projects
LS discussed the ongoing work to secure the new Communications contract and that he would discuss the details and longer term plan with the Minister. LS also highlighted upcoming update meetings for the A83 and A9.
TS Director meetings with Minister
MQ reminded Directors to record actions from these meetings and send them to PO and copy in CE office.
Risk Update
SW discussed updates that had already been made to the corporate risk register and what risks still required updates to be submitted. MQ highlighted the importance of effective mitigations to control risk. MQ suggested that to help hold Directorates to account on the actions they have planned, target dates could be included for each action. She indicated that maintaining this as an accurate and live document is critical, given the way in which risk must inform our priorities
MQ highlighted that there are opportunities for enhanced oversight of projects for the whole of the SMT. Good examples and best practice across each of the Directorates should be shared to help teams to develop learning.
KT agreed that more work can be done in this area and that will be taken forward by the Corporate Governance team who are currently looking at Risk Appetite. It was noted the SG Risk team had provided training on the management of risk to some members of the Risk Management Group, but that this had not been attended by all members. More work on this will follow.
Corporate planning
SW informed the Directors the current Business Plan template would be sent to Business Managers today to request quarter 2 status updates for objectives. Once these have been received they will be collated and the template will be presented to the SMT.
SW also advised that work on the 2023-24 Business Plan will begin in December with a intention to collect the next years objectives beginning January. He discussed how the Corporate Governance team will be working more closely with Finance and Audit on producing this plan to ensure it captures and reports on all the necessary areas.
AOB
Overtime
With the work on office clear outs progressing, MQ reiterated to Directors that asking staff to do overtime for this purpose should only be necessary in exceptional circumstances. Where possible, this work should be incorporated into routine workload planning to ensure pressures can be covered. This has been happening effectively in some areas. Any areas which feel overtime may be required for this purpose should inform the Chief Executive’s Office in advance.
LS agreed and explained that a review on how overtime is managed and authorised is underway in his Directorate. BR agreed and stated that resilience in teams needs to be looked at.
Resilience
HG discussed the role of resilience, outlined the returns received to date and what will be included in the resilience paper.
MQ stated that the paper should also cover SMT resilience and necessary support structure . ensuring that we have the right skills and cover in place.