Senior Management Team Meeting - Minutes - 31 January 2023

Attendees

Chair

Michelle Quinn (MQ) – Interim Chief Executive

AMC

Fran Pacitti (FP) – Director

BAAT

Bettina Sizeland (BS) - Director

FCS

Kerry Twyman (KT) – Director

Andy Pope (AP) – Head of Corporate Governance

David Swanson (DS) – Head of Corporate Services

Joanne Demarco (JD) – Head of HR

Ferries

Roddy Macdonald – Director

David Torrance (DT) – Head of Ferries Contracts (IDM Only)

LCE

Stuart Greig (SG) – Director

Major Projects

Lawrence Shackman (LS) – Director

Rail

Bill Reeve (BR) - Director

Roads

Stewart Leggett (SL) – Director

Hugh Gillies (HG) - Director

Secretariat

Pamela Yorke (PY) – Head of Secretariat

Steven Wyllie (SW) – Corporate Governance Manager

Apologies

Gillian McCole (GM) – Head of Chief Executive Office

Fiona Brown (FB) – Director of TSA

Finance

KT discussed the current financial landscape for TS. Current financial forecasting indicates that TS will come in on budget for the end of year.

KT explained that she is now looking at budget for next year and how to continue on the Path to Balance. The commission on capital spending is due mid-February, and KT has been asked to join DG at a meeting today to speak on future budgeting.

MQ acknowledged the financial position for the Agency and thanked KT for her continued work across the TS budget and wider portfolio.

Risk

AP presented slides to update the SMT on current work on risk. The Audit & Risk Committee met last week and its members were pleased with the progress on the risk register and the stronger SMT involvement. There are also new directorate risk templates due shortly from DG.

AP discussed the mandatory risk training and reminded the SMT that this training is due for completion by end of March 2023.

MQ asked that the SMT pass this message down to all teams that this training is mandatory and she would like to see higher figures at the next SMT.

AP provided an update on the three main risks which are continuing to be drafted.

• Wellbeing – the text is currently being updated, and HG is formulating the scoring.
• Asset management – FP has worked on the risk description with AP and is looking at further actions and scoring.
• Health & Safety – all risks from the H&S register have now been passed back to directorates for inclusion on their registers.  This is now a centralised single organisational risk

MQ thanked AP for the update and advised SMT that this needs more work when looking at actions and controls.  These need to have a more clear effect on the risk itself further discussion should take place on risks being better defined.

LS asked if the Risk Management Group (RMG) members require a refresh to ensure we have the right level of people working and looking at this.

AP reiterated that he is happy to attend any Directorate risk conversations to confirm what is expected but also to help his team understand how these processes differ by directorate.

MQ has asked that time be set up at future SMT to look at risk more deeply.

Action: Directors to review membership of Risk Management group

Action: Risk focussed SMT to be held early March

Correspondence

SW presented the correspondence statistics.

MQ asked how TS can continue to improve figures. SW agreed to look at a different ways of highlighting upcoming cases to aid directorates in their prioritising of responses.  MQ also asked about timing of late responses and if there is a specific issue that needs to be addressed.  SW confirmed that there did not seem to be a specific identifiable issue, but may be drawn out as directorates become more involved in the timeline of cases.

Action: SW to look at actions which can help improve correspondence figures and report this by 3 February. 

Corporate update

DS updated SMT on TS accommodation discussions are still progressing for an end-February entry date to our intermediate building.  Leases are being drawn up and access is being provided for preliminary desk fit outs.  However if entry cannot be assured by end-February, then TS will continue to stay in AQ until our November move in date for Bothwell Street.

Action: DS to contact Network Rail on lease/entry date for George House

HRMI

JD presented the HR Management Information slides.

JD confirmed that there were 645 staff including all workers currently in TS. She advised that her team is working with DG on workforce planning alongside HG and DS.

Areas of note were that stress/anxiety and respiratory reasons have declined in the last quarter, and this shows a positive shift in staff absence.

JD reminded Directors that we are now in the new annual leave period and that up to 10 days AL can be carried over but managers have discretion and should have discussions to help encourage staff to take suitable breaks and holidays from work.

It was agreed during discussion that Directors should consider methods to encourage staff to return to office for team meetings including looking at coffee mornings, regular team meetings etc and that that this should be part of the staff conference

Action: Directorate should consider methods to encourage staff to return to office for team meetings. Look at coffee mornings, regular team meetings etc

COVID Resourcing

MQ advised that work had commenced on the COVID inquiry and necessitated allocation of TS resources Directors were asked to identify a lead for their area.

Action: Directors to identify a Directorate lead for COVID inquiry work.

AOB

No items tabled.