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Management Board | Development Committee | Audit Committee | Human Resources Committee

DFID Management Board

Membership | Terms of Reference | Minutes of Meetings

Meeting on 20 June 2008

In working towards the delivery of the Public Service Agreement the Management Board will aim to:

• A. communicate the vision, role, direction and priorities of DFID to staff and other stakeholders;
• B. consider the strategic challenges and risks to the organisation;
• C. ensure effective allocation and management of DFID's staff and financial resources; and
• D. monitor and improve DFID's performance.

10.00-12.00 - Location: PS 3W13 and AH280

Strategy Unit Annual Review

1. Kate Tench introduced this item and asked the Board to consider the recommendations of the Review and agree next steps. The Board:

i. agreed that the work of the Strategy Unit is very valuable to DFID and should be maintained;
ii. agreed that the work that had the most impact over the past year were pieces that focus on the future of DFID’s business and longer term horizon scanning;
iii. endorsed the recommendations made in the annual review emphasising in particular the need to ensure an increased business focus in the work plan and some further consideration of the positioning of this work vis-à-vis wider Whitehall Strategy work;
iv. agreed that the Strategy Unit should remain in FCPD and continue to report to the Finance Director;
v. suggested that there were lessons for PRD to learn from the Strategy Unit in terms of having a flexible standing capacity who were able to work responsively and produce short pieces of work to a very high quality

Directors Assurance Statement (DSA)

2. Sam Sharpe introduced this item. He said that the audit committee had met on the 27 May and recommended that the Management Board be informed on the outcome of the 2007/8 Directors Statement Assurance Analysis and be consulted on the past practice review for the 2008/9 DSAs. The Board:

i. noted the analysis from the 2007/08 DSAs and the confirmations from Directors that actions are in place to address weaknesses;
ii. raised concern about the results for IFDE, noting that this partly reflected the lack of baseline data for a new Division; and asked FCPD to confirm that relevant action is in place;
iii. agreed that the results for financial management and information systems/record keeping needed to be improved on in the next year.
iv. asked FCPD to undertake a review of the current format, to ensure that the statements focus on areas of highest priority. They agreed that assurances should continue to cover HR as well as financial compliance issues, and should cover the areas included in the mandatory objectives agreed by the Management Board for Directors. They suggested the team make some recommendations around the areas to maintain and those to drop and then discuss with the Leadership Group. The team should consider this in light of the QMR to ensure we are not measuring the same things twice and are as streamlined as possible.
v. agreed that the current assessments are based more on assertion than fact and asked the team consider how best to get more evidence to make this a more valuable tool.

Corporate Governance Review

3. Minouche Shafik introduced this item. She thanked the Board Secretariat for undertaking this work. The Board:

i. agreed to disband the Catalyst Board as a formal sub committee to the Management Board;
ii. agreed to maintain the Security Committee as separate from the HR Committee but committed to review this in the context of the Annual Reviews at the end of the financial year;
iii. agreed that the Security Committee would be chaired by Mark Lowcock;
iv. confirmed that there would be no Fraud Committee as a formal sub committee of the Board;
v. requested that some more analysis of omissions and overlaps of the sub committees be undertaken by Programme Guidance Risk and Assurance Group in liaison with the Management Board Secretariat – looking particularly at the assurance functions discharged through committees in a decentralised organisation; and that this should then be discussed with the Leadership Group in September;
vi. agreed the system and process recommendations at paragraph 24 a)-g);
vii. requested a standard format for all MB and Sub Committee minutes and a commitment that these would be issued within a short timeframe after the meeting.

Financial Reporting

4. Sam Sharpe presented this item. The Board:

i. noted i) the revised paper on final outturn of 2007/8 Admin costs ii) the monthly report for May 2008 iii) the revised admin costs table for 2007/8;
ii. agreed that there needed to be a real focus on improving the quality of financial forecasting in year across all Divisions.

Communications

5. Paul Mylrea introduced this item. He asked the Board to consider the revised Communications Strategy; incorporating initial results from the audience segmentation strategy to agree the next steps proposed for implementing the strategy. The Board:

i. gave positive feedback on the segmentation work and asked CD to ensure that this is presented to Ministers, the Leadership Group and staff more widely;
ii. agreed the next step was now to use this information to establish what instruments to use most effectively and to develop better measurements on impact;
iii. agreed the revised communications strategy and proposed responsibilities across DFID;
iv. endorsed the Virtual Team approach for key themes. They suggested that in time this might need to evolve to cover more areas than just the top Ministerial Priorities;
v. noted progress on the Web Transformation Project and endorsed the proposals for an external content repository;
vi. noted the forward implementation plan for communications Division for the next six months;
vii. endorsed the proposed internal communications plan.

6. Lucy Livings introduced the updated Action Matrix. The Board noted progress and confirmed that the new thematic format was better.

Lucy Livings
Management Board Secretary