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DFID Management Board

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Meeting on 22 February 2007

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. ensure DFID's financial resources and staff are allocated and managed effectively;

C. monitor and improve DFID's performance;

D. protect and enhance DFID’s reputation as a highly effective international development organisation.

10.00 - 12.00 Location: PS 3W13 – VC with AH 280

First two items: joint with the Department for Education and Skills (DFES) Board.

Time	Topic	Attending	Purpose	MB Obj
10.00	DFID/ DFES links	DFES Board	To assess the current state of DFID/ DFES links and future work	A & B
10.30	Annual Diversity Report	Liz Davis Kamaljit Kerridge-Poonia	To assess DFID’s progress against diversity targets	C & D
11.00	Strategy Unit workplan	Richard Calvert Anna Wechsberg	To approve the workplan for FCPD’s Strategy Unit	B

Attendees

DFID Board: Suma Chakrabarti, Nemat Shafik, Mark Lowcock, Sue Owen, Bill Griffiths (Non-Executive Director).

DFES Board: David Bell (Permanent Secretary), Stephen Marston (DG Lifelong Learning and Skills), Ruth Thompson (Interim DG Higher Education), Jon Thompson (DG Corporate Performance), Win Harris (Director of Joint International Unit), Peter Wanless (Schools Directorate, substituting for Ralph Tabberer, DG Schools).

Observing

In Palace Street: Lisa Harlow, David Levesque, Carew Treffgarne, Diane Brooks, Neelam Banga, Clare Moye, Kate Tench, Jeremy Pilmore-Bedford (FCO).

In Abercrombie House: Richard Montgomery, Angela Bevan.

DFID/ DFES links

1. David Bell and Mark Lowcock introduced this item.

2. The Boards agreed:

DFID/ DFES relations are strong, especially on set pieces, but could be strengthened further at the regular working level;

the joint vision agreed 3 years ago would benefit from a refresh and regular stocktakes, perhaps at Director level;

David Bell’s offer of mentoring the Permanent Secretary in the Rwandan Department of Education had been very warmly welcomed, and DFID Rwanda would be in touch to prepare David before his first visit;

development is increasingly important to children, students and teachers, and raising awareness of development is a key priority for DFID. More work could still be done to raise the profile of development in the curriculum – the sustainable schools action plan should be the vehicle for taking this forward;

building links between schools in the UK and developing countries will be a growth area for both departments. It would be useful to evaluate experience so far in order to find out which links had worked well and which not so well and why;

on the issue of pensions for VSO volunteers, more work is needed to develop a mutually agreed solution, possibly on a cost sharing basis, involving the Department of Health as well as DFID and DFES – perhaps to offer to the new Prime Minister;

the Head of Profession for Education post at DFID will be a crucial one for DFID-DFES relations and DFID would welcome strong applicants from DFES;

the British Council is often a useful third party in areas of DFID/DFES cooperation– DFID could strengthen its relations with the Council in this context;

Minouche Shafik should have a follow-up conversation with DFES specifically on:

priority countries and sectors for DFID/ DFES cooperation;

the balance between primary, secondary and higher education, further education and skills in the DFID approach;

improving the quality of the education systems in developing countries as a whole;

increasing awareness among UK universities of the DFID research programme and encouraging them to bid for contracts;

it would also be useful for junior ministers (Gareth Thomas and Bill Rammell) to meet before the summer to discuss some of these issues.

Annual Diversity Report

3. Liz Davis introduced the paper.

4. In the joint discussion between the DFID and DFES Board, the following points were made:

both DFES and DFID are performing well in terms of gender diversity. DFID needs to improve in the areas of sexual orientation and disability, whilst DFES could improve its ethnic diversity;

there are issues around disclosure of disability and sexual orientation in both departments;

both departments have had mixed experience with peer support groups, for example for women or Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual staff;

Jon Thompson and Sue Owen should have a follow-up discussion about these issues.

5. On the Report’s conclusions, the DFID Board:

thanked the team for a high quality paper;

thanked Angela Bevan (on the occasion of her moving jobs) for her work in putting together the data for the report over recent years;

agreed that the number of action points in paragraph 6 of the cover note was too great, and asked that team focus especially on

increasing the focus on disability and sexual orientation;

continuing targeted development programmes such as Crossing Thresholds;

developing the capacity of the department to undertake equality impact assessments;

asked the team to track data on the relations between diversity and performance management, in order for the Board to decide later whether action is needed on this;

asked the team to encourage Cabinet Office to work fast to circulate a definition of disability, to allow the Board to encourage SCS to disclose (making clear the benefits of this disclosure).

Strategy Unit Workplan

6. Anna Wechsberg introduced this item. She asked the Board to:

a) agree the three broad strands of Strategy Unit work;

b) give a steer on which of the proposed issues in paragraph 23 of the paper should be given priority in the unit’s first 3 months;

c) give a view on whether a Management Board member should be nominated as the Board’s ‘Strategy Champion.

7. The Board:

agreed the three broad strands of work;

agreed that the primary customer for Strategy Unit work was the Board, and in this context:

asked the team to engage the Board in innovative ways, for example by getting Board members to vote on priority areas of work;

asked the team to involve Ministers in this work in a way that preserved Management Board ownership (perhaps through oral briefings);

agreed there was no need for a Board-level champion, but asked the team to engage Board members individually on specific topics;

on the issues for strand 2 work suggested in paragraph 23, agreed that the priorities should be:

the top 10 challenges facing DFID after 2015;

measuring relative value for money of different forms of aid, given recent international discussions on this.

Any Other Business

8. Joy Hutcheon asked the Board to give a view on how DFID should respond to the ‘Inspiration 2012’ initiative. The proposal was that DFID should contribute via a PES transfer, based on an assessment of the development benefit of individual projects proposed for the scheme.

9. The Board agreed the proposed approach, and specifically:

asked the Director Communications and her team to ensure DFID’s contribution was seen as a sub-contracting arrangement, scored as ODA and did not contravene the International Development Act;

asked the team to minimise the management burden of the initiative, and in this light to investigate whether the consultancy which reviews proposals for the Civil Society Challenge Fund could also evaluate the development benefit of proposals under this scheme.

Justin Williams - Management Board Secretary