DFID Management Board
Meeting on 22 January 2007 – Reviews of Divisions’ Business Plans
Please note: Management Board Minutes for 23 January 2007 are also available.
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.
11.00 – 18.00, Location: PS 3W12
Time |
Topic |
Attending |
Observers |
MB Obj |
|
11.00- 11.30 |
Resource Allocation 2007/08 |
Richard Calvert |
Closed Session |
B & C |
|
11.30- 12.00 |
Quarterly Management Report Q3 2006/07 |
Richard Calvert Liz Davis |
5W6 AH280 |
A, B, C & D |
|
12.00-13.00 |
South Asia |
Charlotte Seymour Smith Kevin Gardner |
DFID Bangladesh 5W6 AH280 |
A, B, C & D |
|
13.00-13.30 |
Lunch |
|
|
|
|
13.30-14.45 |
Africa |
Dave Fish Mark Mallalieu |
DFID Mozambique, DFID DRC, DFID Nigeria, DFID Uganda 5W6 AH280 |
A, B, C & D |
|
14.45-15.45 |
Europe, Middle East, Americas and East Asia |
Martin Dinham |
DFID Vietnam 5W6 AH280 |
A, B, C & D |
|
15.45-16.00 |
Break |
|
|
|
|
16.00-17.00 |
Communications |
Joy Hutcheon Mike Green |
5W6 AH280 |
A, B, C & D |
|
17.00- 18.00 |
Human Resources |
Liz Davis Richard Montgomery |
5W6 AH280 |
A, B, C & D |
|
Attendees |
Suma Chakrabarti (Chair) |
Mark Lowcock |
|
|
Bill Griffiths (Non-Executive Director) |
Minouche Shafik |
|
|
Helen Ghosh (Non-Executive Director) |
Sue Owen |
|
Observing |
|
Resource Allocation 2007/08
Richard Calvert introduced this paper.
The Board agreed the recommendations of the paper, and specifically:
- welcomed the paper’s suggestion of leaving space in the Contingency Reserve for a potential increase in the Nepal programme;
- asked that a contingency plan be developed on the programme side in case it is not possible to slip our Education Fast Track Initiative payment into 2008/09;
- agreed the size of the contingency reserve, and Africa’s decision to keep a £35m reserve within the Division;
- supported the suggestion that Early Departure Scheme costs should if possible be paid for under programme;
- agreed the proposed approach to handling administration costs, but added that additional provision for Communications Division should be a priority;
- agreed that the approach to managing costs arising from the Senior Management Review should be consistent across the board;
- asked that HR Division plan on the basis of holding promotion boards at all grades in 2007/08.
Quarterly Management Report – Third Quarter 2006/07
Richard Calvert introduced this paper.
The Board:
- noted that we are off-track against our target on Programme-Based Approaches, acknowledged the work already under way on this, but agreed that further management action was necessary, especially in Africa;
- welcomed the continuing improvements in Portfolio Quality, but also
i. asked FCPD (Evaluation Department or Corporate Planning and Performance Group) to scrutinise project scores to check that there is no systematic bias in scoring;
ii. noted that we should expect a reduction in portfolio quality when we scale up in fragile states;
- noted that the UK’s ODA/GNI ratio for 2006 was 0.57% - the highest since 1961;
- noted the need for more progress on managing sensitive costs – to the point where the DG Corporate Performance is not so personally involved in supervising this;
- agreed that the Permanent Secretary would send a personal message to SCS on maintaining our zero-tolerance policy on fraud;
- welcomed the approval of the DFID-FCO Delivery Plan on Co-Location and Shared Services;
- asked that the section on managing partnerships in the QMR be sharpened, with fewer words and more quantitative indicators;
- thanked Tom Andrews for all his work in improving the QMR and welcomed his successor, Steven Bartlett.
Review of Divisional Business Plans – introduction
The Board:
- thanked Directors and all those involved in preparing papers for these discussions;
- thanked the Capability Review team for attending throughout, and thanked the teams (including Country Offices) who had engaged with the review team so far;
- thanked Global Development Effectiveness Division for preparing the paper on progress against the Millennium Development Goals.
South Asia Division
Charlotte Seymour-Smith and Kevin Gardner represented South Asia Division.
The Management Board agreed the self-assessment for 2006/07 and framework for
2007/08, subject to the following comments. The Board:
- welcomed the work being done on the Bangladesh and Pakistan strategies, where DFID worked closely with other UK Government Departments whilst maintaining a development perspective;
- welcomed the Division’s commitment to taking action to address gender equality; and looked forward to hearing about progress;
- encouraged the Division to give greater priority to engaging with the private sector, given its important role in service delivery and innovation;
- encouraged the Division to work closely with other Divisions (especially PRD) on climate change;
- asked the division to make more systematic use of evaluations, especially to inform the new country and divisional strategies;
- welcomed the attention the Division has given to improving communications, particularly at country level, and welcomed the plans to build on this in the year ahead;
- stressed the importance of contingency planning in Pakistan and Bangladesh, given the political situation in those countries;
- noted the good progress in improving portfolio quality, welcomed the attention being paid to high-risk projects, and stressed the importance of management attention at project concept and design stage;
- encouraged the Division to work even more closely with Human Resources Division on filling posts in difficult environments and on developing negotiating and influencing skills across the Division.
- welcomed the Division’s efforts to improve the recruitment, development and retention of staff appointed in country, especially in India and Nepal, and noted the need to do more on this in Bangladesh and Pakistan;
- welcomed the progress that had been made on people management, including through use of the talent matrix;
- endorsed the strong line that was being taken on engagement with the Asian Development Bank in areas of comparative advantage.
Africa Division
Dave Fish and Mark Mallalieu represented Africa Division. The Directors of the
future West and Southern Africa Division (Beverley Warmington) and Pan-Africa
Strategy Division (Sam Sharpe) also attended.
The Management Board agreed the self-assessment for 2006/07 and framework for
2007/08, subject to the following comments. The Board:
- noted that better use of evaluation and working to hit the Programme-Based Approaches target would be high priority areas for improvement next year – specifically:
- on evaluation, asked the Division to take more systematic account of this, especially in strategy work;
- on Programme-Based Approaches, asked for a note of what progress can realistically be made towards the target;
- agreed that it would be very important to maintain the cohesion of the Africa senior management structure over the next few years. Lessons could be learned from the World Bank here;
- on the broader development agenda in the White Paper, acknowledged progress made on growth, but asked for work on climate change and gender to be ratcheted up. The latter is difficult – the key objective is to convince African governments to take this seriously;
- asked the Division to push harder on ten-year commitments, including sectoral commitments, for example in education;
- asked the Division to think carefully about how to scale up in fragile states if it is not possible to do so through the Government – especially in Nigeria (for example, how much can be channelled through the state governments?);
- encouraged the Division to keep up its good work with civil society, with a view to increasing the ‘contestability’ of African governments;
- stressed the vital need for good communications and asked for even further progress in this area, both in preparing lines to deal with negative stories but also in relentlessly working to get coverage of positive stories;
- welcomed the Division’s improvements in performance management and talent management, but asked for this to be driven forward still further;
- welcomed Africa Division’s good relationships with other parts of DFID, including PRD, IAD and UNCD. Areas for improvement included:
- thickening relations with PRD on climate change;
- clarification between Africa Division and IFED on who leads on what, for example on the African Development Bank;
- further developing relations with HR Division to ensure that posts were filled faster in fragile states;
- having Africa Division more closely involved in the Audit Committee and debates on assurance;
- welcomed the good partnership work with the FCO in Africa, but noted that the Division could engage more with the private sector;
- asked the Division to keep up the focus on improving performance frameworks in its Country Assistance Plans.
Europe, Middle East, Americas and East Asia Division (EMAAD)
Martin Dinham and Ian Symonds represented EMAAD. Sue Wardell, soon to replace Martin, also attended.
The Management Board agreed the self-assessment for 2006/07 and framework for 2007/08, subject to the following comments. The Board:
- commended EMAAD for effective management of office closures and a turnaround on corporate performance over recent years;
- commended EMAAD’s work on building partnerships on the EU, and encouraged the Division to work even more closely with IFED, DGED and PRD on this;
- encouraged the Division to take a more systematic approach to using evaluations;
- encouraged the Division to build on the progress that has been made on communications, especially in communicating the development successes which led to closures of DFID programmes;
- asked Martin to lead a discussion with Learning and Development Services on what methods work best for developing influencing, leadership and management skills;
- related to this, and specifically on building partnerships, noted that more coaching of junior staff by senior colleagues was necessary across the organisation, and asked Martin to champion this personally;
- welcomed the attention paid to security issues, and asked the Division to feed into the security aspects of the Capability Reviews of MoD, FCO and DFID;
- asked the Division to submit a note to Mark Lowcock on how it will resource its work on climate change;
- welcomed the work on Middle East and North Africa Department’s Portfolio and Risk Management Matrix, asked the Division to share this with the Capability Review team, and asked Martin to discuss with other Divisions whether it could be applied in other fragile states;
- asked the Division to develop more outcome-focused indicators for its work on BRICS.
Communications Division
Joy Hutcheon and Mike Green represented Communications Division.
The Management Board agreed the self-assessment for 2006/07 and framework for 2007/08, subject to the following comments. The Board:
- asked the Division to identify clear priorities from amongst the deliverables listed in the Director’s Delivery Plan, and allocate resources to these;
- asked the Division to prioritise communication, both proactive and in crisis situations over the coming months, following the ‘Lagbaja’ exercise at the March 2006 SCS day;
- asked the Division to include lessons learnt from experience of humanitarian branding in next year’s DDP papers;
- asked the Division to build a culture of awareness of the importance of managing Freedom of Information requests and sensitive costs well, so that one year from now, the Director-General, Corporate Performance (and perhaps Director Communications) are not personally involved in managing this;
- on engagement with Whitehall, noted that we are doing a lot but could still communicate this better;
- following the recent Public Accounts Committee hearing, asked the Division to rethink the balance of objectives in our relationship with NGOs for discussion soon after the summer, and to consider whether DFID should appoint a senior relationship manager for each NGO;
- asked the Division to explore whether more of the transactional work connected with managing its civil society programmes could be moved outside DFID;
- welcomed the work on people management, including performance management, follow-up to the Management Survey and the IiP mini-review; asked that the momentum be kept up on this, and asked the Division not to produce tailored versions of HR Division products;
- asked the Division to include a discussion of whether DFID should go further on communications without stepping over the line into propaganda, as part of a Communications update to the Management Board after the summer;
- said that the Board would play its part in keeping the communications profile high in DFID, and would continue to review the Communications Strategy bi-annually.
Human Resources Division
Liz Davis and Richard Montgomery represented Human Resources Division.
The Management Board agreed the self-assessment for 2006/07 and framework for 2007/08, subject to the following comments. The Board:
- commended HR Division on its successes (for example, changing incentives for staff in Iraq and Afghanistan) and encouraged the Division to communicate these more effectively;
- in this context, welcomed the fact that the Division is bringing in support on communications, and asked the Division to be clear with other Divisions when it is suitable to tailor products (such as the Line Manager Role Profile) and when it is not;
- encouraged continuing investment in technical HR skills within the Division;
- welcomed the improvements in relationships with other Divisions, in particular through business partners, whilst noting that more work was needed to strengthen the HR culture in some parts of DFID;
- welcomed the ongoing work to improve the postings system (including an appropriate set of incentives on filling posts in fragile states) and asked for a note that set out the vision and timeline for this;
- welcomed the clear set of HR deliverables for 2007/08 and asked that all members of the Senior Civil Service be made aware of these;
- asked the Division to continue focusing on performance management and talent management and noted the positive feedback from other Divisions on these areas;
- noted that skills development should be an important part of the Corporate Plan;
- agreed the importance of a systematic approach to security issues;
- noted that working effectively with the FCO was a priority for the year ahead, particularly on local staff issues and in planning further co-locations;
- asked for more information on propose future staff numbers in non-core HR areas;
- noted that the Leadership Group should be involved in discussions on (a) developing leadership and management capacity and (b) the employee engagement agenda (sustaining motivation, workload issues etc).
Justin Williams -
Management Board Secretary
Pete Shelley -
Corporate Planning and Performance Group
