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

DFID Management Board

Membership | Terms of Reference | Minutes of Meetings

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

• communicate the vision, role, direction and priorities of DFID to staff and other stakeholders;
• ensure DFID's financial resources and staff are allocated and managed effectively;
• monitor and improve DFID's performance;
• protect and enhance DFID’s reputation as a highly effective international development organisation.

Meeting on 20 April 2006

Management Board Committees -- Annual Review

Suma welcomed Sue Owen, the new Director General Corporate Performance. The Board thanked Masood Ahmed for all his hard work over the last 3 years. Masood has been a real asset to the Board and he will be greatly missed.

Development Committee: Annual Assessment

Masood Ahmed introduced the report stating

• the real achievement in 2005/6 has been the prioritisation of the work flow
• the challenges for the Committee next year will be to institute a more systematic approach on tracking performance, with clear accountability for actions, and to increase the synergies between policy, research and evaluation.

In discussion the Board:

• commented that the profile of Development Committee had risen in the last year and rightly become more executive;
• agreed that more could be done to link policy, research and evaluation. The work programmes in these areas should be complementary, maximising the potential for evidence based policy making. The Committee should sign off the work programmes at the beginning of the year as well as receiving a report back on progress at the end of the year; and
• noted that the Development Committee should discuss how best to integrate the thematic initiatives, with the country led approach and support the Department in this work.

In conclusion the Board:

• thanked the Committee for the improvements in the last year and welcomed the success in prioritising their workload;
• agreed that there could be further clarification of the role of the Committee with regard to the links between policy, research and evaluation;
• agreed that implementation plans need to be clearer about tracking progress. This applies to all sub-committees; and
• agreed the Committee should tackle the issue of integrating thematic initiatives with our country-based approach.

Audit Committee: Annual Assessment

Bill Griffiths introduced the report stating:

• the Audit Committee is performing well and has made progress against its work programme. It is well supported in its finance function and the NAO are a useful partner. New members Joy Hutcheon, Director of Knowledge and Communications, and a new NED, Amin Mawji, have made a good contribution;
• the Committee has improved communications and made real progress in raising awareness of fraud across the Department. There is still more to be done in this are;
• He asked the following questions: a) other Whitehall Audit Committees have more Non- Executive Directors (NEDs). Would the DFID committee benefit from another NED?; b) what else could the Committee do to help combat fraud?

In discussion the Board:

• agreed that it was important any additional NED understood DFID's operational context;
• welcomed the Committee’s increased effort on communication, through Committee members attendance of Heads meetings and DFO training;
• agreed that the Committee has been good at performing its core functions and was concerned that additional work should not detract from this. However, it would be useful if the Committee played a role in identifying issues of reputational risk in the area of financial management. With our increased public profile, there is bound to be public concern about corruption and the misappropriation of our funds. Budget support, in particular, is likely to come under close scrutiny.

In conclusion the Board:

• thanked the Committee for all its good work over the last year;
• agreed the Committee should add budget support to its work programme. This should include looking at procurement systems in a selection of the developing countries in which we operate; and
• agreed the need for another NED with an understanding of DFID's operational context. Minouche will act as an additional Committee member in the meantime. Amanda Rowlatt and Sue Owen would also join the Committee following the departure of Mark Lowcock and Graham Stegmann.

Human Resource Committee: Annual Assessment

Mark Lowcock introduced the report, stating:

• the Committee has made good progress against its work programme. It has played a useful role in strategic workforce planning and is supporting work on Investors in People reaccreditation;
• the recruitment of NED needs to be progressed;
• the system for tracking and holding individuals to account for actions agreed by the Committee is working well;
• the Department has done particularly well on diversity in the last year.

In discussion the Board:

• agreed the NED should be recruited quickly;
• agreed the Committee had a useful role to play in strategic workforce planning, including assessing what skill set the Department would need in 5+ years;
• noted the role of the committee could be further clarified.

In conclusion the Board

• agreed Sue Owen and Liz Davis would, by the time of the June Management Board meeting, have recruited the NED and further clarified the role of the Committee; and
• approved the work programme, with the addition of a focus on the future skills mix of the Department.

Management Board: Annual Assessment

In discussion the Board

• were pleased with the progress the Board had made in the last year and agreed the current structure and processes are working well;
• agreed the need for a more systematic approach to identifying the longer term challenges the organisation faced. They agreed the Board needs to set up a structure in the next few months to enable the Leadership Group to stay abreast of these challenges;
• agreed we can further strengthen the communication between the Board, its Committees and the SCS;
• agreed the need for periodic updates on internal and external communications. This could include looking every quarter at communications issues that the Department handled well and those which we did not; and
• agreed that the structure of the Board objectives needed re-examining

In conclusion the Board:

• agreed to continue to maintain an enhanced level of challenge, as recommended in the Egon Zehnder report;
• agreed to a Leadership Group awayday in the early autumn to examine the long-term strategic challenges facing DFID;
• agreed the objectives would be updated;
• agreed more communications slots are needed in the work programme; and
• agreed the Board Secretariat should produce a regular digest of issues discussed by Board and its committees for the SCS.