DFID Management Board
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 30 January 2006
9.30 - 11.00, Location PS 3w12
Topic |
Attending |
Purpose |
MB Obj |
Liz Davis, Simon Gill |
To assess DFID's performance on the programme expenditure, IT, HR, and risk indicators |
A, C & D |
|
Preparation for DDP reviews (restricted session) |
Richard Calvert |
To prepare for the DDP review on |
|
Attendees |
Suma Chakrabarti (Chair) Mark Lowcock, Minouche Shafik, Bill Griffiths, Helen Ghosh |
||
Observing |
In Palace Street - Charlotte French, Malcolm Greere, Vicky Seymour, Keith Thompson, Kevin Gaerdner, Trish O'Donnell In Abercrombie House - Steve Martin, Fiona Mitchell, Simon Calderwood |
||
(215
kb)Quarterly Management Report (3rd Quarter 2005/06)
1. Richard Calvert introduced the item and highlighted that the Board were asked to:
- provide any further feedback on the format and note the ongoing development of both the QMR and the underlying data systems;
- note the unchanged status of the Corporate Risk Register;
- note the key headline messages, particularly on portfolio quality and the progress against core PSA targets, and discuss appropriate management action.
2. In discussion the Board:
3. The Board concluded that:
- Expressed concern that our portfolio quality was falling and the aggregate PSA value for money measure now stood at below 60% of projects evaluated as being likely to be completely or largely achieve their objectives (i.e. scoring 1 or 2) of the total project portfolio. More work is needed to understand the causes of this. It was suggested that it could be because the:
were concerned about the increase in the number of reported suspicions of fraud. It was felt that the Board needed to increase its attention to this issue. The Audit Committee deal with fraud but their engagement could be improved by better quality reporting data, including on quantities involved in and causes of individual cases. Internal Audit Department are producing a report on this for the next meeting of the Audit Committee in March;
programmes are newer and this tends to mean we are less certain about outcomes; and/or
the objectives we are setting are harder to achieve; and/or
we are getting worse at achieving our objectives;
- were content with efforts to engage with the rest of Whitehall. Over the next three months we will be undertaking an extensive consultation with OGDs on the White Paper;
- agreed that, whilst as an organisation we do extensive monitoring and evaluation, we do not use results enough when designing programmes and we do not provide enough information about what outcomes we expect from interventions in submissions and other documentation;
- asked where traffic light markings are not “green” if we have a plan to ensure we make progress to get a “green light in the future”;
- requested more information about how the risks in the respective matrices were being effectively tackled and being taken into account in the design of individual programmes.
Minouche Shafik would meet with Regional Directors, their cabinets and CSG on portfolio quality in order to go through a number of high profile projects identifying specific actions for each; the report being produced on fraud would then go to the Management Board after it had been seen by the Audit Committee; the human resource and financial systems will be key to enabling effective scaling up. Responding to the CSR and scaling up are going to require a step change in productivity. We need to ensure we have the skills, capacity and systems to deliver effectively with fewer people; the SCS away day will include a session on portfolio quality; the risk matrix work needs to be better integrated with the work of the Department. It was agreed the Board would revisit the matrix during and following the DDP discussions; and on the QMR format, the results section in the summary of the report be less process focused, and for further consideration of how we present data on progress on the PSA outcomes.
Preparation for DDP Reviews
4. The Board were asked to agree the approach to the DDP discussions proposed by Richard Calvert and his team.
5. In conclusion the Board:
agreed the overall approach as recommended by FCPD for dealing with resource pressures and handling the DDP discussions; requested further information on the contrast between progress on MDGs across the world and progress in our PSA countries. Are our PSA countries moving slower or faster on average?; requested further work to simplify the resource allocation model; agreed they would discuss scaling up more fully before the MB DDP discussions on 8-9 February; agreed that preparation for the MB sessions would be added to the agenda of the Leadership Group on 6 February.