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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 25 May2006

Suma introduced John Rwangombwa, Secretary General of the Rwandan Ministry of Finance, who is shadowing him this week.

Quarterly Management Report (4th ¼ 2005/06)

In discussion the Board:

• were encouraged by the improvement in the portfolio quality. We will need to provide the incentives to set realistic (but not risk adverse) programme objectives. New guidance on objective setting and log frames should be developed to enable this;
• noted we need to better understand the implications of the recent turbulence in financial and commodity markets for developing countries, our programmes and policies;
• agreed the data on fraud might usefully be disaggregated into external and internal categories. There continue to be very few cases of significant fraud with the level of petty fraud remaining flat. It is difficult to benchmark our performance against all other organisations as most don’t make this data public. However, fraud can and should be benchmarked against some other public sector bodies;
• welcomed confirmation of the 91:9 ratio of funds spent on LICs and MICs respectively in 2005/6. It was noted that is a particular achievement given LIC spending was below 70% in 1997-98;
• asked why there such a surge in spending in the last quarter of 2005/6. Part of the explanation might be that most African budget support payments this year went through in the first quarter of the calendar year;
• noted we need to be more modest about setting objectives in difficult environments, such as Iraq;
• agreed we need to build stronger partnerships with other Whitehall Departments who can further support capacity building, particularly Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the Office of National Statistics (ONS).

In conclusion the Board agreed:

Richard Calvert will on behalf of the Board ask Tony Venables to do a piece of work on the impact of shocks and recent volatility in the world economy on our programmes. This should build on studies conducted by the IMF and World Bank;

• DGs and Directors will need to communicate and reinforce messages about not being unduly risk adverse and more realistic in objective setting;
• there needs to be more categorisation of the data on fraud, in particular distinguishing between internal and external fraud. The team should also look into scope for comparing our internal fraud levels with those of Other Government Departments;
• relocation needs to be discussed in the broader context of the Zero Based reviews;
• Africa Division need to advise as to whether the timing of financial years in our Africa PSA countries means we should always expect to see a surge in spending in the last quarter. If so, more work needs to be done to unpack implications of this for our budgeting;
• Sue Owen and Bill Griffiths will discuss with HMRC contacts scope for further joint working with DFID.

Corporate Risk Register

Richard Calvert introduced this item, stressing the team were working to refine the corporate risk register and welcomed any feedback from the Board.

In conclusion the Board:

• asked for the categorisation of risk to be unpacked. We need to distinguish between the potential risk impact and the extent to which contingency plans are in place. For example there may be a high risk scenario but we may have done all we can to mitigate this risk or there may be a low risk scenario which we are not sufficiently prepared for. The traffic light markings should reflect what action has been taken,e.g. “red” should mean we need additional remedial action over the next few months;
• agreed the team only needed to submit the summary risk register in future;
• asked for further information on why the ranking for staff security has gone back to “red”, given the extent of the contingency measures put in place;
• agreed it would be worthwhile to hold a half day event in the second week of July to further explore how we quantify and mitigate risks with the risk champions and respective policy leads.

White Paper

Moazzam Malik introduced the item. He set out the process to date:

the White Paper team was fully operational at the end of November 2005. Their first task was to put together an options paper, which was DFID senior management and Ministers discussed at the White Paper brainstorm in January. Since then the team have been working on the consultation document and first draft of the paper;

the public consultation ended on the 7th April. The consultation document provoked an unprecedented response externally and internally. Over 630 public submissions and 250 pages of internal comments were received. The consultation process has gone well and the team are planning to publish a summary of the submissions they have received on the DFID website in June. All those who sent in submissions have already received a response from the team and will receive a copy of the White Paper once it is published; and

the formal consultation at Ministerial level with Whitehall begins shortly, but the team have been consulting with other Departments throughout the process. We aim to publish the document before the summer recess.

In conclusion the Board:

• thanked Moazzam and his team for all their hard work. The Board were very pleased with the progress made, particularly the redrafts which had been produced in the last two weeks. They also thanked all those who had contributed to the paper to date and commented that the quality of input had been exceptionally high;
• agreed that it would be helpful to record formally the lessons learnt from this process; and
• agreed that the team will now need to focus on ensuring an effective roll out of the White Paper and a focused communications strategy. It was suggested the team should present the paper to Other Government Departments after the launch. The Board emphasised that they would be happy to be involved at all stages.

Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) 2007

This was a closed session of the Board, focused on the following questions arising out of zero based reviews (ZBRs) work thus far:

• our appetite for risk;
• our approach to multilateralism;
• our balance of instruments;
• our approach to prioritisation;
• the balance between country and global programming;
• our appetite for corporate change;

A full record of the Board discussion has been prepared separately. The Board’s feedback will be relayed to Ministers. The Secretary of State will then write to the Chief Secretary. And the Chairman of the Board will write to thank all of those who took part in the ZBR process.