Senior Leadership Team Meeting Minutes Sept 2023

Members Present:

  • Dorinnia Carville, Chair (C&AG)
  • Rodney Allen (COO)
  • Patrick Barr (Director)
  • Colette Kane (Director)
  • Brian O’Neill (Director)
  • Seamus Wade (Director)
  • Tomas Wilkinson (Director)

In Attendance:

  • Julie Brown (Head of People and OD) Agenda item 1.1
  • Francis Casey (Lead Communications Officer) and Peter Rea (Communications Officer) – Agenda item 6.1
  • Louise Donnelly (Secretary)

Apologies:

  • Suzanne Walsh (Director)

Apologies

Apologies were recorded from Suzanne Walsh.

Declaration of Conflicts of Interest

There were no issues declared by members.

Minutes of previous meeting

Minutes of the previous meeting held on 17 August 2023 were agreed and the matters arising noted as updated.

People and OD

1.1    People and OD Monthly Report

Julie Brown provided an update on the following:

 

  • Sickness Absence Statistics - Members noted the absence figures per employee in the rolling period 1 September 2022 to 31 August 2023.  Julie advised that the flu vaccination programme for staff has been scheduled to take place late September/early October 2023.
     
  • Recruitment - members were updated on the imminent recruitment campaigns for Auditor and IT Auditor posts.  Members also discussed upcoming temporary promotion opportunities for staff.

 

  • Performance Management Compliance - members noted the status of the mid-year performance reviews, managers are to be asked to encourage staff to complete outstanding reviews as a priority.
     
  • Learning and Development – Julie to liaise with Suzanne Walsh to develop a technical training programme for staff.

Strategic Performance

2.1   Management Information Report

        Brian O’Neill presented the interactive performance report detailing key performance outturns for the public reporting and financial audit programmes to date. Brian advised that some modifications and streamlining would be made to the report for the October meeting.

2.2    Position re Backlog Accounts

    Members provided the C&AG with an update on the current position concerning backlog accounts.   

2.3   Public Reporting Monitoring Report

Members noted the current position.  Discussion followed concerning the scheduling of QA1 and QA2 meetings and upcoming publication dates.  Members were reminded of the importance of sharing draft reports with the Treasury Officer of Accounts.
 

Financial Management

3.1    Corporate Services Report

Brian O’Neill provided an update on the following:

  • Finance - members were provided with an update on the current budgetary position.
  • Accommodation – engagement is ongoing with the relevant parties  to  resolve matters on the snagging list particularly issues concerning the heating/cooling system. 
  • IT 
    • Members were updated on the network outage issue that occurred on 21 August 2023. 
    • A full roll out of Office 365 functionality is set to begin in November.

Corporate Governance

  1.  
    1. Business Support Services Report

Brian O’Neill presented a report to update members on Complaints, Procurement, Legal Advice, Information Management, Governance and Assembly Liaison.

Communications and Engagement

  1.  
    1. Communications and Engagement Report
      Francis Casey and Peter Rea joined the meeting to provide a forward look on Comms and Engagement activities for the month ahead, members provided any additional updates required.                                                                                            

Risk Management

  1.  
    1. Corporate Risk Register

The Corporate Risk Register was presented by Colette Kane, minor changes made since the last meeting were highlighted in red for members’ convenience. After discussion amendments were agreed to risk one. 

The updated Risk Register will be presented to the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee at their meeting scheduled for 25 September 2023.

Audit Technical

  1.  
    1. Technical Report

Members noted the report presented with no issues raised.

Papers noted:
 

  1. Draft ARAC Agenda – 25 September 2023.

Matters for Escalation to Advisory Board, ARAC, RemCom

No matters were presented.

 

AOB

No items were listed or raised.

 

Date of next meeting 

18 October @ 11am

Members agreed that going forward, where possible, SLT meetings should be rescheduled from Tuesday to Monday mornings.