NRS EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT BOARD MEETING
Thursday 1 May 2025
09:30 – 12:30
Lord Clerk Room, GRH
Attendees:
- Alison Byrne hief Executive, Registrar General and Keeper (Chair)
- Director of Corporate Services and Accountable Officer
- Director of Information & Records Services and Deputy Keeper
- Interim Digital and Delivery Director
- Interim Director of Operations and Customer Services and Deputy Registrar General
- Director of Census Statistics
- Director of Statistics
- Corporate Governance Manager (governance)
- Business Support Officer (secretariat)
- Deputy Director, Information and Records Services
- Head of Archive Depositor Liaison
- Corporate Business Continuity Lead
- Head of Registrations
- Head of Portfolio and Governance
- Corporate Finance Lead
Apologies:
- Corporate Business Assurance Manager
- Chief Finance Officer
- Head of BMU
1.Welcome, Introductions and apologies
Alison Byrne welcomed everyone to the meeting. Apologies were noted as above.
1.1 embers approved the draft minutes from the meeting held on 26 March 2025.
1.2 review of the action log was undertaken. The action log would be updated accordingly.
1.3 embers noted the decision log.
1.4 Alison Byrne advised that only core SG staff had access to the new pass system installed in SG buildings. Alison requested NRS Estates follow up on this to see if NRS could be given access.
Action EMB 465: Estates to request NRS staff were added to the new SG security system.
Action Owner: Beatrice Bryant
2.1Finance - AR&A update – Q4 outputs and provisional outturn
The Corporate Finance Lead provided an update on Finance - AR&A update – Q4 outputs and provisional outturn. With the key points below:
- TT provided EMB with an update on the provisional outturn for resource and capital budgets as at the end of March 2025
- The reported provisional outturn did not include year-end adjustments that would be carried out in P13
- Risks to delivery of a balanced outturn were outlined along with the plan to conclude the year with as close to a balanced budget outturn position as possible
- The Census 22 programme was in its final year and had a significantly reduced work programme and resource level, with a commensurate reduction in budget.
- TT confirmed the budget for 2024/2025 was £1.78m, split £1.55m staffing, £0.23m non-staffing. This included budget that was moved from NRS core resource budgets at SBR to relieve the census budget pressure; circa £230k.
- The census programme provisional outturn for 24/25 was currently being reported as a 2.3% underspend, being £41k
- The capital budget provisional outturn was on target to balance at year end. Given the nature of the projects and purchases this was a positive outcome for NRS in 2024/25
2.1.1 The Corporate Finance Lead requested feedback on new reporting tables provided. The Corporate Finance Lead advised tables were manually generated but Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) financial reporting software would be available in a few months’ time. EMB noted the software was meant to be part of Oracle Cloud roll out but was delayed. EMB noted the report and approved the new format, structure and content that would be tabled going forward. The Corporate Finance Lead advised core programme codes could be pulled from Oracle Cloud. Alison requested a breakdown of Capital projects, Revenue projects and BAU projects.
2.1.2 Alison Byrne noted the 2025/26 budget carried risk and highlighted the value of forward forecasting assumptions-based planning and requested Directors review their budgets and spending plans on a more regular basis. The Director of Corporate Services and Accountable Officer suggested finance could report on portfolio budget spending and present figures to EMB.
2.1.3 EMB noted 2024/25 P12 outturn and P13 provisional outturn position pre-year-end adjustments.
2.1.4 The Director of Census Statistics requested an update on the Fees and Income project. The Corporate Finance Lead advised funding had been agreed for the NHS CR contract and easy wins were identified around standard charges and postage. The Interim Director of Operations and Customer Services and Deputy Registrar General advised 2024/2025 is baseline Fees and charges impact around postage and Tartan consultation was due to end in coming weeks. NRS would see some projects more through incrementally by the end of 2025. The Director of Corporate Services and Accountable Officer advised NRS were also brining in an events contract and Business Analyst to review further opportunities.
2.2. Strategic Change Portfolio update
The Head of Portfolio and Governance provided an update on the corporate plan. EMB noted the update.
2.3 Deloitte prioritization framework
Deloitte provided an overview of the proposed prioritisation framework design, which would be used to assess and prioritise activities for the development of NRS 5-year corporate plan roadmap. The paper outlined the key points below:
- As NRS embarked on developing its next five-year corporate plan, a prioritisation framework was essential
- This framework would provide a transparent and justifiable basis for the strategic decisions outlined in the plan, ensuring accountability and demonstrating a clear rationale for resource allocation over the next five years
- The plan would provide a clear understanding of how NRS prioritises its activities and invests its resources to achieve its strategic objectives and fulfil its mission. The approach aimed to:
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- Define and rank projects based on prioritisation criteria
- Increase transparency into resource demand relative to the prioritised portfolio
- Provide a mechanism for reviewing the portfolio; starting, stopping, pausing projects that don't align with prioritisation criteria
- The Corporate Plan would review reporting mechanisms
- The paper provided a worked example of Multi Criteria Prioritisation Scoring
- Multi Criteria Prioritisation Scoring would be introduced to effectively prioritise initiatives within the NRS Corporate Plan, adopting a balanced approach that considered both the potential value and the complexity of each project
- The prioritisation framework would leverage the following criteria and weightings in the assessment of each project/BAU work: Legal & regulation, Strategic Alignment, Risk and Benefit
- To inform strategic decision-making during the development of the NRS Corporate Plan, this prioritisation framework would help NRS to evaluate and prioritise initiatives based on their value, encompassing risk, strategic alignment, benefit, deliverability and feasibility
- Prioritisation work would support NRS in the selection of a portfolio of projects that were achievable, maximise strategic value, and provide benefit to NRS.
- The weighting could be adjusted based on NRS risk appetite. The prioritisation matrix process provided rigour but final decision making would also include a human element e.g. reputational impact of not prioritising something
- The framework would not provide the final answer. This process would provide rigour and mechanism to objectively facilitate discussions and agree relative priorities
The paper requested validation from EMB on the proposed prioritisation framework and asked EMB what visibility they would like in terms of project reporting
2.3.1EMB provided the following feedback below:
- Clear reporting on the Archive Services Programme with a preference for reporting on its four different elements
- Package Estates projects together
- Helpful to have Census and Fees and Income included in reporting
- Further discussion around prioritisation, resource mapping and reporting mechanisms would be required with OCS
- Provide further detail on how scoring would work, including risk scoring
- Some OCS projects had no overarching review for Directorate level projects if these were not recognised in the strategic change portfolio
- Visibility of departmental projects should be managed at a local level
- Legal and Regulation weighting were most important
- EMB requested workshops be arranged to test scoring with worked examples
2.3.2 Alison Byrne asked if EMB should have visibility over cloud migration project. Kathleen advised DSB had visibility on this.
2.3.4 The Director of Statistics provided an update on SAS to open-source project and advised a digital services contract was required to bring in resource for the design and build process. Alison Byrne requested a meeting with the Director of Statistics and the Head of IT Customer Service & Delivery to discuss this.
2.3.5 The Head of Portfolio and Governance suggested SROs carried out a deep dive on red projects at DSB. The Director of Information & Records Services and Deputy Keeper suggested long standing amber projects were also reviewed to prevent them turning red.
2.3.6 EMB approved the prioritisation framework and provided the following feedback:
- EMB noted that prioritisation scoring and risk scoring would be tested in workshops
- It would be helpful to test BAU NRS services at the workshop to see what scoring was provided
- To ensure there was no potential for bias scoring
- Noted NRS resourcing challenges and risk due to expertise being limited to one single point of failure
Action EMB 466: Deloitte to align their prioritisation framework with Head of Portfolio and Governance version. Action Owner: Deloitte
2.4. Cabinet Records & SG file transfer update
2.4.1 The Head of Archive Depositor Liaison provided an update on Cabinet Records & SG file transfer update with the key points below:
- The paper provided an overview on transfers of SG records with “enduring value” to NRS, which included records of the Scottish Cabinet
- SG was obliged to transfer these records to NRS after 15 years to allow NRS to preserve them and make them available
- The paper provided an update on archiving of SG records and increased awareness of key strategic issues affecting digital archiving and NRS relationship with key stakeholders
- The update followed an earlier paper to EMB on significant issues which affected the transfer of Cabinet records during 2024, and which became the focus of significant ministerial interest
- The paper provided an update on that transfer, together with details of scheduled process improvements and more strategic enhancements to NRS’s digital archiving capability
- SG records that were due for transfer were digital, and the paper outlined the challenges facing both NRS and SG posed by growing volumes of digital records
- Neither NRS nor SG currently had the capacity to deal with transfers of digital records at the scale required to meet SG obligations, meaning that growing numbers of records were now overdue for transfer
- SG primary challenge related to their obligation to resource the sensitivity review of files to ensure the public could access these significant public records
- NRS primary challenge related to capacity to archive digital records at scale, as NRS processes were currently predominantly manual
- While transfers at large volumes were not progressing, SG continued to transfer smaller numbers of files – those relating to the Scottish Cabinet only - to support their transparency agenda and meet expectations of Ministers, journalists and the wider public. However, even relatively small volumes of transferred records were proving problematic.
- The paper provided an update on issues which affected the most recent transfer of Cabinet records, and which became the subject of significant Ministerial interest.
- The paper outlined improvements which had been put in place to support the next transfer, which was scheduled for August 2026, together with more strategic developments which would enable NRS to scale up digital preservation from 2026-2027 onwards. This included progress being made by the Digital Archiving Project
- The paper noted that no commitments to transferring SG digital records at scale have been asked for or made by either SG or NRS. However, senior SG colleagues had indicated that SG is unlikely to be in a position to transfer high volumes of records until 2027 at the earliest
- The paper also covered other significant issues and questions around digital archiving. These included: the possibility of accepting SG records as closed, with access on demand; and NRS’s approach to cataloguing and providing access to digital records at scale, including the suitability of Scotland’s People as an access platform. At this stage, these issues still remained to be explored and the paper did not make any recommendations
- Wider admin files had much wider research interest than Cabinet Records which added risk to NRS
2.3.2 Alison Byrne requested assurances on the NRS catalogue and asked if NRS had evidence of current requests for evidence base for modelling the resource and funding required. The Head of Archive Depositor Liaison advised a matrix was available. The Head of Archive Depositor Liaison advised NRS were in touch with other archives and different approaches were being developed to mitigate potential risks. The Head of Archive Depositor Liaison advised cataloguing could help with FOI requests.
2.3.3 Alison Byrne requested an options paper be developed. EMB noted Information Governance were also reviewing this. The Interim Director of Operations and Customer Services and Deputy Registrar General advised NRS continued to develop the digital archiving access portal. Alison requested this issue be added to the agenda for the next five nations meetings so NRS could ask what other organisations were doing in this space.
Action EMB 467: Alison Byrne requested transfer of Cabinet records be added to the agenda for the next five nations meetings. Action Owner: Deputy Director, Information and Records Services
2.3.4 The Director of Statistics requested information on which UK departments were using automation to support the process of sensitivity review. The Head of Archive Depositor Liaison advised Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCO) had set up a trading fund which provided a service to government departments which used automation to enhance sensitivity review.
3.1. Review of live issues
EMB reviewed the live issues log and agreed the following actions.
Action EMB 468: Update WRH racking issue. Action Owner: Interim Director of Operations and Customer Services and Deputy Registrar General
Action EMB 469: Update Intellectual Property issue. Action Owner: Interim Director of Operations and Customer Services and Deputy Registrar General
Action EMB 470: Close PSN issue. Action Owner: Kathleen Greer
Action EMB 471: Check compliance in relation to NHS CR issue. Action Owner: The Director of Statistics
3.2. Business continuity framework
The Corporate Business Continuity Lead provided and update on the NRS Business Continuity framework with the key points below:
- The document replaced the NRS Business Continuity Policy Statement and Business Continuity Operations Manual, resulting from a review of NRS Business Continuity Management System
- The Draft Business Continuity Policy and Framework outlined NRS commitment to Business Continuity and how NRS would support and embed Business Continuity across the organisation
- Recommendations included the creation of a Business Continuity Working Group with cross-organisational representation and the establishment of feedback loops to EMB and ARC.
- The document incorporated feedback from colleagues from across the organisation
3.2.1. EMB provided approval of the draft Business Continuity Policy and Framework and proposed next steps. EMB noted future BC plan testing would be carried out and a key aspect of the paper was out of hours cover for key services.
3.2.2 Alison Byrne requested an implementation plan be developed to identify key BC leads, actions, roles and responsibilities.
3.2.3 The Director of Census Statistics requested Corporate Services develop a consolidated list of the key contacts for all NRS Corporate groups, including roles and responsibilities. BMU would take this forward and circulate to all NRS staff.
Action EMB 472: Corporate Services develop a consolidated list of key contacts for all NRS Corporate Governance, including directorate representatives, corporate roles and description of these responsibilities. Action Owner: BMU
3.3. Reporting Registration Issues to Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Services (COPFS)
The Head of Registrations provided an update on Reporting Registration Issues to Procurator Fiscal and Crown Office (Registration Services) with the key points below.
- Engagement was on-going with key external partners (COPFS and Police Scotland), on the development of a supporting policy and standard operating procedure for reporting cases for potential action by COPFS
- The involvement of Police Scotland was expected to extend only to those cases where there was an immediate public threat, or where further evidence was required.
- NRS has previously reported offences relating to the delivery of statutory registration services to COPFS. However, no such cases relating to registration services have been reported since approximately 2015.
- During Scotland’s Census 2022, with support from COPFS, NRS/RG reported seven cases of non-compliance under the Census Act 1920. Our approach to noncompliance differentiated between households which did not respond and those which directly refused (i.e. households that told us that they were deliberately refusing to respond).
- This would have no impact on registrars
3.3.1 The Director of Census Statistics suggested NRS met with Office of National Statistics (ONS) to learn how the handled non-compliance and prosecution process.
3.3.2 The Director of Statistics advised NRS were liaising with COPFS team that investigated all sudden, suspicious, accidental and unexplained deaths for NRS mortality stats (Data from COPFS to NRS).
EMB members approved the following:
- NRS’ role as a Specialist Reporting Agency was resumed
- work continued to draft associated policies and standard operating procedures
3.4. Update on Document Security
The Director of Information & Records Services and Deputy Keeper provided an update on Document Security progress to date with the key points below:
- The meeting was updated on the work to review NRS’s physical document security and in particular the most recent work looking at internal document security through three workstreams:
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- 1. Internal Audit on storage of NRS’s archival assets
- 2. Short life Document Security Working Group, supplemented by
- 3. External risk assessment of NRS document security
- LM highlighted the main high-level themes coming out of the work, and noted the similarity of the organisational themes with those coming out of the work to develop target operating model and strategy for NRS as a whole
- LM noted that although this work focused on the security of NRS’s archival holdings, and therefore on the three buildings where their storage and processing takes place, there would be recommendations which could equally be applied to the storage and handling of other records of enduring value which NRS holds
- EMB noted activity already underway to address a particular recommendation for West Register House
3.4.1 EMB noted the paper and provided the following feedback below:
- EMB discussed the high-level findings and recommended next steps following receipt of the final document security risk assessment report
- EMB confirmed the scope of the next steps work to create an action plan and identifying priorities by end of summer 2025
- Response and weighting would need to be proportionate with a focus on Document Security review lessons learned
- EMB noted that physical document security needs to be kept under constant review to ensure that NRS remains in line with standard practice as this evolves over time
- EMB noted Business Analyst resource required to help with this work
- EMB noted IT resource available to assist with the work
- EMB noted a working group and workshop would be set up
- EMB noted a wider holistic NRS Security review would need to be carried out
3.4.2 The Director of Information & Records Services and Deputy Keeper advised the Trident report highlighted NRS had no central point for security governance and oversight. The ISC reviewed Cyber, IG and Physical Security from an information perspective only. EMB noted some organisations had a security committee.
3.5. Information Security Committee (ISC) update to EMB
Iain Gray provided an update on ISC progress to date with the key points below:
- The meeting was updated on the purpose, remit and work of the Information Security Committee
- LM highlighted the two main topics of discussion for the Committee over the last year: the NHS Dumfries & Galloway cyber-attack and the associated work to strengthen NHS CR processes and NRS data sharing practices, and the historical theft of archive materials and the associated work to improve document security
- LM outlined the forward plan for the Committee’s work in 2025/26, including the outcome and next steps resulting from the data sharing review, consideration of the annual security training plan and the review of the performance of the Information Security Management System
3.5.1 EMB noted the report and agreed the following:
- The new C2 role in Customer Services and Archives Directorate would chair the ISC and carry out the Senior Information Risk Owner (SIRO) and Data Protection Officer (DPO) roles for NRS
- The C2 would also carry out the Information Asset Owner (IAO) role
- ISC report to EMB and EMB escalate issues to ARC when required
3.5.2 The Director of Census Statistics noted there was no training available for the IAO role. Iain Gray noted NRS had committed to completing IAO training by summer 2025. Iain advised some roles could be carried out at C2 level and some at SME level.
Action EMB 473: Bring paper to EMB on what is required for the IAO role and training required. Action Owner: Iain Gray
3.6. Hybrid Working Policy
3.7 EMB discussed NRS Hybrid Working Policy and noted the following:
- EMB noted Permanent Secretary comments around the value of in person working, connection and collaboration
- Staff comms would be arranged on back of the SG Hybrid Working Policy announcement
- EMB to consider NRS Hybrid Working Policy, Space Planning Review, Workplace Planning review and develop Ways of Working Framework
- People Board could also consider Hybrid Working Policy
- Gather evidence from each Directorate on current work from home and office figures
- EMB noted use of VQ would be evaluated and results and key points from that could be shared
4.1. No AOB was raised.
4.2. EMB Forward Look
4.3 EMB noted the forward look and date of the next meeting was 3 June 2025.
