Wednesday 11 September 2024
10:00 – 12:00
Hybrid/MS Teams
Attendees
- Janet Egdell – Interim Chief Executive (Chair)
- Alison Byrne – Incoming Chief Executive
- Joe Griffin – DG Strategy & External Affairs
- Anne Moises – Non-Executive Director
- Maggie Waterston – Non-Executive Director
- Tim Wright – Non-Executive Director
- Gordon Shipley – Non-Executive Director
- Carla McHendry – Director of Digital & Delivery
- Laura Mitchell – Director of Information and Records Services & Deputy Keeper – in person
- Linda Sinclair – Director of Corporate Services & NRS Accountable Officer
- Jon Wroth-Smith – Director of Census Statistics
- Alan Ferrier – Director of Statistics
- Claire Gillespie – Chief Finance Officer
- Jane Milne – NRS Head of Customer Services Operations
- Matt Deary – NRS Head of Policy
- Adam Bruton – Corporate Business Assurance Manager
- Michael O’loughlin – Head of Digital Engineering
- Gemma Barker – Head of BMU
- Scott Hitchings – NRS BMU - observer
- Dylais Mattison – NRS BMU - Secretariat
1. Welcome, Introductions and Apologies
1.1 The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting. Introductions were made from all board attendees, who included the new incoming Chief Executive, NRS Alison Byrne (AB) and Joe Griffin (JG), the DG for Strategy and External Affairs.
2. SG Context and expectations of NRS
2.1 The Director General for Strategy and External affairs thanked NRS for all the work it covered including its links to the Culture portfolio and engagement around public service reform. The new Chief Executive was introduced and welcomed. The Chair and outgoing Chief Executive was thanked for all the work accomplished while at NRS. Notable achievements from the NRS Executive Team led by the Chief Executive included the delivery of significant census outputs, the development and publication of the NRS strategy, the business case for Future of Population Statistics (FoPS) and progressing the NRH roof repair.
2.2 The Director General for Strategy and External Affairs noted that all parts of Government, including NRS, were operating in an environment where opportunities to reform public services were vital and recognised the impact of public sector spending controls recently announced by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government. The work NRS was taking forward as part of the public service reform agenda with other public organisations, together with efficiencies made to date was welcomed. The Board discussed ongoing engagement on reform work across public bodies and the impact of further efficiencies.
2.3 The Chair thanked the Director General for Strategy & External Affairs and asked if there were themes NRS should drive forward. In response it was advised that NRS should consider the overall story of NRS about its role, the public services delivered, delivery priorities, and overall public value.
3. Review of Minutes of 22 May 2024
3.1 The minutes of 22 May 2024 were approved.
3.2 The action log was reviewed and updated. A37917071
3.3 No new declarations of interest were noted.
4. Digital Strategy including full draft report
4.1 The Director for Delivery introduced the NRS Head of Digital Engineering, who addressed the digital strategy paper. An overview was provided on the technologies and services NRS provided. The purpose of the Strategy was to set out an approach to modernise the services and rationalise from the SG and iTECs. Cloud environments were also noted.
4.2 Twelve principles were drafted and aligned with the SG strategy. The strategy was bench marked against other agencies and aligned with the SG. The Head of Digital Engineering was thanked for his work.
4.3 The Board noted the investment requirement associated with the strategy to invest in digital public services and modernise legacy systems, recognising the risks legacy systems present. It was noted that NRS would build these requirements into forward strategic plans and delivery priorities, set against NRS core funding. It was noted that given pressures on funding, improvements would need to be planned over a number of years.
4.4 There was further discussion on the development of the vision to transform NRS public services with the following points raised:
- NRS would develop a plan to set out how the digital strategy would be delivered, together with the initial delivery project priorities
- A business case for digital archiving was under development by NRS
- The prioritisation of the digital strategy delivery should be in line with the corporate strategy
- NRS would invest in product and service managers to support the delivery model set out in the strategy
- Road maps and the delivery model would be shared with Strategic Board, as they are developed.
The Delivery Director thanked everyone for their comments and suggestions. The Chair noted consideration was required on how to share the strategy with the delivery plan and how it coincided with the risk register.
5A. Corporate Overview
5.1 The following points below addressed the highlights of the corporate overview.
- Outputs from the census 2022 continued to be delivered with strong positive feedback
- Work continued on the programme closure of census 2022, which was due to conclude at the end of March 2025, along with funding for the programme
- Census currently tracked at Amber due to uncertainty about future funding for the Future of Population Statistics (FoPS).
- Programme governance and structure for FoPS are under development
- ScotlandsPeople new website launched on 3 September 2024 to positive feedback
- Customer Services KPI’s were included for the Annual Report and Accounts
- Customer facing services – Scottish Government would change weekly hours to a 35 hour week from October 24. The impact on customer facing service was under discussion with unions
- Records and archives work remained under way around the archive environment, physical storage and digital storage
- Finance and audit – the annual report and accounts were signed off by audit and would be published and laid in Parliament in due course. Accounts for 2023/24 were concluded with an unmodified opinion
- There was a Scottish Government resourcing freeze in place due to the roll out of the new Oracle from 1 October. This impacted recruitment on vacant posts.
- People - there were pressures on individual roles and would be managed through the work force plan
- The People Survey 2024 had launched with results due at the end of the year
- Due to the new Oracle roll out in October, business continuity sessions would be set up to help manage any issues that arose from the major change in corporate systems
- Assurance – internal audit programme would continue to deliver with an audit on NRS governance underway
- Corporate Risk- Corporate risks have been reduced from thirty one to thirteen, with continued work ongoing to improve the risk register
5B Portfolio and IT Updates
The following points were provided as an overview on the portfolio and IT updates.
- Work was ongoing around the development of the dashboard and how it would be presented
- Work had commenced on the NRS change plan, to capture all change within NRS
- Accreditations and activity underpinned with digital strategy, resource plans, capital and procurement plans
- ScotlandsPeople relaunch of the website was noted and background was provided on this - credit was given to the Programme Manager for the launch on 3 September 2024
- Future operations planned were Web Chat, Chat Bot. The project was delivered on time and on budget
- Work was underway to refresh the NRS website for launch later in 2024.
6. AOB
6.1 The progress on the Ways of Working Team (WoW) was noted and the Chair advised that a report on the current phase was presented to the EMB. A booking system was in place but capacity for larger spaces in buildings for collaborative working was an ongoing challenge. There were a number of recommendations/options put to EMB.
6.2 Gordon Shipley was thanked for all his contributions to the boards he had attended for the past years as a NRS Non-Executive Director (NXD). It was noted that a recruitment round for NXDs would be taken forward later this year.
7. Date of next meeting and close
7.1 The date of the next meeting would be 11 December 2024.
