Minutes and actions of the 57th board meeting held on 17 March 2020

Board

Tamsyn Barton (Chief Commissioner and Chair)

Hugh Bayley (Commissioner)

Tarek Rouchdy (Commissioner)

Attendees

Andrew Forbes (Secretariat)

Ekpe Attah (Secretariat)

Ellie Harte (Secretariat)

Lauren Pett (Agulhas items 3, 4 and 5)

Marcus Cox (Agulhas items 3, 4 and 5)

Nabila Jiwaji (Secretariat)

Nigel Thornton (Agulhas items 3, 4 and 5)

Pauline Worthington (Secretariat)

1. ICAI formal update

Minutes and Actions from December 2019 Board

The minutes of the December 2019 ICAI Board meeting were agreed, and the Secretariat updated Commissioners on action points from the previous meeting.

Business Update including GDPR and Safeguarding

The Secretariat updated Commissioners on forecast spend for year 1 of Phase 3 and noted that the level of spend was consistent with ICAI’s overall 4-year budget.

Commissioners discussed the potential impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the work of both ICAI and HMG. The board discussed options for ICAI’s work going forward in the context of departments reprioritising resources and agreed these should include consideration of what other rapid reviews could be done.

Action 1: Commissioners to review workplan with Head of Reviews.

FOI update

One new FOI request has been received since the last Board relating to IT suppliers and this has been passed to DFID for a response.

Corporate Risk Register

The Commissioners discussed the Corporate Risk Register and reviewed the risks that had changed this month. Discussion centred around engagement with the newly reconstituted IDC and the potential changes in the risk of Brexit related disruption.

Commissioners noted a new risk around the impact of Covid-19 and asked for further description and mitigation of this risk.

Commissioners discussed the challenges of maintaining good team working while working remotely during the Covid-19 disruption.

Action 2: Head of Delivery to update the Covid-19 risk to include risks to foreign travel and risks to the availability of Government officials, IDC and all other stakeholders. To include additional mitigations to support even more remote review work and increased involvement of local teams.

Action 3: Head of Secretariat to organise a virtual monthly meeting with Commissioners and Secretariat.

2020/2021 Proposed Budget

Commissioners discussed and agreed the proposed budget for the 2020/2021 financial year.

GDPR

Commissioners noted there had been no Subject Access Requests in the last quarter.

Safeguarding

Commissioners noted there had been no instances of non-compliance with ICAI safeguarding standards in the last quarter.

2. Corporate KPIs

The Head of Secretariat updated Commissioners on proposed revisions to the KPIs. Commissioners approved the proposed new set of KPIs, subject to two communications and engagement indicators being amended to capture the average number of outputs across ICAI publications, and the appropriateness of the new KPIs in practice being reviewed in a year’s time. The new KPIs would be effective from 31 March 2020 and the nature of the revisions reported in ICAI’s 2019/20 annual report.

3. Progress against current workplan – Agulhas in attendance

Head of Reviews provided an update on progress against the workplan, with a focus on key issues and risks. There was discussion around how ICAI would have to adjust the workplan and standard timelines to take account of the challenges presented by the impact of Covid-19, including spending more time on exploring a wider range of new topics.

Action 4: Chief Commissioner to discuss potential new review topics with the Chair of the ICAI Sub-Committee of the IDC. Head of Reviews to update at the next Board meeting as to implications for the future workplan.

Action 5: The Secretariat and Service Provider to take all reviews currently agreed with IDC through to design stage, with timelines and options for remote working to be reviewed in detail.

4. Work planning methodology – Agulhas in attendance

The board discussed and agreed the review methodology. The refinements and planned future developments to the methodology were welcomed by Commissioners. Commissioners discussed the option of inviting DFID Internal Audit to a future board meeting to discuss their approach to work planning.

Action 6: Head of Reviews to share the full work planning document with the Service Provider.

Action 7: Head of Secretariat to investigate inviting internal audit to a future board meeting.

5. Communication and engagement strategy – Agulhas in attendance

The Head of Engagement provided an update on progress in implementing the improvements outlined in the new ICAI communications strategy, and presented the new evaluation tools, which were welcomed by Commissioners.

Further discussions centred around strengthening ICAI’s social media approach via LinkedIn and Twitter and working with Agulhas to improve stakeholder contact management throughout the review cycle.

Action Log from 57th Board Meeting March 2020

Action Log from 56th Board Meeting December 2019