Minutes of the 59th board meeting held on 30 September 2020

Board

Tamsyn Barton (Chief Commissioner and Chair)

Hugh Bayley (Commissioner)

Tarek Rouchdy (Commissioner)

Attendees

Andrew Forbes (Secretariat)

Ekpe Attah (Secretariat)

Faith Cowling (Secretariat)

Goknur Ozer (Secretariat)

Jo-Ann Kelly (Secretariat)

Lauren Pett (Agulhas items 5 and 6)

Marcus Cox (Agulhas items 5 and 6)

Max Manning-Lowe (Secretariat)

Nabila Jiwaji (Secretariat)

Nigel Thornton (Agulhas items 5 and 6)

Pauline Worthington (Secretariat)

1. ICAI formal update

Minutes and actions from June 2020 board

The minutes and actions of the June 2020 ICAI board meeting were agreed.

Commissioners discussed the key performance indicators (KPIs) and agreed, on a trial basis, to have one KPI on government acceptance of ICAI’s review recommendations and one on government action in response to ICAI’s recommendations at follow-up.

Action 1:  Secretariat to update KPIs as agreed by commissioners.

Action 2: Secretariat to include a brief communications and engagement update in future business updates where there is no separate communications agenda item.

Business update including GDPR and safeguarding

Commissioners discussed the forecast spend for this financial year, the ongoing budget anomaly discussions with FCDO and noted the need to keep the programme spend under review as the workplan for the remainder of this year is finalised.

Commissioners discussed progress on the actions from the last board.

Action 3: Chief Commissioner to write to FCDO for assurance around the budget anomaly.

Action 4: Secretariat to update action log to incorporate a target completion date.

FOI update

One FOI request relating to recent communications between the Chief Commissioner and Ministers has been received since the last board and a response is being prepared.

Corporate risk register

Commissioners discussed the corporate risk register noting the changes this month and commenting that the recent work to review this risk register has resulted in a useful tool in a fast-changing environment.

Action 5: Secretariat to amend the corporate risk register to display risks in each section in order of magnitude.

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.

3. ICAI review

The Head of Secretariat updated Commissioners on progress with the review of ICAI. Commissioners noted that the terms of reference had not yet been finalised and published and expressed their hope that the current work that ICAI was taking forward to measure its own impact could contribute to the review.

4. Impact Review

The Head of Reviews advised Commissioners that the consultants had commenced interviewing stakeholders, that further meetings and interviews were planned and that a workshop to share findings with Commissioners and the Secretariat was planned for 22 October. The final work is expected in mid-November.

5. Progress against current workplan – Agulhas in attendance

The Chief Commissioner outlined the current challenges in finalising the future workplan and noted that the review of ICAI, the Integrated Review and any decision on the shape of the future parliamentary scrutiny of ODA would need to inform the final choice of review topics for the next year.

Commissioners discussed the options for topics and agreed work could commence on scoping a selection of reviews based on the scoring against the key criteria, in preparation for final decisions on the workplan when the context, and in particular Parliamentary scrutiny arrangements, were clearer. Commissioners requested a meeting to discuss the options on COVID-19 and CSSF related reviews.

Action 6: Head of Reviews to circulate confirmation of the review topics identified for scoping and share all the supporting documentation for the scoring of potential topics.

Action 7: Head of Reviews to schedule a meeting to define the review options relating to COVID-19 and CSSF.

6. Update from Ben Mellor, FCDO Transformation Team

Ben Mellor updated the meeting on the on-going work of the FCDO Transformation Team. Topics covered included the work relating to alignment, structure, vision, systems, staff engagement and value for money. Ben clarified that consideration of ICAI’s remit following the FCDO’s establishment did not fall to his team but would be addressed in the separately announced review of ICAI.

Action Log from 59th Board Meeting March 2020

Action Log from 58th Board Meeting March 2020

Action Log from 57th Board Meeting March 2020

Action Log from 56th Board Meeting December 2019