Minutes of SMT Meeting held on Wednesday 10 March 2021 at 9:00am
via zoom (The meeting had been rescheduled from 3 March 2021).
In attendance:
- R Kidd - Chief Executive (Chair)
- L Burns - Deputy Chief Executive
- N Monson - Deputy Chief Executive
- B Monson - Deputy Chief Executive
- K Neeson - Deputy Chief Executive
1. Apologies
There were no apologies.
2. Minutes from the previous meeting
The minutes from the 11 February 2021 meeting were agreed.
3. Action Points
There were no action points not covered by the agenda.
4. Corporate Health, Safety and Welfare
SMT discussed the intended continuation of the current operating model which was agreed. The risk assessment has been issued to all staff following agreement by the Trade Union side. It was noted that an application has been submitted for operational staff to be included in planned LFT regime.
5. Audit, Risk Management and Finance
- EU Exit staff recruitment is underway
- Trade Union side have been consulted and once agreed the job descriptions were sent to NICS HR
- the process has been progressing and an order for running the competitions has been agreed
Emerging Risks
- finance continues to be a risk as the baseline is expected to be flat as in previous years with added uncertainty of long term funding for the EU Exit posts
- The Building Safety Regulator role remains an ongoing issue with no decision taken as to how it will be rolled out in Northern Ireland
- training of inspectors and the re-banding proposals continue to be explored
6. HR
- SMT discussed a number of posts where recruitment has commenced and is at various stages. Progress has been slow.
- Also discussed were a couple of specific staff issues and how these might be addressed. One member of staff has made application for partial retirement. B Monson is going to explore this further before any decision is made. There is also a Principal Inspector retirement taking place in the summer. Discussion will be had with the Department of Justice around the funding of this
7. Case and Project Work
- Major Investigation Team (MIT) update – N Monson shared the statistics on the number of cases currently with MIT. A separate attachment was sent to SMT in advance of the meeting. There was a short discussion on a couple of current cases
- EU Exit/transition period – No further updates as staffing was covered under the point named Staffing
8. Business Planning
It was agreed that we would hold a separate meeting to discuss business planning and the paper which had been circulated to SMT the previous day by Corporate Support Unit.
9. Performance Monitoring
B Monson updated SMT referring to the recent figures in the team brief. While cluster reports are thankfully reducing the volume of work remains very high.
10. Board Business
The chief executive spoke to the board Chair and has arranged a Zoom meeting with Steve Mungavin from Chief Executives Forum to discuss options around training and induction of the new board members as well as refreshing the objectives for the board.
11. Any other business
There were no additional items.
12. Date of next meeting
The date of the next SMT meeting is planned for 1 April 2021.
The meeting concluded at 11:05am.