Minutes of SMT Meeting held on Wednesday 3 November 2021 at 9:30am via Zoom.
In attendance:
- R Kidd - Chair and Chief Executive
- N Monson - Deputy Chief Executive
- B Monson - Deputy Chief Executive
- M McIntyre - NICS HR - 9:30am - 10:15am
Before the formal agenda, R Kidd welcomed M McIntyre and there was a conversation around some of the HR issues of interest. There was discussion on how the reports might possibly be improved and M McIntyre agreed to take a couple of issues away to consider with her team. It was suggested that there might be merit in having her along to SMT on a quarterly basis in advance of the board meetings as it would allow us to get an update on issues that might get raised by the board members.
1. Apologies
Apologies were received from L Burns and K Neeson who joined at Item 8.
2. Minutes from the previous meeting
The minutes from the 5 October meeting were agreed.
3. Action Points
There were no action points not covered by the agenda.
4. Corporate Health, Safety and Welfare
- SMT reviewed the operational guidance and agreed that as the risk remained high, the guidance should remain unchanged at this time
- The DEMS user guide on BWV is being drafted and will hopefully be available by the end of November
- The staff survey is now live and Deputy Chief Executives undertook to remind their heads of group to encourage and remind staff to participate. R Kidd said he would issue a further note to staff in the next week to encourage staff to have their say by completing the online survey
- The issue of Temporarily Promoting (TP) of trainees was discussed and the most recent response from NICS HR. It was agreed that the matter had in effect timed out
5. (A) Audit, Risk Management and Finance
The completion of the end of year accounts was discussed briefly as these are due to be laid in the next two weeks.
5. (B) Emerging Risks
The continued staffing resource pressures were raised as a concern and the impact they are having on staff.
6. Staffing
- It was agreed that most staffing matters had been covered in the discussion with M McIntyre
- Our larger competitions are live and these will impact on staff availability in the coming weeks as we have staff committed to sit on panels
7. Case and Project Work
(A) Major Investigation Team (MIT) update
N Monson referred to the MIT report which was circulated to SMT and the fact that in recent weeks the number of cases under investigation has increased due to the high level of incidents. There was a discussion on some specific cases in terms of progress.
(B) EU Exit / Transition period
There was no further update in this area but it was noted that interviews had taken place last week in respect of posts in this area.
8. Business Planning
SMT noted that a half day planning session has been arranged for 10 November to consider the next business plan cycle.
9. Performance Monitoring
B Monson updated SMT referring to the CMS report. He highlighted some work he is doing to develop a report which looks at some figures over five years in an effort to analyse trends. The last full year figures are out of line with previous years as they are influenced by the pandemic demands and business closures, compliant numbers etc. B Monson is attempting to extrapolate this year to a full year and compare to previous years to see if there has been any normalising of the figures.
10. Board Business
There was a discussion around target setting and performance monitoring following comments raised by the board. One of the key challenges is measuring the effectiveness of interventions where you cannot count incidents that were prevented from happening. It was agreed that we would consider some of the materials circulated by K Neeson from other organisations such as HSA and HSE in an effort to draw up some new metrics to bring to the board for consideration.
11. Any other business (AOB)
K Neeson updated SMT on the expert medical adviser issue.
N Monson suggested that it would be helpful if training could keep a local record of recruitment training undertaken as getting ready access to information held centrally can be slow and this is of little use if we need to find someone quickly to substitute onto an interview panel for instance in the event of unforeseen absence.
N Monson updated SMT on progress for the training of the new intake of inspectors due in early 2022.
12. Date of next meeting
The date of the next meeting is 1 December 2021 at 9:30am.
The meeting concluded at 13:15pm.