Welsh Government Board meeting: 18 March 2022

1. Welcome / Current issues: WG 2025 – Transformational Change Programme

Paper ref

Paper: (22) 01

Notes

See minutes.

2. The use of Welsh language in the Welsh Government

Paper ref

Paper: (22) 02

Notes

Paper not published as it contains information relating to internal performance management.

3. Key performance indicators

Paper ref

Paper: 22(03)

Notes

Paper not published as it contains information relating to internal performance management.

4. The Programme for Government: overview of progress / RAG status

Paper ref

Paper: (22) 04

Notes

Papers not published as it contains information relating to the formulation or development of government policy.

5. The Programme for Government: Social Care Programme for Government Commitment Delivery

Paper ref

Paper (22)05

Notes

See minutes.

6. Any other business

Paper ref

Oral

Notes

See minutes.

Papers to note

Minutes of previous meeting PTN 01 (22) 06

Paper ref

Papers to note

Notes

Published.

HRMI dashboard: PTN 02 Paper (22) 07

Paper ref

Papers to note

Notes

Paper not published as it contains information relating to internal performance management.

Finance update: PTN 03 Paper (2208)

Paper ref

Papers to note

Notes

Paper not published as it contains information relating to internal performance management.

Corporate Risk Register PTN 05: Paper (22) 09

Paper ref

Papers to note

Notes

Paper not published as it contains information relating to internal performance management.

Budget update: PTN 06 (22) 10

Paper ref

Papers to note

Notes

Paper not published as it contains information relating to internal performance management.

Draft Shadow Board minutes Paper (22)11

Paper ref

Papers to note

Notes

Paper not published as it contains information relating to internal performance management.

• Andrew Goodall 
• Meena Upadhyaya 
• Gareth Lynn 
• Ellen Donovan 
• Tracey Burke 
• Des Clifford 
• Judith Paget 
• David Richards 
• Andrew Jeffreys 
• Peter Kennedy
• Natalie Pearson 
• Gawain Evans 
• Helen Lentle
• Bekah Cioffi
• Zakhyia Begum

In attendance

• Catrin Sully
• Dylan Hughes
• Bethan Griffiths
• Bethan Webb
• Jeremy Evas
• Sharon Cross
• Albert Heaney
• Antony Jordan
• Amy Jones

Secretariat

• Charmain Watts

Apologies

• Reg Kilpatrick
• Andrew Slade

1.1 The Permanent Secretary welcomed all to the Board meeting and welcomed back the Shadow Board co-chairs Bekah Cioffi and Zakhyia Begum. The Permanent Secretary advised the board of his attendance at the latest Shadow Board meeting, to discuss how well it is going and give a personal approach of the first item on the agenda WG 2025 and thanked the co-chairs for allowing him to attend.

1.2 The Shadow Board Co-Chairs confirmed the Permanent Secretary’s attendance was well received.

1.3 The Permanent Secretary asked Board members if they are content with the minutes from the last meeting. Any comments and or updates shall be fed back to the secretariat before they are published next week.

1.4 The Permanent Secretary provided board with an update on the Welsh Governments response to the crisis in Ukraine and the offer of support through Public Services and Humanitarian work.

1.5 Judith Paget provided an update on latest developments of Covid-19, which focused on Covid-19 numbers in Wales, position in hospitals, intensive care and the vaccination and booster programmes.

1.6 The Permanent Secretary fed back to the board, work has recommenced within the Senior Leadership teams around our priority for organisational development, as there is a clear consensus that we should seize the opportunity to build on what we have achieved through the last few years. After considering a number of options, we intend to use an operational delivery programme ‘WG 2025’ as a platform for talking about core values and behaviours, grounded in our ethos of public service and what we can do for Wales.

1.7 Natalie Pearson advised discussions facilitated through Senior Civil Service staff and Senior leadership groups in the last few weeks have been about how we best engage with colleagues at all levels. It has also been agreed the need for an over-arching narrative programme or work which sets out the direction of travel and parameters for engagement so that colleagues can understand where we are headed, how different elements fit together and how they can participate and help make the change happen.

1.8 The Non-Executive directors confirmed they are happy to support the approach and found the information very powerful. They would like to see within the information where we will be in 2025.

1.9 The Co-chairs of the Shadow Board advised members are happy to endorse the direction and welcome the engagement and involvement approach for staff however they would support time for staff to reflect on the past few years through the pandemic, before the changes begin to take place.

2.1 Des Clifford provided board with an update on the Welsh Government strategy of implementing ‘Cymraeg it belongs to us all’. Since its publication in April 2020, there have been some straightforward steps to improving the training offered and recognising Welsh Language Skills in our recruitment processes.

2.2 Des advised the board, over the longer term the following, more interventional steps will be needed to achieve the target of a truly bilingual organisation by 2050:

• develop the skills of our current (and future) workforce
• provide more opportunities for our colleagues to work bilingually, raising skills levels as well as confidence levels
• attract more Welsh speakers into the organisation by gradually advertising more posts as Welsh essential when this is appropriate to do so.

2.3 Des highlighted to the board, the importance of leadership and that we should ensure our senior colleagues consider language issues, whilst also encouraging staff to learn more Welsh.

2.4 Jeremy Evas explained to board further details around the new translation services coming to Microsoft teams. Jeremy also advised work is underway with Academi Wales to introduce a bilingual course into the organisation.

2.5 The board agreed it is important to focus our efforts in encouraging our staff internally as well as external recruitment and new services such as translation in Microsoft teams are ways in which will help to support us becoming a bilingual organisation.

2.6 The Non-Executive Directors acknowledged the update on the use of the Welsh language and would support the idea of pilot programme, to introduce simple phrases for new starters across the organisation.

2.7 The Shadow Board members notes the approach for implementing the strategy and would support senior colleagues allowing staff the time and head space to learn including consideration of developing intensive courses.

3.1 Sharon Cross presented the board with an update on the Welsh Governments Performance Framework that is on the second cycle of reporting, which examines the Welsh Governments performance for 2021.

3.2 Sharon advised the board, the aim of the Framework is to drive improvements in the organisational effectiveness of the Welsh Government Civil Service by focusing on operational performance and the running of the organisation. The framework is made up of 19 themes that are divided into two groups functions (what we do) and attributes (how we do it).

3.3 The board acknowledged the report focuses on the attribute themes within the Framework developed by analysts in KAS and the report had recently been considered by ExCo with the following areas put forward for further consideration:

• Welsh Language
• Equality and Diversity
• and more generally, the areas where performance has declined.

3.4 The board discussed the areas of the framework and agreed some areas are given more consideration than others. Those areas given great consideration are areas of process where as issues around staff engagement is considered less, e.g. staff survey results once a year.

3.5 The Board were also concerned of the time taken to discuss the results at the meeting and felt it can be looked over too quickly. The board agreed that the data should be split into smaller areas and discussed over a number of board meetings.

3.6 The Non-Executive directors agreed that the board should focus more on different areas and raised the question as to whether the data in KPI’s be modified to take on the key plans of the WG 2025.

3.7 The Shadow Board members noted the themes of the latest performance report and raised their concerns around employee engagement.

4.1 Catrin Sully presented the WG Board with an update on the progress of the commitments collectively owned by Cabinet.

4.2 Catrin advised Board, the BIRT system has now been revised to accommodate key deliverables with expected completion dates for each commitment. The Cabinet Office along with the BIRT team have delivered four training sessions to approximately 200 staff to explain how the information will be used and the need for key deliverables to plot the critical path to delivery. The training material is available to all staff on the intranet.

4.3 Catrin confirmed there has been a positive start and engagement from across the organisation, however there were a small number of commitments which still lacked meaningful key deliverables.

4.4 The Board discussed further development work would be needed to present a critical path and improve the consistency of RAG ratings, however it is encouraging that we are starting to gain visibility of the plans to deliver the Programme for Government.

4.5 The Board acknowledged that the Programme for Government Cabinet Sub-Committee is progressing well with a change to the format on hot issues.

4.6 The board notes the recent cabinet paper presented by the First Minister on Cross-Government working and the agreement of Cabinet that all papers that had requested a decision to deploy Cross-Government working over the last two years would be reviewed to understand the extent to which their collective efforts were mobilised in practice.

4.7 The Board also discussed Non-programme for Government ministerial-led commitments and agreed a discussion at board would be welcomed after a consideration at the Executive Committee.

4.8 The Non-Executive Directors supports the idea of a discussion around hot topics and considers it a useful mechanism.

4.9 The Shadow Board Members noted the progress on BIRT and the Programme for Government.

Action

Include in the forward look a discussion on Non-Programme for Government ministerial-led commitments.

5.1 Judith Paget and Albert Heaney presented a paper to update the board on a number of significant commitments designed to build on and further improve the provision and quality of social care services in Wales. In total there are 20 commitments live within the Programme for Government that relate to Social Care activity.

5.2 Albert highlighted to the board, Governance reporting has been an important factor in providing assurance that the right approach has been taken to achieve successful implementation of the commitments.

5.3 The board acknowledged the implementation of the ‘Directorate Assurance Board’ that has been established, to ensure the commitments assigned to Social Services and Integration Directorate during the Senedd term are progressed and delivered, undertake policy-led ‘deep dives’ for policy owners and its role to take an oversight of the project board managing the proposed Social Care Bill.

5.4 The board discussed some of the key commitments and suggested the National Care Service is brought back for a further discussion as there is a big risk of how do you maintain a free service to the point of delivery.

5.5 The Non-Executive directors noted the progress that has been made towards taking forward key social care commitments, felt that a good governance structure is in place and advised they would like to return to the discussion in a few months for an update on the work.

5.6 The Shadow Board members also noted the progress made however would like to see a clear path to the bigger picture as to where the work is going and how it will get there.

6.1 The Permanent Secretary thanked members who attended and to the Shadow Board Co-Chairs for their comments.