Welsh Revenue Authority Board minutes: 9 April 2020

Members

• Kathryn Bishop, Chair
• Dyfed Edwards, Deputy Chair
• David Jones, Non-Executive
• Jocelyn Davies, Non-Executive
• Lakshmi Narain, Non-Executive
• Sam Cairns, Chief Operations Officer
• Lucy Robinson, Customer Insight and Strategy

Ymgynghorwyr (advisors)

• Joanna Ryder, Chief of Staff
• Melissa Quignon-Finch, Head of HR
• Kate Innes, Interim Chief Finance Officer
• Jim Scopes, Interim Chief Strategy Officer
• Catrin Durie, Head of Communications
• Amy Bowden, Interim Head of Legal

Secretariat

• Ceri Sullivan, Board Secretariat

1. The Chair welcomed everybody to the meeting. Apologies were received from Dyfed Alsop and Andrew Jeffreys.

Information redacted (Footnote 1).

1. The Board were informed that Becca Godfrey (returning Chief Strategy Officer) would chair the Case Management Committee now that Sean Bradley had left the organisation. To ensure there remains representation across Operations, Policy and Legal, Amy Bowden (interim Head of Legal) would also join the committee as a legal representative. A review of the committees governance arrangements would be carried out shortly.
    
2. The Board were also informed that Amy would represent the legal function as an ymgynghorwr to both the Board and the Tîm Arwain going forward.
    
3. The Chair reminded members that there was an outstanding action to document the Board’s governance arrangements during the current situation; a short piece of work would be developed for now with a more detailed piece of work to follow.

1. The Chair informed the Board that public appointments had been suspended until September 2020. Work was underway with Welsh Treasury and the Public Bodies Unit to put the necessary arrangements in place for when the suspension is lifted. The Chair would keep the Board informed over the coming months as matters develop.

Information redacted (Footnote 1).

1. There had been an increased threat to all organisations due to cyber-attacks with a general upturn in terms of phishing acts. However, measures are being put in place and worked on and a number of tests had already been carried out. Staff had also been made aware of this increased risk for both their work and home life. A future item on this would be brought to the Board.
    
2. The longer-term strategy for unauthorised disposals is on a future agenda for discussion, although it was noted that, given recent events, this work may change in scope and timetable.
    
3. Board members agreed that it could be useful to consider what might be early-warning indicators of changes in our context in the turbulent time ahead.
    

[1] There are certain circumstances where it is not appropriate to share all of the information contained within the Board minutes, for example, where it contains personal or commercial data or relates to the formulation of government policy etc. or the effective conduct of public affairs. In such circumstances, the information has been redacted and the text is marked clearly that this has been the case.