Agency Management Board minutes 09 January 2009

Mr Davis (Chair)
Mr Boyle
Miss Bill
Dr Sullivan
Dr Wallace
Mr Magee
Miss McVeagh (Observer)
Miss Conway (Minutes)

Mr Nevin
Ms Donnan
Pamela McCready KPMG
Maria McDonnell KPMG
Paul Holloway KPMG
Graham Harrison Oxford Econonics

Mr Davis welcomed everyone to the meeting in particular Miss McVeagh from the Chief Executive’s Office.

John Nevin and Emma-Jane Donnan joined the meeting accompanied by representatives from KPMG and Oxford Economics.  A presentation was given to the Board on the contents of the draft report on the Strategic Review of Benefit Uptake.  The presentation was followed by a general discussion on the findings and recommendations.  It was agreed that the final report would be redrafted to include areas covered during the discussion.  Mr Davis thanked KPMG and Oxford Economics for the presentation and their contribution to the discussion.

The minutes of the previous meeting were agreed.

Mr Davis referred to the status of action points in AMB 147/08 and noted the items that had been cleared since the previous meeting or were being taken forward through specific Business Areas.  It was agreed following discussion that Action Point 92 should be treated as cleared and that Action Points 90 and 91 should be combined.  Action Point 88: It was agreed that Mr Magee would provide briefing prior to the proposed meeting with Dr Ken Addley and John Mallon.  
(Action Point 97/08):Mr Magee

Miss Bill presented the Financial Report for 30 November 2008 advising that the information was the first available from Account NI and whilst the projected outturns were in line with current projections some risks around the figures existed.  Miss Bill provided the Board with an overview and update on likely issues moving forward including PBR.  

Miss Bill advised the Board that ANI and HRconnect implementation had the potential to impact on completeness, timeliness and accuracy of information available for the next couple of months and that effectively this was at the most complex time of the year.

Miss Bill provided the Board with an overview of the current overtime bids and the need to increase the overtime cap, following discussion it was agreed to approve the overtime bids and to increase the cap to £3.8m to meet the overtime allocations.

Miss Bill provided an update on the current position advising that the Agency’s accounts would be published during January 2009 and agreed to provide ‘lines to take’ to Board members.  Miss Bill advised that no date had been agreed as yet for the publication of the National Insurance Fund Accounts (NIF).  Mr Davis commented on the lifting of the qualification on the NIF Accounts and noted that the Standards Assurance Unit approach had been audited not only by Internal Audit and the Northern Ireland Audit Office but also by the National Audit Office.
(Action Point 98/08):Miss Bill

The Board approved the paper.

Mr Magee presented the Manpower paper.  He updated the Board on the staffing position at the end of November, including the current vacancies as detailed within the report.  It was agreed that Dr Sullivan would meet with Mr Magee to review the current vacancies/bids within the Operations Directorate.  Following a general discussion it was agreed that Personnel Branch would proceed with recruiting staff at all grades to fill current vacancies.  
(Action Point 99/08):Mr Magee

The Board noted and approved the paper.

Dr Sullivan presented the paper for results at the end of November 2008, and updated the Board on the current position for claims clearance; advising that the month end and year to date target had been missed for Incapacity Benefit.  He explained the reasons for this and following discussion it was agreed that the target needed to be looked at in light of the introduction of ESA with consideration given to whether the target was still valid.  It was also agreed that Dr Sullivan would prepare a paper on IB and PTP targets post project implementation.  
(Action Point 100/08):Dr Sullivan

Dr Sullivan provided an overview of the financial accuracy performance advising the Board that provisional figures were available for the rolling year ending September 2008.  Based on these there had been improvements in State Pension (SP) results of 1.1% with financial accuracy at 99.2%, State Pension Credit (SPC) had also increased by of 0.4% to 93.7%.  Dr Sullivan also highlighted the slight decrease in the results from Income Support down by 0.2% to 97.9% explaining that this can be attributed to experienced staff moving to ESA which had impacted particularly in the greater Belfast offices.  

It was agreed by the Board that overall performance was good and in particular noted the improvement in SPC.  

Dr Sullivan advised that the Belfast Benefit Delivery Centre had met all its targets.

The Board noted and approved the paper.

The Board noted performance against the additional key targets and discussed the relevant areas.  

Mr Magee presented the paper, providing an overview explaining that detailed information from NISRA was not available for November due to the move to HR-Connect.  He advised, however that the projected year end figure indicated that absence was down by 1.7 days.  It was agreed that this would be a very good result for the year.  Following a general discussion it was agreed that Mr Magee raise number of concerns on managing attendance targets with the Department.
(Action Point 101/08):Mr Magee

Ongoing Assembly business discussed.

Updates were provided on Account NI, HR Connect, PTP, ESA and SBR.

An update was provided on the actions taken by the Board to date to address the increasing workloads.  Mr Davis thanked Dr Sullivan and Miss Bill for the paper submitted to the Board during December which had been very useful.  Miss Bill advised that a further paper would be brought to the Board later in the month, looking in particular at projections across all benefits; she also advised that meetings have been arranged with DEL and DFP.  Mr Davis asked that Dr Sullivan keep the Board advised of developments within DWP to address the increased workloads within GB.  It was agreed that Miss Bill would include a summary within the Financial Report in any month where a separate report on the Increasing Benefit Registers is not going to the Board.  

The date of the next AMB meeting to be agreed

The Board noted the above papers.