Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee

In accordance with Standing Order 17.42(ix), I propose that the committee resolves to meet in private for item 4 of today's meeting and the remainder of the meeting after item 6. Are all Members content? Thank you. I see that all Members are content, so I'd be grateful if the clerking team could take us into private session.

Croeso, bawb. Welcome, everybody, back to the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee meeting this morning in the Senedd. We will now take evidence from the Senedd Commission, the Welsh Parliament Commission, in relation to our usual annual scrutiny of their report and accounts and on matters relating to our inquiry into public appointments. A short break will be taken during the session to allow for a change in witnesses. Croeso, welcome, to the participants, or the witnesses. I’d be grateful if you could state your names and roles for the record.

Thank you, Chair. I am Manon Antoniazzi, and I am the Chief Executive and Clerk of the Senedd Commission.

My name's Hefin David, Senedd Commissioner for budget and governance.

Hi, I'm Leanne Baker, I'm the chief people officer at the Senedd.

Thank you. We have a number of questions for you. I’d be grateful if both yourselves and Members could be as succinct as possible in answering them in order to cover the wide range of topics generated. As you’ve heard, we propose a short break after about an hour in the session for a comfort break or otherwise. As convention has it, I will ask the first question. So, can you describe the role of Senedd Commission staff in supporting Crown and Senedd appointments?

Thank you, Chairman. The role of Senedd Commission staff varies according to the Senedd’s role in any given recruitment process. So, for example, the Finance Committee, of course, is responsible for oversight of the Wales Audit Office and the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales. Therefore, the role of the Finance Committee there involves nominating a preferred candidate for Auditor General, and also for the role of ombudsman. It then also appoints non-executive members of the Wales Audit Office board and recommends the appointment of its chair. So, under those circumstances, what Senedd Commission staff do is provide a secretariat for those processes, occasionally a senior member of staff to help with the panel duties. We would advise on recruitment strategies, including the use of executive search agencies, if that was the committee’s preference. It’s a similar process then in supporting the standards committee, who have the responsibility of deciding on a preferred candidate for the standards commissioner role, which is then appointed by the whole Senedd. So, our role as Commission staff is basically one of support and administrative backup and advice. We support committees in the same way when they undertake pre-appointment hearings.

The slightly more intense involvement comes in two further categories of appointment. One is members of the independent remuneration board that sets terms and conditions for Members. And because it wouldn’t be appropriate for Members to be involved in the appointment of new recruits to that board, I as chief executive am responsible for those appointments. Then, the Commission is also responsible for appointing its own independent advisers. So, there’s a range of advisers there where we run that recruitment. That's, in a nutshell, the different kind of involvement that we have in the case of different processes.

Okay. And a further question for you in particular, if I may: what procedures does the organisation have in place to support you and the Senedd committees in arranging the recruitment to Crown and Senedd appointments, and how do you ensure that these are consistently applied?

Well, we operate—. The recruitment principles that we employ, and we employ across staff appointments as well, are similar to the Cabinet Office principles that incorporate the Nolan principles—fairness, openness, diversity and so on. So, we would seek to apply those consistently. The role of the—. We will then take our lead, on appointments that are the committee’s responsibility, from the committee. We will supply the support that they want in any particular recruitment.

Okay, thank you. Did anybody else wish to comment? No. Other Members will now take up the questions. I invite Mike Hedges to raise some matters with you. Mike.

Diolch, Cadeirydd. The Senedd Commission internal audit plan 2023-24 noted it would carry out an audit review of the systems and processes in place to support committees in their roles in relation to public appointments. What was the outcome of the audit, and what assurance did it give that the systems and processes in place are fit for purpose and demonstrate value for money?

Thank you. Yes, we received the results of that audit in February of this year. Going back to my previous answer, it focused on the Commission staff’s role and whether there were any improvements that we could make there. By and large, we had an encouraging assessment, but there were some action points, and they included clarifying the relationship between various Commission staff teams in the recruitment—committee clerks and the HR teams and the finance teams involved—it involved setting ourselves clear key performance indicators, then, at the outset, and conducting formal evaluations after every recruitment to make sure that we learn the lessons.

So, I think the big lesson was to formalise those lessons-learnt exercises and also to make sure that the various teams that are involved in supporting committees in the appointments speak to each other about, for example, the role of executive search and other recruitment methods to enhance the diversity of the candidate set. So, all of those recommendations were received; they’ve been acted upon.

Thank you.

No further questions, Mike? Well, in that case, can I invite Rhianon Passmore to take up the questions?

Diolch, Chair. Moving to the Crown and Senedd appointments area in a bit more depth, how would you assess the effectiveness to date of the Commission’s diversity and inclusion strategy 2022-26 in ensuring the talent pipelines for our public/Crown appointments are, and I'll quote,

‘diverse and processes optimised for inclusion and reaching the widest audience’?

So, in what circumstances would your staff—and you mentioned this earlier—recommend the use of executive search agencies for recruitment campaigns? And if you could flesh out when those would be used and how we assess the effectiveness and value for money of using those vehicles, that would be very useful.

Thank you. We have collected and analysed applicants’ diversity data since 2022, so we don’t have a huge number of campaigns, but we have a breakdown of the diversity data there. We hope that, as the years go by, we will have a richer dataset, and I’ll ask Leanne as our chief people officer to come in in a minute on that.

But I think we draw on the bank of knowledge that we have from recruiting our own executive staff as well when we’re making public appointments, and there are a lot of lessons that we have learnt in terms of breaking down barriers for people who might not think of applying for jobs in the Senedd Commission that can be transferable to public appointments in those cases, and we’re always aware of being able to give that advice to committees.

The use of executive search agencies is one way of making sure that we are reaching applicants who might need a bit of encouragement to put their names forward. But, Leanne, can I hand over to you to talk a little bit more in detail, because there’s a lot of work that our teams have concluded in this area?

So, as Manon has alluded to, we’ve done four campaigns so far, which we’ve collected the diversity data on. It’s not a lot of data that we’ve got as a result, but, however, what the data is telling us from those initial datasets is that there is a lot of room for improvement there, particularly in appointing women into these positions, those from ethnic minority backgrounds, and, in particular, disabled people.

As Manon mentioned, we do use executive search agencies. Now, how that’s used in these appointments is down to the individual committees, if they're committee led, those appointments, and, during that process, there is a value-for-money exercise that is undertaken. So, for the last Audit Wales appointments that were undertaken, the decision was made not to use an executive search agency, but from the rudimentary—and it is rudimentary—data that we’ve got, it does demonstrate, it does show, that when we have used executive search agencies, it does provide for better outcomes in terms of progressing diversity through that process.

But, in terms of the support that we as officials provide to the committees, and in the work that we do for our own public appointments, certainly, we advise on the use of gender-neutral candidate packs, making sure that they are as inclusive as possible. We are in the process of refreshing our intranet pages, going forward, on public appointments, so we can use I think what they call peer-led stories, where we use real-life individuals to give prospective appointees an overview of what it's like to be on a board, to try and reach out to those candidates who wouldn't think that they could be on a board, so they are able to relate and identify. Work is continuing, and, certainly, the data sets are something that we're going to concentrate on in more detail, going forward. Sorry, Mike's waving there—.

In regard to you've mentioned—

Sorry, Rhianon, Mike Hedges is asking if he can come in, but have you finished your sentence, first?

Yes, thank you.

Okay. Mike.

If Adam was here, he'd say, 'How do you ensure we have 20 per cent of applicants speaking Welsh?' I will say, 'Are you now recording the first part of the postcode of where people live?' because I have concerns that it's posh Cardiff and the Vale that do disproportionately well.

So, in terms of where we advertise—so, that's one of the biggest things—obviously, everything that we produce is bilingual, but, certainly, when we are advertising campaigns, they do go into bilingual advertising agencies, such as Golwg360, and, particularly to target the demographic of women, we've advertised on Women on Boards, that website there.

In terms of your question, Mike, around social mobility, absolutely, we are recording data on social mobility going forward. It's something close to my heart within the organisation, and it's data that we've gathered as a Commission. The data is still quite low in people declaring, answering the questions that dictate their social background, but yes, absolutely, going forward, social mobility is one of the unprotected characteristics that we'll be gathering data on, going forward.

A postcode, which you must have, that gives you information, doesn't it? Because most areas are fairly homogenous.

I think definitely that a postcode does provide some information about a candidate, but not all. Some people do move for work and so their background might be significantly different to the postcode that they then find themselves in. So, it's a helpful question, but the questions that we use to ask Commission staff are based on the toolkit provided by the Social Mobility Commission, so we would look to reflect those questions for public appointments.

Thank you. Rhianon, could you take up the questions again, please?

Yes. Thank you so much. Just for clarity, it's been mentioned a number of times that this is very rudimentary data, and, obviously, there was a commitment to publish the data—is that because the numbers are just very low in the first place in terms of appointments? Is there any reasoning why the data is not substantial?

The reason is because, since we made the commitment, there have only been four campaigns. So, there have been two Audit Wales appointments, one Public Services Ombudsman for Wales and when we did the Senedd Commission adviser [Correction: 'Senedd Commission independent adviser'], so there are only four sets of data. The issue that we have with the data as well is because they are, essentially, public figures—you can go on websites and see who these individuals are—we can track the data through the recruitment process, but we can't issue data about the appointee, then, because it would be giving out personal information.

Okay, thank you. When do you expect to fulfil the commitment, bearing in mind what you've just stated in terms of the low numbers and identifying factors, to be able to publish the data on public appointments in regard to that original strategy commitment?

We could look to publish the data. We'll obviously take advice on what levels of information we're able to publish. But, in terms of increasing the data sets, that is down to the number of appointments that we've got, and I think our next appointment campaign is in the spring of next year, which is more appointments to the Audit Wales board.

And finally, you've mentioned the areas of improvement around protected characteristics, and we've mentioned unprotected characteristics that are going to come into the mixture. What conclusions have you drawn from the analysis of the data that you do have?

On the analysis of the data so far, as I said, one of the things is that there are better outcomes when we use executive search agencies, because they're able to reach out to passive candidates who are not necessarily looking to be on a board, or even think that they could be on a board, which is a really important feature. The data that we've drawn on specifically is on gender, ethnicity and disability. The data on disability is really poor; there are very low numbers of individuals with a disability applying. There's a bit more traction from those individuals who are from a minority ethnic background. For women, there's a better picture, but speaking as a woman, I still think the results could be a lot better.

It is about building those data sets, but it's also about making sure that we are able to provide information for prospective candidates who don't think that they could be on a board. Those are the people we need to reach out to in the future. I think there are opportunities for training for individuals who are on these boards. 'Unconscious bias' is a phrase that's obviously used quite often, but certainly, we need to look beyond—. I think some people, some boards look specifically at very polished CVs or they want people with track records. That's great, we understand that there's a place for those individuals on the boards, but there's also room for people who haven't got that kind of portfolio but do bring something different to those boards. So, it's certainly something that we are aspiring to.

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you. I'll just ask a quick supplementary before I bring Natasha in. I chair the cross-party group on disability and we've taken evidence on this. Some disabled people have learnt, through experience, not always to declare their impairment at the application process. Will you be doing any retrospective analysis, once people are in role, to establish whether perhaps the representation increases once people are appointed?

It's unfortunate that people feel that they can't declare those, because there is support for individuals who apply, through any recruitment process, to allow them to perform at an interview. Retrospective data might be difficult. Once an individual has made the appointment, they are able to then declare that information retrospectively. I think the challenge for us about public appointments is because they are not Commission staff, there's nowhere to actually record that information unless individuals choose to share that information with us after the event. But certainly, I think your point is looking to make sure that we are very clear, open and transparent about the support that we can provide for anybody who wishes to participate in a public appointment and have the confidence that that would be something that we would help them with, rather than it be held against them.

Thank you. Natasha Asghar.

Thank you so much, Chair. Good morning. Just a quick one: what recruitment processes do you use to attract a strong and diverse field of candidates, specifically in relation to the independent remuneration board? And I'd like to know, and I'm sure the committee would like to know as well, specifically, what media sources you use. Do you use an executive search agency, and if so, which one? If you could shed a bit more light on that, I'd be really grateful.

We do use an executive search agency; they were procured through a contract that we've got. The current provider is a firm called Penna, and we've used them for a number of years. In terms of how the campaign is then devised, that, again, can be something that is led by the committee, although we will advise them on the variety of channels and outlets where they're able to advertise. The most recent example is Audit Wales, which we did earlier in the year. That went on our website, it went on Audit Wales, it went on LinkedIn, Jobs in Wales, Fish4jobs—I'm sure you've all heard of that—but it also went on The Times online, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Golwg, as I mentioned earlier on. It went on a specific finance website and it went on the Women on Boards website, because obviously, there is, again, the need to diversify in that particular channel.

In terms of executive search, the role that they play, again, can vary. If a decision is made to use them, they can do a basic search, which is to just cast their net out and provide a long list, or they can be part of the process right up until the interview process, and it means, then, that if we engage in an executive search, that search can be more dynamic. So, if we're expecting more diversity, then we can go back out to them and really target what it is that we're looking for. There is a level playing field as part of the process, but it's that encouragement of people to apply for those posts. We cast the net quite wide, and also, again, it's specific down to which areas we're recruiting into, and what boards we're looking into.

It certainly sounds like you've touched on a lot of different areas to target, which I appreciate. Once you've put the application out on all on sites, and all the different boards that you've just mentioned, how do you assess the effectiveness of whether it's gone well or not?

There is a review that's completed. One of the recommendations from the audit was that a review was conducted of each scheme. With the one that we did most recently about Audit Wales, there was a comprehensive review that was done internally, then there was also a review published on the Senedd webpages. So, that gives us an idea of where we need to make improvements going forward. But, as I said, the schemes are dynamic and, with the executive search, we are able to guide them to the areas that we want them to focus on.

You mentioned Audit Wales a lot in your answer to me, and I appreciate that, but my question is specifically in relation to the remuneration board. Obviously, it's a group that is responsible for all of us here in this building and beyond, so I just want to ask, in relation to them, what the status is with regard to the board.

We would take a similar approach. It's identifying where we would need to put the advert out. We would look specifically at the last time we did a recruitment campaign for the IRB, see if there were any lessons learnt from that campaign, and then adjust that, going forward, accordingly. But, again, it would be a range of specific websites that we would advertise on.

I'm just going to ask my final question now, please, if that's okay, Chair. In relation to, specifically, the remuneration board, we all appreciate that it's an independent element. With regard to every board member that we've ever had in this particular committee, from health boards to all different areas, there's always a level of scrutiny in place. So, I just wanted to ask you what checks and balances have you got in place in relation to the remuneration board members who have been hired, or will be hired in future, to ensure that they are doing the job, and they're doing it well, and they deserve to be in the position that they've actually got.

I'll take that answer, because you've picked, Natasha, on the one recruitment, of course, that is ours, because we need there to be a level of independence from members necessarily built into the system. We have a close relationship with the IRB once they are appointed and in post. We have a recruitment coming up next year—quite shortly now, actually; we might even manage to get it into the end of this year—and we will be using our independent advisers to help provide that assurance at the appointment stage. I know that the chair of the independent remuneration board has annual conversations with her board members. I have a constant dialogue with the chair going forward. They have had an effectiveness review, for example—they had that in March of last year—and they have an action plan to deal with that. So, those assurance mechanisms are in place, as they would be for any other public appointments.

The only reason I'm asking this particular question is because—. And I appreciate that they've done the effectiveness element that you've just mentioned, but it needs to be open and transparent. I appreciate they're independent members, and I appreciate that we don't have any control or power over the decisions that they make in that regard, but it's almost sounding like they're marking their own homework, and that's something that I just wanted to clarify—as an independent board, who is there to actually oversee that they are doing their job, doing it properly and doing it well, and actually proving value for money for themselves?

They're there to take accountability for the level of remuneration that is provided to Members. They were set up so that that responsibility didn't fall on Members' shoulders. And the effectiveness review was not done by them; it was done by a source external to the board. So, to that extent, they don't report to the Senedd Commission, because the Senedd Commission would be the wrong body to have oversight—any political body would be the wrong—. It wouldn't be appropriate for them to have oversight of their work. But they do have these opportunities to reflect on their performance, and I know they have made a big effort over the last years to have feedback from Members, and they have drop-in sessions and so on. But the action plan for the IRB is something for the board itself to answer to. I wouldn't put myself in the position of answering to that. But there is that functional oversight by me of the process of putting them in place.

There's also the opportunity for elected Commission members to meet with the remuneration board. I think we've got a meeting on the 16 October just to make sure everything is running smoothly. That's myself and the Llywydd, just having a half-hour catch-up and a conversation. But we are very conscious, as Manon has said, to keep that political distance and not to try and influence them in that sense, but to certainly see that everything is going smoothly between the Commission and the remuneration board.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Luke Fletcher has some questions.

Diolch, Cadeirydd. I'm conscious of time, so I'll try and keep this to one question. The Finance Committee expressed a view that Welsh Government and Senedd public appointments should be governed by a consistent set of principles. I'd just be interested to understand what your views would be, or what your response to that recommendation would be.

I think, from our point of view, a set of principles across Welsh public appointments might be helpful in getting consistency. I think that if there was a serious proposal, it would need to come from the Commission, and there’d need to be a conversation at Commission level rather than at official level about that. I mentioned at the outset that, when we embark on recruitments, we adopt the kind of policies that are within the Cabinet Office code of governance on public appointments. That is basically Nolan principles like selflessness and integrity. It wouldn't be appropriate for the Senedd to be formally tied to a Cabinet Office guideline, but those are the kind of guidelines that we would hope to include in our own work.

And those conversations are ongoing at the moment, are they?

No. What I'd say is that if you as a committee wish to issue a recommendation that that needs to be considered, it wouldn't be for the chief executive to introduce that to a Commission meeting, but I would certainly be happy myself to ensure that such an issue was discussed in a meeting. But as the chief executive has said, it needs to be a very broad set of principles, otherwise you start to define within roles, and you've got to be very careful with that. But I know that myself and other Senedd Commissioners will certainly look very carefully at any report you produce and any recommendation in that area.

Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you very much indeed. That brings this short set of questions to an end. If we could have a five-minute break while we switch around the witnesses. Thank you very much indeed.

Croeso. Welcome back to our meeting this morning. Could I start by welcoming back a couple of witnesses from the previous session? Could I please invite the new witnesses to name themselves and identify their roles for the record?

Thank you, Chair. I'm Ed Williams. I'm the director of resources at the Commission.

Thank you, Chair. I'm the interim chief finance officer. My name's Simon Hart.

Thank you very much indeed. We have a number of questions for you, and as protocol has it, as Chair, I will begin. How did you prioritise finding the budgetary savings initially needed for the £435,000 reduction in funding at the first supplementary budget in June last year, and then the estimated £794,000 to fund an unbudgeted cost-of-living payment for Commission staff?

Chair, it was indeed challenging having those two tranches of savings to make in year, as you describe. We knew from the beginning of the financial year that we had to make the first tranche of savings, the £435,000, and we challenged our heads of service to submit budget reduction proposals. So, through that, we were able to stress test the allocation of budgets to various parts of the organisation, and encourage them to undertake forensic reviews of all of the budgetary requirements.

The Commission has asked us to avoid making staff redundant, and therefore it was inevitable that the acceptable proposals would fall more in the area of non-staff budgets. So, we looked hard at the larger budgets that we have in the estates and facilities management department and the information and communication technology department, and we did manage to find some savings. We found £208,000 in EFM and £107,000 in ICT, and that was through the robust renegotiation of contracts to do with service and licensing, and subjects like that. We managed to find savings in energy costs, partially because of the fluctuating price of energy, but also through measures like turning down the heating and the air conditioning in our offices.

We did then have to look at the project fund, and that's difficult because the projects that make it onto the project fund list are all important projects that have been deemed priorities and they've been deemed important to the business. But we had to define a new level of critical projects in terms of those required by law or health and safety or business continuity, and we did manage to release about £120,000 from the project fund for those purposes.

So, that got us through the first tranche of savings, but then, as you say, we needed to find a further sum of nearly £800,000 as a result of the cost-of-living crisis—the spike in inflation—and the decision by the Commission to make a cost-of-living payment to staff below the grade of senior civil service. To do that, we had to then look very carefully at all of the discretionary budgets—everything we weren't contracted to provide—and that included some services to Members as well.

But then, the bulk of the saving had to come from our staffing budget, and so what we did was to start pausing recruitment. So, recruitments that were then in flight or were subsequently introduced for the rest of the financial year after September 2023 were given target start dates that were a bit further away than we would normally have had them, so that we could accrue savings in between the departure of staff through churn and the arrival of their successors. And this was—. I don't know if you want me to go on and talk about the impact of this. It wasn't an easy thing to do. We did find that when we were surveying staff, over a third of staff, in fact, felt that it had had a negative impact on their well-being. And we also started a few months later to see a spike in sickness absence, which is not a good sign. Our unions raised formally with us the desirability of not having an unfunded provision like this, an unbudgeted provision like this, in future. And, of course, we do actually have a live strike mandate at the moment. We're formally in dispute with unions, so that is something that we have to take very seriously.

Okay. Thank you. Well, in answering that, you've also answered my next question, so I can jump to another Member and invite Mike Hedges to ask his questions.

I may stop part of the way through. Given the reduction in funding, can you summarise how in-year project fund costs were managed and how do you prioritise projects?

We have a portfolio management group. I'm sorry to get into the weeds of the governance here, but in order to give a snapshot of how we do manage and compare projects to one another, I think what I'd like to do is hand over to a combination of Ed and Simon, who run this process from day to day and can give you a bit of insight into that. Ed, is that okay?

Yes. Thank you, Manon. So, the executive board, led by the chief executive, has established a group to manage our project fund and to undertake the prioritisation of possible projects against that fund. The executive board sets a strategy. We have what's called a portfolio strategy, which sets a high-level vision for what we're trying to achieve, which is, by and large, to achieve the corporate priorities, and also the criteria through which the group that Simon leads will assess projects. By and large, the criteria are in three categories: around value—value to Members and value to parliamentary business; around cost and around deliverability. There are regular meetings of that group. That group brings forward recommendations to executive board for approval on a regular basis. So, as the chief executive says, a dynamic process but against a clear set of criteria, Member focused and delivery focused. At that point, I'll hand over to Simon, just to see if there's anything he wants to add.

Thank you, Ed. There isn't too much more to add, but perhaps just to say that that group has been running for approximately a year. I was actually the interim chief finance officer when it was initially set up, so I've got the background in terms of when it was set up, and it's a role that I've undertaken in previous organisations. I have to say that I think our approach is particularly sophisticated and particularly effective in what it's trying to do. So, nothing to add in terms of the update that Manon and Ed gave, but it's perhaps just to give that assurance that, compared to best practice, it looks very good to me.

Did you drift any projects across year ends? That's always the trick that people do with projects, isn't it, that instead of finishing on a date within that year, you drift it so it goes into the following you. Did you do any of those?

Well, can I bring Hefin in first and then invite the rest of your colleagues to comment?

All I was going to add before—. Mike's question is a good one, but I was going to add the fact that the supplementary budget went through the Finance Committee, which reflected a lot of these savings, plus the additional ask for staff pay equalisation. The supplementary budget is yet to be passed by Plenary because we're still waiting for the Welsh Government's supplementary budget to be debated on 22 October. But what I would say to this committee is that the Finance Committee has given a clear endorsement to the strategy, via the approach in the supplementary budget, so I think that's important to note.

Thank you. Who'd like to take up Mike's question?

Just to say we recognise the risk; it's actually—. We have a low level of projects that fall across financial years, partly to do with the circumstances that Manon has set out, that twice last year we had to turn to our project fund to help us with savings. So, some projects that would have come forward, the full suite of projects, didn't come forward. That has added to pressure. But partly because deliverability is top of our criteria. So, there is a lot of challenge from executive board and particularly at the portfolio management group around deliverability, so we don't have year-on-year pressure building.

I was just going to support Ed, because tomorrow we've got a one-hour long evidence session of me as a Commissioner with the Finance Committee, and some of the things that Mike is referring to about projects moving into the next year, we'll be exploring then. So, we'll be looking at it. This is about looking at what's happened. Tomorrow’s looking at the future, and I'm sure that discussion will be held in depth in the Finance Committee tomorrow.

I'm sure it will as well, as you know.

Thank you, Mike.

Rhianon and I will be there at the Finance Committee as we are here in public accounts.

Yes, absolutely. So, there's continuity in the story.

Yes, indeed. But just to assure you—

There are advantages in being on both.

Thank you. Before you continue, Mike, I think the chief executive has a comment.

I just wanted to—. Not that the committee needs reminding, but just to say out loud that, of course, we cannot carry anything forward from year to year and we cannot keep reserves. And therefore we have to be fairly disciplined about the year end, and the auditor would make sure of that as well.

You've got to be disciplined about the year end financially, but the year end is an arbitrary date that bears no relationship to when projects are needed, does it? It stops in April, whenever, whether it's 1 April, 6 April. The project has to be done by this date because we need it, but that going on a week or a fortnight later probably will have no effect on the project, but would change when you were paying.

I absolutely agree with that, and, of course, the challenge for all of us, for anybody operating in this kind of environment, is that we can plan, and then we can be overtaken by events. We've had a couple of infrastructure failures in this year, haven't we, Ed, where we had planned to do something in the following year. There was an issue with our closed-circuit television cameras, for example, but there was a failure, and we had to accelerate the work because it was important to business—critical, in fact—to business continuity. So, we got it fixed there and then. The tauter we budget, the more difficult it is, of course, to accommodate that sort of changing priority, but that's what we aim to do.

Okay. I won't take it any further today. I'll save that up for tomorrow.

Are you revising the timing of capital projects that form part of your mid-term carbon reduction strategy, and how will this impact on reaching your goals?

We have made good progress with many of the improvement measures in the strategy, but it's true to say that some requiring more significant investment have been postponed until resources allow for their procurement. For example, most of Tŷ Hywel and the Senedd buildings are now lit by LED lights, but other items, such as air handling unit upgrades are capital projects that we're working on now, and trying to work out when they're going to be affordable on that prioritised list. And we're also planning life-cycle replacement of the building management system as a whole, and so that's a chunky item for us to accommodate.

Okay, thank you.

Mike, I think the next set of questions as well are with you. Are you happy to take those forward?

Yes.

You had some on key performance indicators.

Yes, I'll take them forward, Chair. Please be careful—I may run out of voice. How do the key performance indicators drive the delivery of Commission objectives, and how effective are they in assessing the Commission's performance in delivering them?

Thank you. We think our KPIs are useful for us. We judge them to be effective in assessing our performance in the areas that they measure. Obviously, they're as effective as we make them in terms of reporting fully on the results and allowing those to be scrutinised and be accountable for them. And, as with any organisation, a KPI will provide us with clarity around where activity and resourcing should be focused. But I think they tell some interesting stories. I was leafing this morning, preparing for this session, through our current year’s KPIs, and the seventh, for example—the seventh KPI is about the media distribution platforms that we engaged with as a result of our promotion of committee inquiries and report launches. I think we touched earlier on the fact that we have tried, in our current communications strategy, to put people at the heart of what we do, and the strategy has been very much about using the authentic voice of witnesses, of people with lived experience, to tell the story of inquiries that the committees are doing. And we have seen, since the days of COVID when committee activities were fairly constrained, a very dramatic rise in the number of those platforms, year on year, and I think that tells a good story of how we are able to amplify the good work that is being done in committees and put those stories out on media platforms and reach a greater audience—an audience, also, that might not have engaged with the Senedd otherwise.

So, I am assured by my director of communication and engagement that those objective targets, those measurable targets, are something that does galvanise the team, and they're very conscious of the need to report on these KPIs at the end of the year. I mean, it doesn't mean that we will keep the same KPIs forever. We keep them under review as part of our service planning protocol every year, and of course we will, going into the seventh Senedd, have a more root-and-branch radical review, once we know, closer to the date, what—. It will be a time for us to look again at what the organisation might require for its new term.

I speak from experience in local government where, at one time, we had over 250 key performance indicators, and I don't think you can have that number of key performance indicators. Are there any performance indicators under the key performance indicators that are checking performance but are not seen as the key performance indicators?

I'm going to hand over to Ed in a moment. I don't think I can give you a number, Mike, but we do have service-level goals as well as the corporate ones that we report on. Do you have anything to add to that, Ed?

No, that's fine. I don't want a number, I just wanted to know that you do have them.

Yes, we do.

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

And you have no further questions, Mike.

No.

In that case, I invite Natasha Asghar to take up the questions.

Thank you so much. I'd like to know what changes have you made in terms of the management of internal audit and governance following the departure of the head of internal audit? What benefits will your new approach bring to the table in terms of value for money, and what are the related risks that you can foresee?

Shall I go—? I'll take this one. So, we had an external service provider for internal audit working to an internal head of internal audit. We have—. With bringing in a new chief finance officer with the requisite skills, we moved to a situation where the chief finance officer oversaw an external service that was fully provided by an external service provider. Sorry, I'm repeating myself. So, we have an external provider of the internal audit service, and the lead provider acts as the head of internal audit, reporting to our senior sponsor, which is the chief finance officer, which is currently Simon here. We made that change for a couple of reasons. One is that we believe it complies ever more strongly with the public service internal audit standards, where you need a clear definition of roles and objectivity, and also we believe that it gives us, as a relatively small public body, access to a head of internal audit and a service provider that works across the sector, so has best practice and can bring best practice in this area to us. So, we believe we comply more strongly with the required standards.

And you believe this provides value for money in the long term.

Absolutely, yes.

Okay. So, what have you learnt from the review of procurement and contract management arrangements across the Commission, and what action have you undertaken to relieve capacity pressures and address risks of gaps in controls?

So, we've had a recent internal audit of the procurement card and procurement card use, and we've enacted the main recommendation coming out of that to make sure that the training in that regard—that a log was completed. And we have a full programme of internal audit coming up, and our audit and risk committee receive regular reports and provide challenge to us in that regard.

Just for my information, then, who went through the training—the whole department?

Everybody involved who has a procurement card.

Okay. All right. In the 2023-24 accounts, you note that the findings of reviews into the effectiveness of the independent remuneration board and the executive board were considered during the financial year. So, what recommendations were made and what actions have you taken in response to those?

I'll set the independent remuneration board slightly to one side. We mentioned that earlier, and I remember talking about this at the last session. So, that's the slightly older of the two reviews. But the executive board effectiveness review was a very useful exercise that we undertook just over a year ago. I was encouraged that—. When we had previously done that exercise in 2017, there were some uncertainties about where decision making lay, and I was encouraged that the findings of last year's report did indicate that there was a lot more clarity around decision making and that the board was growing in its strategic way of working and was able to take that strategic view more frequently. It did give us, of course, some action points, and these have all been acted upon or are in progress.

So, it considered the skills mix of the executive board, it considered the way that it works, just in terms of the administrative back-up that it has and the frequency of meetings and so on, and all of that has adapted. We adopted some new modes of operation during lockdown, for example, and we've learned lessons from that. Some of the better innovations there we've kept on. And on the administrative arrangements, the effectiveness review particularly praised our diligent and effective secretariat team, and I was happy to echo that.

But some of the themes that came out were that we needed to work more closely with the broader leadership team, because executive board consists of seven people, chaired by myself, but we do have heads of service who, between them, represent an incredible resource of experience and talent and knowledge of the organisation. And what we did—the second theme that came out of the effectiveness review was that we needed to look again at our change-management arrangements, our governance of change arrangements, because we were going into a period of massive change. Change is a fair constant in the Senedd, but obviously we were leading up to the elections in 2026. And, in a way, our response to the two things was similar, because in designing new governance arrangements for the change projects that we needed to face, what we did was to populate the new project boards that we were forming with key members of our senior leadership team. So, we've now got a situation where we can be sure that everybody is contributing in different ways to the project board, the portfolio management, that is reaching the executive board in the end to keep an oversight of. That's slightly long-winded, but I hope that's of interest.

On the independent remuneration board, the only thing I'd add to what we were saying earlier is that there is now a structured dialogue under way, because the matters considered by the Commission and the matters considered by the independent remuneration board have so many interdependencies in them that, in the run-up to 2026, we need to make sure that each side has sight of the decision-making timetable of the other, so that we can make sure that decisions are being taken in the right context. And so that is under way now.

Okay. A final question please, Chair, if that's okay. You mentioned that some of the points previously have been addressed, have been looked into and some have been dealt with already. For the ones that are still in progress, have you set a timeline for those? I appreciate that you said that 2026 is the next election for us—

Yes. Well, one recommendation was continuous professional development for the executive board, and what we did was that we deferred having any formal, external help with that last year for budgetary reasons. So, now that we're in—we're hoping that that is going to be affordable this year, so, we would like to be able to do that before the end of the year, wouldn't we, Ed?

Okay, that's fine. Thank you so much, Chair.

Thank you very much indeed. Could I bring in Rhianon Passmore, please?

Diolch, Chair. Before I talk to the Government arrangements relating to management, can I just ask a simple question in relation to KPIs, if I may, Chair? Most of them have targets. Is there a reason that not all of them do? Obviously it's disappointing in regard to the diminution of the Welsh spend target, but is there a swift response to that?

I’d consider that all of the KPIs do have a target, and if it’s not obvious, it’ll be beating the previous years, so it’ll be continuous improvement. The Welsh supplier target is a challenging one, but we have good news on that.

In that last quarter of the current year—obviously, the session is focusing on the previous year—we've hit our highest ever target of 49 per cent, so the stretch target is 50 per cent. So, the trajectory—. It is volatile, we are affected by some individual contract decisions, so I can't guarantee that it is a smooth incline quarter by quarter, but certainly the trend is positive at the moment.

Okay, thank you for that. Moving, then, to governance and risk arrangements, what, then, is the scope, or was the scope, of the advisory exercise, performed by internal audit, on the governance of the Senedd's reform and ways of working programmes in 2023-24, and were these intended to provide assurance over the arrangements?

Yes, it was agreed—. Given the scale of the task that we faced in setting up the two new programme management boards—one on ways of working and the other on seventh Senedd transformation—to prepare for 2026, we did take a lot of advice from our audit and risk committee, who involved themselves thoroughly in these arrangements, and the Commissioner is a member of that committee and so might want to comment later. But we agreed that there would be an advisory audit to help us make sure that we were going in the right direction on that.

Each of the significant change projects and programmes are managed by a senior responsible officer. The director of business runs one and the director of resources, who is with me here, runs the other. And we had—. The programme that Ed is senior responsible officer for had to step up the pace and undertake some very serious estate and facilities management work. The challenge for the seventh Senedd transformation programme was to move from a mode of overseeing the delivery of legislation, which it was doing originally, into the mode of delivering the results of the legislation and the transition to the seventh Senedd. So, both those resets are under way now, so the audit was an advisory one as opposed to one that was looking back for that reason—it was to help the arrangements bed in.

In regard, then, to the recommendations following the advisory exercise, you would say that it was basically those resets that you just discussed?

That's right, along with some technical points about reviewing risk registers and having consistency of format and so on.

Okay.

I think the Commissioner wanted to just add to that.

Yes—

Does anybody else want to add anything—?

Yes, as a member of the audit and risk assurance committee, which is colloquially known as ARAC—. It's run and chaired—it's largely run by our independent advisers, so they've got an arm's-length oversight of what we're doing, and they are very competent and very thorough, so a meeting will last all day. There'll be several stages to the meeting and I'll be called in at certain points to discuss elements of risk. Manon also—the chief executive, sorry, also will be asked to justify certain elements of risk, and they will then report back to Commission meetings. So, there is a trail there that is very thorough, and I’ve found incredible use from that. And what it has actually done is given me the confidence to support, then, the budget into the Finance Committee tomorrow, because the risks of Senedd reform, and the costs of not doing it, have been explored in that kind of level of detail.

So, you can’t underestimate the benefit of ARAC, and the important thing to remember is that it’s run by, and chaired by, independent advisers who are at arm’s length.

Okay, thanks. And, finally, what do you see as the main role of the strategic planning unit, and what resources does it require? And in that redeployment of staff to it, how have we ensured, or have you ensured, that the right skills and experience and capacity is within?

I’ll hand over to Ed in a second, who line manages the strategic planning unit, but it is, basically, a small group of three people who support the executive board in its oversight of all the major strategic projects that the Commission is undergoing.

Absolutely. Just to add briefly to that, the strategic planning unit does the work on behalf of the executive board to pull together the annual corporate plan, setting all the priorities and all of the work streams and then managing the systems and processes that flow from that, including the change boards and making sure that we’ve got a change strategy and a change implementation plan, and then also the service planning area, where every single service feeds into the overall corporate plan.

Okay. And in regard, then, to capacity and resourcing, you’re confident that that is in place.

Yes, indeed. So, we have some highly skilled and qualified individuals. It is a small team. That is a conscious choice, but it’s able to fulfil its functions at the moment, although we do keep it under review, always.

Diolch yn fawr. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much indeed. Luke Fletcher has some questions.

Diolch, Cadeirydd. If I could touch on that element of risk that was mentioned earlier, you, of course, identified a key strategic risk when it comes to dealing with the reform agenda, that being capacity and capabilities within the organisation itself. So, relating to that, how have you managed to mitigate some of those risks? What actions have you taken to really mitigate the risks that you’ve identified and then progress with things?

Well, I think that the main thing to talk about there is our medium-term resourcing framework, and within that is a workforce plan. We were talking about this last year. We’ve been operating it now for a year, and it’s proved an invaluable tool for us in formalising our planning horizon on a rolling three-year basis and drawing in all the information that we have about our resourcing needs and the sources of resourcing then so that we can give visibility to this committee and all our stakeholders of our best estimates of what’s coming at us down the track, and that includes recruitment and the staffing needs that we need for the different parts of our organisation.

So, we have, within that, a preference stated for growing our own, for making sure that there are progression paths for the staff that we’ve trained, so that we can reap the benefit of investment in specialist staff and balance the needs of diversity in the skill mix and everything that we need to have going forward.

So, that’s the key tool, really—the mitigating tool is the MTRF. It drives efficiencies, but it also enables us to plan ahead and make provision for the requirements as far ahead as possible.

Okay. Does anyone want to add anything to that point? No. If I could move, then, to the links, potentially, between Welsh Government and the Commission when we’re looking at the reform agenda, how do you make it clear who’s responsible for the delivery end of this? How do you, essentially, ensure that there is a separation between the Executive and legislature, and that there isn’t any sort of conflict between the two?

Well, at an official level, we have something called the joint assurance board, which is chaired jointly by senior officials from the Senedd Commission and Welsh Government. That isn't a decision-making body, but that has oversight of the key dependencies and makes sure that, when decisions are taken, they're taken in full knowledge of what's happening on the other side. The other thing I would say, maybe what I would draw out, is that that is one level of interaction; we do then have various services interacting constantly. I would particularly note the work that's been done in terms of resources, in making sure that long-term use of the estate is being planned, with no surprises on either side, because, obviously, those are large and far-reaching and expensive projects, potentially, that we have to look at. There are bodies that both the Welsh Government and we are represented on, in terms of engaging with the public on changes to the electoral system, and also the Welsh Government-sponsored Senedd electoral reform delivery board. So, there are formal boards like that to which we both contribute.

But I would say, turning to the last aspect of your question, about the interaction between us as officials and the political side, that what all of this interaction does is provide assurance, for me as accounting officer, also for the Permanent Secretary as accounting officer for Welsh Government, and we can then transmit that assurance to the First Minister on one side and the Llywydd on the other. I know that it has been the practice for the Llywydd and the First Minister to meet regularly, and any issues that come up can be discussed in that forum, and I'm sure many others as well.

And I'd add that I have useful dialogue with the finance Minister, Mark Drakeford, as well, from my portfolio perspective. So, those informal conversations are really important in ensuring that the risk of Senedd reform, for example, is fully understood by the Government, given the Senedd Commission has been tasked by a two-thirds majority of the Senedd to achieve it.

So, thinking forward, then, this is a long-term project, and Senedd 2032 is another project that's going to require, I imagine, a lot of similar stuff to what you're doing right now. So, how are you using this as an opportunity to learn towards implementing that project? How are you taking some of the lessons that we have here forward in a way that would help, then, progress?

That's very much the case. The ways of working programme includes strands that are to do with the long-term planning for what happens after the lease on this building runs out—the Bay 32 project to which you referred. That is, obviously, being already run alongside the shorter term projects that are to transform this building, Tŷ Hywel, to accommodate new Members in 2026, and the Siambr itself to accommodate the new Members. The director of resources is the expert on this, so I'll turn to him to invite him to contribute anything else.

Just to add, the thing I'm particularly interested in is how does this affect financial budgets—

Right.

—so, within the financial years—

Oh, I see, yes.

—as we go down the line, more than anything else, and now what is the effect on the budget this financial year as well.

So, on the first question, just very quickly, yes, we learnt the lesson from the Senedd reform programme, and there is now a joint assurance board on what we call the Bay 32 project, which is the future for office accommodation for the Senedd Members and staff. So, that is a structure where we're having these conversations, and financial planning is a key part of that. It's not impacting on the budget for this year yet, but we are actively looking at future years' budgets. The Finance Committee tomorrow will be scrutinising our ask for next year, in terms of the professional support that the Commission needs from other areas, but, in terms of Welsh Government, Senedd Commission, and the relationship and future funding for whatever the best solution will be after the current lease ends on Tŷ Hywel, that's a live conversation—a very productive one, but that will flow through to future year budgets.

It's worth remembering, Luke, that the final say is in the Senedd. Any budget has to be passed by a majority of Senedd Members. So, leading up to that, you as a Member, ultimately, will have the say on whether you agree with what’s happened or not.

And I can understand it’ll be quite tricky for you guys to put that together, especially with some of the stuff we were talking about earlier—not being able to carry funds over and not having a reserve. So, it's something to keep an eye on, of course.

That's why we try to plan ahead, Luke, because at least we can give—. When we put together strategic outline cases and business cases, some of which are already live documents, those will have a 10, 20, 30-year forecast of spending, and then those are translated into the budgets that we will be presenting a year at a time. But it’s not easy. I think I’ve talked to this committee before about the difficulty of scheduling big capital projects under the circumstances in which we operate, but, by doing it this way, I hope we give it as much transparency as possible.

Great. Diolch yn fawr. Diolch.

Thank you very much indeed. We're bringing back Natasha Asghar.

Thank you so much, Chair. I'd just like to ask you: how would you assess the progress the Commission has made in 2023-24 to increase the diversity of the workforce, and what are the next steps that you're actually thinking about taking to increase levels of diversity? I appreciate Mike Hedges mentioned about how we'd like to throw the net of postcodes slightly further afield, but, in relation to diversity in every level, how do you intend to achieve that?

We touched on this a little bit earlier, I think, when our chief people officer was here talking about the recruitment efforts that we have. Just to draw up a couple of further points, I think we have made progress. The indicators suggest that we’re going in the right direction, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an awful lot still to do. Obviously, we publish a lot of diversity data every year, so we can be held to account on that. This year, I think I would pick out the launch of our diversity and inclusion steering group, which includes members of our workplace equality networks and representatives from trade unions as well as human resources. It’s chaired by our head of engagement, and one of our independent advisers, Uzo Iwobi, is a very valued member of that group as well. They’re going to be guiding and driving the delivery of our diversity and inclusion action plan.

Some of the other topics that might be relevant to mention in this context—. We’re seeing an encouraging growth in representation of people from ethnic minorities at more senior levels of the organisation. Obviously, we are keen to increase diversity not just at entry level but build a pipeline for people to progress to senior leadership positions as well. In that context, we’re about to launch our third iteration of the Ymlaen internships. This has been a fantastic way for us to get really brilliant, talented people into the organisation and spend time with us in various departments. They are learning skills themselves, and we’re learning a lot from them, I have to say. The graduates of that have all gone on to fantastic things, so we’re looking forward to meeting the third cohort of that internship plan shortly.

I would then maybe—. Coming back to Mike’s point about social mobility, this is something that, not least after interventions from previous iterations of this committee that we’ve been keeping an eye on, our chief people officer was too modest to mention that she herself is the social mobility champion and has been, frankly, inspiring in the way that she has talked and written about her experiences and the barriers that faced her in life and how she has taken the opportunities that she was able to have. There is a good deal of work happening to encourage everybody on the staff to engage with reporting data for the surveys that we’re doing. It’s not easy. We have to communicate quite frequently with colleagues about why we’re asking for this data, because it is quite personal data; we’re asking about people’s family backgrounds. But at the moment just under half the staff have contributed to the data set. We’re hoping that that will increase in future years, so that we can pinpoint the issues that we can address, but we have made definite progress on all those fronts in the course of the year.

Okay. So, I appreciate you've mentioned staff surveys or employee surveys, but what else is going to be done, or what are you planning on doing, to obtain data about socioeconomic backgrounds, specifically for staff? I know Mike Hedges went on to the subject earlier about applicants, for example, and who's from Cardiff, who is from Newport, who is from Swansea, who is from Mold, for example. But, going forward, what exactly is going to be done in being able to monitor the background and get the complete data image that we're looking to get?

Well, we can’t force staff to give us data they don’t want to give us, so we are trying to pursue that in terms of explaining what we’re going to do with the data and why we need it. As the chief people officer mentioned earlier, we’ve based our questions on the Social Mobility Commission’s toolkit for employers, so that represents what we understand to be best practice in terms of establishing what the indicators are that we need to focus on and then have some consistency, going forward.

Okay. Thank you so much, Chair.

Thank you. Back to me, I’m afraid. Noting both that the number of staff in post at 31 March this year and the average during the preceding year had increased compared with 2022-23, but also that sickness rates and absences due to mental health increased significantly, which I think you referenced earlier, how did you monitor and manage the impact on staff of the two in-year budget-saving exercises?

Yes, thank you, Chair. We monitor staff well-being through surveys, pulse surveys, and the more in-depth staff surveys, one of which is live at the moment. So, I’m sure I’ll be reporting back on that next time I’m in front of you.

The executive board also monitors data sets on a quarterly basis which includes sickness absence alongside other contextual data and insights. So, we keep a close eye on it, and, as you say, there are some concerning figures. We saw an increase in sickness absence rates in spring of last year. Happily, that has decreased, so we have been executing our well-being strategy, which involves providing support to managers, toolkits, more on-site counselling facilities, and we’ve been supporting—. We have an equality network called Mindful, which promotes a lot of resources to staff, to help them get over mental health issues in particular.

So, the headline in terms of staff absence generally is that we overcame that spike last year. We’re now at a rate in August this year of 7.1 days lost per full-time equivalent post. That is below the civil service benchmark, which is 8.1 days. There are still some points of concern, though. By far the greatest element within the reported absence is mental health issues. On the one hand, we’re glad that people are able to talk about this openly now and are able to tell us what it is that is keeping them from work. We drill down if people are willing to share with us the information—we ask them whether the stress is caused by work or whether it is non-work-related stress, so we have a snapshot of that as well.

Again, I think we’re aware of it. We are concerned that we are, therefore, realistic when it comes to the level of work that we’re asking people to undertake. We try and provide as much support as we can around each of our staff to promote their well-being, and I think that’s where we are on that. Now, we are encouraged, as I say, by the general direction that our sickness absence statistics are going in, but it’s something we have to be ever mindful of, because it is going to be extremely difficult few years ahead, in terms of challenge. It’s going to be very enjoyable, I hope, as well, but it is going to be a challenge and it is something where we need to have our workforce fit and able to contribute to their best.

Can I come in on that point?

Hefin, yes.

I think, in setting the budget, which is my main role—budget and governance—I'm ever mindful of the fact, where Members are coming to me and saying, ‘We need to find cuts in different places’, and we consulted with groups on these things, that there will be an impact on staff from the decisions we make. Any decision we make as a Senedd, as a Parliament, will have an impact on staff. So, for example, the chief executive’s already mentioned the fact that we delayed the filling of posts. That led to additional pressures, because people were later coming in to replace them. That happens. I think, in the budget, that is a key consideration that I will be talking about tomorrow in finance.

The other issue is the fact that Members have a role here, because, don't forget, Members are a key part of the cultural aspect of this organisation, perhaps one of the most visible parts of the cultural aspect of the organisation. I think we collectively have a role. We've all done dignity and respect training, but I think it goes beyond that. We have a role to think of how we interact with Commission staff at all levels. They're providing incredible services to us, they keep us safe, they keep us fed, they keep us broadcasting, and we need to think about those things and the pressures they are under in doing that. I think some Members do, but I don't think it's a universal consideration by Members, and I think it's worth us remembering that when we go about our daily work as Members.

Okay. Thank you. Thinking about when I did my professional exams, and we considered change plans, which you've referred to widely today, the focus was very much on ensuring that the staff affected felt that things were done with them, rather than to them. There were change management processes to seek to encourage a sense of ownership amongst the staff and, hopefully, an identification with the corporate goals that were being pursued. So, within your change plan, what change management processes do you have on that basis to give staff the opportunity to, perhaps, feel less of a threat and more of a sense of ownership as you take this forward?

That's a very good point, Chair. One of the big lessons that we learned from lockdown and COVID was to hypercommunicate as far as we could and have lots of internal engagement events. We're probably not perfect; it's probably something we need to keep vigilant about. But, certainly, our governance arrangements may sound complicated, but they are designed to make sure that all the services have a voice in the change that's happening and that there is information cascading back to services. We supplement this—we have all-staff meetings now at least every half term, and those are good internal engagement opportunities as well.

I think it's worth saying that—I know we're outside the period of this committee's focus today—when we compare the autumn 2023 results with the spring 2024 results, we are seeing some encouraging signs. The numbers of staff feeling that they have too much work to do has decreased from 25 per cent to 19 per cent. It's still a fifth of our staff feeling they have too much work to do, but it's going in the right direction, and we had more staff positively rating their mental health. So, that is something we would hope to build on and make it clear that underpinning our values as an organisation is the fact that we work as one team, and that that team cohesion and the respect that we all pay to each other's work is, I would hope, absolutely critical to the way that we run the organisation. We get a lot of loyalty and commitment from the team back.

So, you've talked about team events and, hopefully, you'll confirm those are interactive—you're asking people to contribute their ideas, collating those and seeking agreement before you conclude the meetings. In terms of one-to-one, can you confirm that your performance management structures aren't an annual event with an appraisal, but they're part of an ongoing, one-to-one interaction that gives the individual the opportunity to contribute and to share good news, suggestions and ideas, but also any problems that might be encountered?

That's right, Chair. That is definitely how our guidance is set up for managers in running the appraisal process all year round. There shouldn't be any surprises in appraisals; it should be part of a continuous conversation, but anchored every year in a chance to look back and assess achievements and set goals for the future.

You said 'should'. Is that systemic, or aspirational?

We do keep an eye—we have reporting back on that.

Is it systemic?

I'm sorry, Chair, systemic in the sense of—?

It's part of the HR system, where—

Yes. it is. They are logged on the system. Yes, they're literally systemic. Yes.

It's not a random thing if a department head just feels like doing it, or—

No.

No. Okay. Thank you. I'll finish on this. Your 2023-24 accounts stated that you intended to publish a new long-term sickness policy during the summer recess and launch absence management training by the end of this year. What update, if any, can you provide regarding this? What are the main changes you planned or have made to long-term sickness policy, and what differences do you now expect those to make?

We have agreed an absence management policy and, in fact, the Commission had a conversation about that when it met last month. So, it is very much a combination of providing well-being support to staff in terms of their physical and mental health, and so there'll be a suite of resources there, but it is also about training managers in the handling of both short- and long-term sickness, going forward. So, I'm hoping that there will be further benefits from that as the system beds in.

Okay. Thank you. I think that brings us to the end of our formal questions. Unless Members have any further matters they wish to raise with you before we conclude, it just falls on me to thank the four of you, all of you, for attending and answering our questions. As always, a transcript of today's meeting will be shared with you for checking before it's published. Therefore, I conclude by saying, as agreed in our motion earlier today, we will now move into private session.