Meeting – 22nd May 2003
ATTENDEES
M A Johns - Chief Executive
J Ebdon - Deputy Chief Executive, Director Local Taxation
J H Keelty - Director of Finance, Technology and Strategy
S Hartnell - Director of Human Resources
J M Wilkinson - Director of District Valuer Services
P Sanderson - Director of Modernisation
A Grinstead - Non Executive Director
D Stathers - Non Executive Director
M Morrison-Paton - Head of Communications
J Reeves (part)
J Page (part)
J Berry (part)
RG Lawrence - Secretary
Data Strategy
Introducing the paper, Paul Sanderson reminded the Board of all
the work that was currently being carried out on Data issues by
the Data Strategy Manager, based at CEO. Of the many changes taking
place, the demise of PD forms from 1st December 2003 was probably
the most important in the short term for the Agency. The intention
was for the VOA to receive sales information electronically from
the Stamps Office (SO) from December 2003, but additional IT would
be needed at SO before this could happen. The VOA were working closely
with SO to ensure that a contingency plan was in place in case the
required IT wasn’t properly functioning in time.
As the current strategy for dealing with data issues had not been
updated for some time, the Board agreed that a review should take
place and be put before the Board for their approval later in the
year.
e- Learning
Steve Hartnell told Board members that e-learning was essentially
using the Internet / Intranet to assist and supplement the delivery
of training and development. The business writing skills course
which had already been made available to staff was a good example
of e- learning .
The Board agreed that e–learning provided an effective way
of supplementing the more traditional training methods and endorsed
the continuation of its development and use.
Capital Allocation 2003 / 2004
John Keelty reminded the Board of the decision taken at
the February 2003 management board meeting, when it was announced
that as bids for capital funds from CEO divisions exceeded the funds
then currently available to the Agency, the bids would not be met
in full. Things had now moved forward insofar as Divisions had submitted
revised bids, the accounting procedures for dealing with accommodation
expenditure were being reconsidered, and discussions were taking
place with the Revenue to seek their permission for the Agency to
spend additional capital funds in the current financial year. All
of this meant that the Board were now content to endorse the funding
of CEO Divisional Capital Bids in full for the current financial
year.
Project Management – “Centres of Excellence”
Jerry Page, head of financial operations, explained that
the Agency was required, by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC),
to set up a more comprehensive process and structure for controlling
and monitoring the progress of its major projects. There were various
ways in which the Agency could meet this demand by OGC and the Board
agreed that the most practical and cost effective option for the
Agency was to expand the role of the Project Support Office which
was already in place at CEO. Further work would be carried out to
provide the Board with details of the additional resource that this
would require.
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