Minutes of the Executive Board: 28 May 2025

Present:

John Logue (Chair)            Crown Agent and Chief Executive

Lindsey Miller                    Deputy Crown Agent, Operational Support Stephen McGowan         Deputy Crown Agent, Litigation

Andrew Laing                    Deputy Crown Agent, Local Court

Jim Brisbane                     Director of Strategy

Keith Dargie                      Head of Business Services

Marlene Anderson             Director of Finance and Procurement Sarah Carter Director of Human Resources

David Watt                        Non-executive Director

John Burns                       Non-executive Director Annie Gunnar-Logan Non-executive Director Helena Kiely    Non-executive Director

Alison Saunders                Non-executive Director

In attendance:

Andrew Richardson           Head of High Court Unit (deputising for Ruth McQuaid) Katie Stewart     Head of ICU and CAAPD (deputising for Kenny Donnelly) Frances Ross     Head of Corporate Governance

Jonathan Shebioba            Director of Support Services Mairi Boyle          Secretariat

Apologies:

Kenny Donnelly                 Deputy Crown Agent, Specialist Casework Ruth McQuaid   Deputy Crown Agent, Local Court

Keith Dargie                      Head of Business Services

The Crown Agent and Chief Executive welcomed all colleagues to the meeting, particularly Alison Saunders, for whom this was her first Executive Board meeting, and there were introductions from all. No conflicts of interest were noted.

1.               The minutes of the meeting held on 27 March 2025 were approved and can be published.

2.               The Crown Agent noted that this was the final meeting of Executive Board. We will transition into the new governance arrangements during the summer, with Strategic Board taking the place of Executive Board. Frances Ross’s paper on the new arrangements will be discussed at agenda item 5. A complete set of outstanding actions from previous Executive Board meetings are included in the papers for today’s meeting. The Crown Agent suggested that those actions which are not closed off today are identified as actions for the new Strategic Board or Leadership Board to take forward. The Board was content with this.

3.               The following updates on the outstanding actions were noted:

·       Action 17 – The Director of Human Resources has provided a written update to the Board on VT support. She set out the limitations of the arrangements with the current provider and plans to move to a new provider when this contract ends in two years’ time. The current contract is being actively managed and HR are taking a trauma-informed approach now, including by addressing VT during recruitment processes. The Deputy Crown Agent, Operational Support added that the first meeting of the trauma-informed project board is today. The project board will take learning from this contract and feed this into work around workforce resilience. This action will be closed and the subject will be for the Leadership Board to consider.

·       Action 22 - Head of Business Services will now report to the Leadership Board on programme delivery, benefits realisation, and lessons learned.

·       Actions 24 and 25 – a written update on Designed for Success will be discussed at agenda item 4.

·       Action 28 – the Head of Corporate Governance explained that the corporate business plan had not been shared with the Board for this meeting because it had been revised recently following feedback from the Crown Agent, for example to include a fuller set of performance metrics. The finalised plan will be shared with the Board by correspondence for comment and can be published thereafter. The Function business plans will not be published externally. There will be briefing on the corporate business plan for the first meeting of the Strategic Board. A report will be presented to each subsequent meeting of the Strategic Board on how we are doing on each of the performance metrics.

“Releasable under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 after the next meeting”

approved in early August. The auditors have raised no issues nor identified any areas as requiring extensive audit. Turning to the FY25/26 budget, the Director of Finance and Procurement has raised with Scottish Government the resource implications for COPFS of the introduction by Police Scotland of body-worn video technology, which are additional pressures. The Director of Strategy told the Board about the substantial implications of this for COPFS and the importance of discussing resource requirements in the context of work by COPFS on summary case management which creates the potential for savings in COPFS and across other agencies. We will work closely with Police Scotland on BWV throughout the year. On the capital budget, there was some discussion of the implications of IFR16 on leases and how this impacts the rest of the capital budget.

2.               The Board made a number of observations on the Finance Strategy document. The Crown Agent said the document would be reviewed to take account of these and then published. Some of the Board’s comments on the Strategy reflected the fact that the document came from a way of working we are leaving behind. We are moving to a different way of doing things in terms of governance and strategy where every aspect of the business will be underpinned by strategy, actions are linked to strategy and our performance is measured. The Director of Strategy is working on this and looking ahead to our next Strategic Plan. He will address the new Strategic Board on this work.

ACTION: Director of Finance and Procurement to discuss capital budget and IFR16 separately with Crown Agent.

1.               The Director of Support Services introduced paper EB25/26(2) and gave a brief overview of how the project had progressed. The Crown Agent said that the paper was an update to the Board on activity, rather than a governance report, and that one of the most visible elements of this is recruitment at Director level. We are about to transition to our new structure. We hope that the new structure will be in place before the Chief Operating Officer takes up post on 1 September.

2.               There was discussion about the staff response to DFS: the Head of Corporate Governance shared the positive response of staff who attended roadshows held by the Crown Agent in offices nationwide. The Director of Strategy accepted there was more work to be done to ensure middle and senior management have the skill and understanding to lead staff through this change; and to change from a culture that tends to focus on resource. It is imperative that the new senior team are united on our agreed approach.

ACTION: Director of Support Services will provide an update to the Strategic Board at the end of the summer.

2.               There was discussion about holding Strategic Board meetings in different offices. This may be more meaningful for the Leadership Board. The Head of Corporate Governance will consider this.

1.               The Deputy Crown Agent, Operational Support introduced paper EB25/26(4) and highlighted that work in relation to the Information Commissioner’s audit of processes for extracting data from electronic devices (outstanding action 2) is still ongoing and has oversight from the Operational Performance Committee.

1.     The Deputy Crown Agent Local Court presented paper EB25/26(5). The Board noted the limited engagement by witnesses on the Witness Gateway. The main issue here is the need for witnesses to access the platform via the government secured gateway and third sector organisations are assisting witnesses with this.

1.               The Board noted paper EB25/26(6). The Crown Agent explained the effect of the savings provisions passed by the Scottish Parliament in relation to solemn timebar. There remains a need to address the backlog of solemn cases, particularly given the limitations of the legislation. The Crown Agent also noted that Susanne Tanner’s report of her sexual offences review had been received. Initial advice will be provided to Law Officers by the end of June as to how COPFS should respond to this. This will be a leadership priority.

1.               The Board noted paper EB25/26(7). There was some discussion of the likely impact of the Lord Advocate’s reference cases and BWV on the work of CAAPD.

1.               The minutes of the May meeting of the Committee (EB25/26(8)) were noted.

1.               The Board noted the papers from the May meeting of the Committee (EB25/26(9)).

1.               The Board noted the papers from the April meeting of the Committee (EB25/26(10)).