Welsh Revenue Authority Board minutes: 18 September 2024

Members

• Ruth Glazzard, Chair
• Jocelyn Davies, Deputy Chair
• Dyfed Alsop, CEO
• Rebecca Godfrey, COO/SD
• Mary Champion, Non-Executive Member
• Jim Scopes, Non-Executive Member
• Rheon Tomos, Non-Executive Member
• Zoe Curry, Staff-Elected Member

1. The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting.  Apologies were received from the Chief of Staff and the board associates. Attendees included a representative from the Welsh Treasury (WT), and presenters from the WRA.
2. The minutes, and redacted minutes of the previous meeting (May 2024) were agreed as an accurate record of discussions. All committee actions were now closed.
3. The board associate scheme had now reached the end of its first year. Laura Kent had decided not to continue due to other commitments. Neil Mukerji had received a positive performance review from the chair, therefore the board decided to continue his appointment for another year.

4. No formal conflicts of interests were declared, however it was noted that the Chief Executive (CE) had recently publicly endorsed a book, written by an individual who had undertaken linguistic analysis work for the WRA.

   D24-03-01: Neil Mukerji to continue as Board Associate for a second year, until September 2025.

Visitor Levy (VL) Update & Budget Commission

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Finance & ARAC report

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4. The final audit had been completed with Audit Wales (AW) confirming they were providing an unqualified opinion. The annual report (AR) would be published this week. The CE thanked all involved for their work.
5. The ARAC met to discuss the final ISA260 report, but it was noted that, as a matter of principle, for any future AR, it was requested that the Board/ ARAC view the final report before the Accounting Officer (AO) sign-off the accounts. It was noted that the ARAC or Board do not sign or approve the report, but it would be considered good practice, and for good governance reasons, for the committee to support the AO and to recommend they sign. Timing of the final audit had meant that final stages of reviewing and signing were done on an ad-hoc basis, therefore it was agreed to draft a high-level view of the approval process, outlining roles & responsibilities, in order to clarify the approach.
6. It was mentioned that at a recent GIAA session, a new approach was noted from UK treasury on managing fraudulent and corrupt practices. The WT representative was not aware of anything new for WG, however would look into this further and report back to the committee.

A24-03-02: Secretariat to draft and circulate annual report approval process, outlining timing, roles & responsibilities.

A24-03-03: WT to feed back if there is anything new to note from WG on managing fraudulent and corrupt practices.

CEO/ AO report

1. The CE thanked the HR team for their recruitment work in the last 6 months. Positive feedback had been received from new starters on the process, including how helpful and welcoming all were.
2. In the second half of this year, more than 25% of the WRA workforce will be only 6 months into their role. This is due to the intentional early recruitment for derisking on VL (and the main source of the financial pressure), but notably this will be a large cultural shift for the organisation. TA’s priorities will include the hybrid working strategy, welcoming new people in, focusing on delivery, and maintaining the positive culture of the WRA.
3. TA had also been discussing the new corporate plan narrative. It was noted how many new, or renewed corporate aspects would be falling at the same time: corporate plan objectives, equality objectives, WBFG, WL standards etc, which poses a risk of having too many, therefore there is a need to distill them into clear, simple aspects, moving forward.
4. For the Welsh Language (WL) standards, positive conversations have taken place with the commissioner’s office, discussing the WRA’s ambitions and its activity over the last few years, leading up to compliance. An agenda item will be brought to the next meeting to provide more detail.

Performance report

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SDLG Report 

4. The operations team are almost at full capacity, with training for new staff going well, returning to work that was paused, and revisiting tax forums. Resourcing continues to be an issue, however beyond operations, particularly in the DDaT teams. Improvements will hopefully show in the new year.
5. The new HR system requirements have been mapped out and procurement is underway. It is due to be implemented by mid-March. It will be a standard package implementation, and will only require time from HR resources, with this time already factored into the overall resource plan. Technical Design Group will review the proposals from a technical point of view, and make their recommendation to SDLG who will then approve.
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Welsh Treasury report 

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1. Members provided reflections on the day’s discussions which had wide ranging risk considerations, primarily regarding managing change in uncertain conditions. For the CE, risk discussions themselves feel more comfortable; they are discussed in the right context and at the right time. The focus would now need to shift to business continuity, specifically succession planning due to several single points of failure in the organisation.
2. A non-executive member had been invited to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) tax conference, where contingent consent is to be discussed. It was agreed to further discuss at the next strategy away day.
3. The next meeting would be a Board Conversation on 23 October 2024. 

Redacted information

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 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.