Minutes of Proceedings

1. APOLOGIES

1.1 Apologies were received from Brian Moreland. The Assembly Commission is to appoint a representative for SARC at its meeting on 23 June 2016.

2. DECLARATION OF INTERESTS

2.1 There were no declarations of interests.

3. MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING

3.1 The minutes of the SARC meeting held on 22 March 2016 were approved without amendment.

4. MATTERS ARISING

4.1 The position on the various action points was noted by SARC members.

5. IFRP DETERMINATION 2016

5.1 Trevor Reaney advised that the lateness of the Determination, after Dissolution, and the major changes affecting 300 employees of MLAs, had caused significant problems and had delayed the updating of the Handbook. Given the changes in the Determination to provisions for Rent and Rates payments, Trevor stated that he had decided not to proceed with office valuations, at a saving of some 25K.

5.2 The SARC Chair reported back on SARC's meeting with IFRP on 19 April where a range of issues had been discussed and the Panel provided a high level briefing on the 2016 Determination. At the conclusion of the meeting, the Panel confirmed that it would address a number of these issues as appropriate with the Secretariat or the Commission. Insofar as SARC was concerned, it was noted by members that the format of the new Determination and associated memorandum of understanding would assist SARC's future programme of audits; and that SARC would monitor the outworkings of the IPSA peer review report and, where appropriate, responses to the issues raised by the Panel with the Secretariat.

5.3 The SARC Independent member asked that possible employment challenges arising from the Determination be monitored and, if materialising, be reflected in the Corporate Risk Register.
ACTION: RICHARD STEWART

5.4 SARC members requested an update in relation to the recommendations contained in the IPSA Peer Review.
ACTION: RICHARD STEWART

6. DRAFT FINAL REPORT TO THOSE CHARGED WITH GOVERNANCE

6.1 Louise Mason gave SARC members an overview of the draft of the Final Report to those charged with Governance.

6.2 Detailed discussion ensued between SARC members, Secretariat officials and NIAO officials on the current wording of the Governance Statement and the current wording of a number of the paragraphs in the draft Final Report to those charged with Governance. Officials agreed to reconsider the wording of both documents and to have revised versions available for a reconvened SARC meeting on Tuesday 21 June 2016 at 12.30 pm.
ACTION: RICHARD STEWART / LOUISE MASON / EDDIE KELLY / DAVID JOHNSTON

Meeting adjourned at 3.05 pm.