These are the Board Meeting minutes from 14 November 2013

Present

Sylda Langford, Chair

Damian Casey

Austin Currie

Tom Daly

Bernadette Fahy

Katherine Finn

David Lane

Phyllis Morgan

In attendance

Mary Higgins

Fiona Coyne

Conor Morrison

1. Apologies

There were no apologies

2. Minutes of the meeting Held on 10th October

The minutes of the meeting were read and their adoption was proposed by Austin Currie and seconded by Damian Casey.

3. Matters Arising from the minutes not on agenda

There were no items under this heading.

4. CEO Work Report

The CEO Work Report 11th October to 7th November was circulated in advance of the meeting and considered by the Board.  Issues, discussion and decisions arising were:

Section 1- Ensuring survivors are aware of our service

The Board noted that the round of consultation meetings with survivors and survivor groups in Ireland and England were now coming to and end and future meetings would be about providing information on the scheme and how to apply to it.  It was agreed that it would be useful for the Board to have a picture of the regional location of the consultation meetings for the next meeting.

The importance of now focusing on the rest of the world was agreed and some suggestions were made on newspapers and other media outlets to contact and Bernadette to provide additional information to the office.

The proposal to carry out a baseline study into the level of awareness among mainstream service providers so that we will be able to measure the impact of our work on improving their awareness and capacity to address the needs of survivors was agreed.

Section 3. Making Scheme of Assistance Operational

A pilot scheme to outreach to survivors in three areas will be implemented in three areas in Ireland in the coming months.

Section 4. Staffing, Premises and Office

It was noted that approval has been received from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to advertise publicly for four caseworkers and a commuications and engagement person and this is being dealt with the Public Appointments Service on our behalf.  It was felt by the Board that the recruitment process will mean that we are unlikely to have staff in place for January and a contingency plan will need to be developed to ensure that we are fully operational by then.

The issue of a staff contract was raised and the Board advised that the CDETB should be contacted for advice.  The proposal to extend the temporary contract for a further three months was agreed.  It was suggested that if it was necessary that this should be for six months, in order to avoid any entitlement to a permanent contract arising.  This was proposed by Austin Currie and seconded by Damian Casey.

Section 6. Finalising the Education Finance Board

The Board was informed that advice from both DES and the Data Protection Commissioner was that we should destroy the Education Finance Board (EFB) files.  It was pointed out that their destruction would be in accordance with the EFB’s own policy.  It was decided that further advice from DES should be sought.  This was proposed by Austin Currie and seconded by Damian Casey.

5. Reports from Audit and Risk Sub Committee

Audit & Risk

The committee had met the previous week but there was no significant change to report.  We still have €6m on deposit for the launch next year.  Damian Casey said that the plan was to focus on policies and procedures. He said that he had spoken to the recently appointed Head of Finance and Administration and intended to work closely with him on preparing management reports for the Board.

Tom Daly volunteered to be the replacement for Paddy Doyle on the Audit and Risk Sub committee and this was agreed.

6. Correspondence

A letter had been received from Mary McGarry of DES and the CEO was asked to reply to this.  A reply from the Minister to our letter was noted.

7. The Scheme

The document, which brought the various elements of the proposed scheme previously considered by the Board together, had been circulated in advance of the meeting.  It included a summary of the sections in the Act relevant to the scheme, eligibility criteria, approved services and standards for them, applicaiton criteria, the application process, the assessment of applications, the range of services to be included as “approved services”, limits, policies for managing data, and evaluation framework.  The document was considered in detail.

It was decided that two special workshops should be held to consider the scheme in more detail and to ensure that it was fully agreed in advance of the launch of the scheme in January 2014.  These were scheduled for the 21st November and the 28th November.

8.  A.O.B.

A question arose about whether there had been a breach of the Data Protection Acts in the preliminary analysis of the Redress data.  It was confirmed that as no names were used in the exercise and no one was or could be identified, there was no breach of confidentiality or data protection policies, procedures or legislation.

However, there was an unintentional breach of Section 24 (2) of the Residential Institutions Statutory Fund Act, 2012 and the Board agreed by majority decision to record its apology for this breach.

9. Next Meeting

The next meeting of the Board will be held on 11th December at 10.30 a.m.