Department for the Economy Board minutes 2025 - 29 January 2025

Present

• Ian Snowden (Chair)
• Moira Doherty
• Shane Murphy
• Sharon Hetherington
• Richard Rodgers
• Laura McPolin
• Paul Grocott
• Fiona Keenan (Non-Executive Board Member)
• Mark Lowry (Non-Executive Board Member)

In Attendance

• (name redacted) (Corporate Governance Secretariat)
• (name redacted) (Permanent Secretary’s Office)
• (name redacted) (for Business Planning)
• (name redacted) (for Business Planning)

Apologies

• Michael McKavanagh

Agenda items

Agenda Item	Actions Arising from Discussion	Action Owner and Current Position (to be completed prior to the next Board Meeting)
Agenda Item 1: Board Register of Interests/ Conflicts	No new interests declared.
Agenda Item 2: Minutes of Previous Meetings	Minutes of the December meeting were approved without further amendment.
Agenda Item 3: DfE Business Plan 2025-26	The 25-26 Business Plan is in development and input received to date was prepared for discussion. 66 actions have been offered across 6 ‘corporate goals’. The focus is on collaborative corporate actions, rather than a long list of contributions from individual business areas. Collaboration across the Department is important. An example in another Department was for individual responsibilities but also a small number of collaborative actions. There are a lot of areas in DfE where collaboration is happening. Actions could be linked to an indicator and importance considered depending on how many indicators are hit – upgrade/downgrade accordingly. Need to consider if actions are of enough importance to sit in a Corporate rather than a Divisional Plan. It was commented that there is a lack of clarity on what can be deemed as success in the first year and could consider outcomes so we can judge performance. We could tailor the plan so it looks outward. We need to consider what we are going to do to deliver objectives and make this communicable. We need to consider being more aspirational. Having a rolling, long range trajectory with a 3-year resource plan would be helpful. Are we looking at where we could do better and follow through in the new business plan? We need to talk about economic opportunities. The primary audience is our own staff, Partner Organisations and the Business Community. The aims are collaboration across the Department, want to be directive rather than prescriptive and it should be doable within our budget. Options are:  1. Stick with the current Business Plan 2. Use the suggestions proposed in the paper presented at the meeting 3. Take an external view of what the economy needs 4. Follow through this year’s Business Plan and also something new 5. Pick two or three big issues (maybe advanced technologies). Some combination of options 4 and 5 is the current preference. Horizontal issues are The Net Zero Opportunity, An Economy That Works for All and More Tradeable Businesses. A Vertical Issue is Sectors or Technologies Where We Have a Comparative Advantage. We need to think through what this means for how we work in DfE. We need the insight of Analytical Services Division. There are capacity and financial restraints. G5 input at tomorrow’s meeting will be sought. Time is tight.
Agenda Item 4: Topic for Future Strategic Boards	Depending on arrangements and availability, the March meeting will focus on Artificial Intelligence and the May meeting on Magee expansion.
Agenda Item 5: Any Other Business	There was no other business.

Date of Next Meeting

Wednesday 26 February, Adelaide House, Belfast