Strategic commercial interventions: monitoring framework

6. Monitoring Process in SCAD – Governance and reporting

The Strategic Asset Review Group (SARG) was set up in May 2022 to increase the Scottish Government’s internal scrutiny and assurance in the management and oversight of strategic commercial assets, as well as to provide direction and challenge to the intervention portfolio giving a formal platform for monitoring performance of SCAD’s assets.

SARG provides strategic review and challenge to operational leads for intervention, across the following areas:

• Performance Monitoring: outcomes, budgets, risks and issues relating to strategic commercial assets in accordance with best practice, recommendations issued by auditors, and the Scottish Public Finance Manual
• Consideration of future options, including exit strategies;
• Provide views, challenge and support on strategic issues related to the operations of assets;
• Provide views on the relative prioritisation of investment across the portfolio of assets.

SARG currently meets every 6 to 8 weeks and there is a requirement for sponsor teams to report on:

• Key milestones / scheduled deliverables for the next quarter.
• Summary update on previous month’s activities – covering progress against milestones, deliverables and other significant events.
• Forward look to next month’s activities – covering intervention team’s main activities / site visits / engagement with parliament / wider company matters.
• Progress against any actions from the previous meeting.
• Key risks (top risks from intervention risk register or risk summary).

The monitoring framework should be used to formalise the process for capturing the key performance metrics across each asset and summary output to SARG. This will enable SCAD to add a further layer of support and challenge across the assets, firstly from PMO and the Insights & Assurance Unit (I&A Unit) to ensure the right information is captured and presented.

The key steps for Sponsor teams to follow in the monitoring process are summarised in the flowchart below.