1. Welcome & Apologies for Absence

2. Approval of Minutes

The minutes from the previous meeting held on 31 January 2008 were approved.

3. Action Update & Matters Arising

Actions from the previous meeting on 31 January 2008 were all completed and there were no matters arising.

4. Project Progress Report

JG gave a verbal update on project progress and key issues are:

• The project has suffered a little from both the director and the project manager being unavailable for significant periods of time but it is hoped that things should be more stable in future.
• There has been some clarification and subsequent adoption of consistant terminology between the project team, the consultants, JISC and HEFCE. Thus the first deliverable from the consultants is the Feasibility Study. Following this, the final deliverable for this stage of the project is the Outcome Report which incorporates the Feasibility Study, a Business Plan and details of management & governance of the proposed shared service. This is in accordance with the HEFCE Shared Services Programme guidelines. Curtis & Cartwright will produce a working draft of the Outcome Report for final editing and submission by the project team and this in effect, will be the bid to HEFCE for pilot project funding.
• To enable C&C to draft the Outcome Report, a Decisions Workshop has been arranged for 30 April to determine details for the business plan part of the document. The workshop will be run by C&C and it is planned for decision making representatives from M25 libraries and the M25 Consortium will be in attendance.
• Due to various reasons, project deliverable dates have been revised and agreed by JISC/HEFCE:
  11 April 2008 - Delivery of Draft "Feasibility Study" document from Curtis & Cartwright to WAM25 Steering Group.
  16 April 2008 - Break Point Review, plus draft Interim Project Report.
  circa 17 April 2008 - ""Feasibility Study" document to HEFCE with Interim Project Report.
  circa 21 April 2008 - subject to HEFCE agreement, Curtis & Cartwright begin work to contribute sections to Business Plan.
  23 May 2008 - Project delivers final issued version of "Outcome Report" document to JISC/HEFCE plus Project Completion Report.
• Partners - as noted in the draft Feasibility Study, London Metropolitan had reservations about their ability to take part in the pilot project should it go ahead, and they have since confirmed that due to organisations changes it would be impossible for them to participate beyond this stage of the project. Should funding be granted for the pilot service, a replacement partner will be sought.

JG also tabled a draft interim progress report for JISC/HEFCE and invited comments prior to formal issue of the report by 18th April 2008.

5. Review of Draft Feasibility Study Report

Prior to the arrival of Matt Shreeve (MS) of the project consultants, Curtis & Cartwright, all members of the group shared detailed comments on the draft Feasibility Study report. The comments were collated by MW and JG. On arrival, MS gave a presentation based on the findings of the feasibility study work and this was followed by an extended discussion to agree the necessary edits to the draft report.

Due to tight project timescales, JF had arranged to meet with HEFCE shortly after the meeting to progress approval for the Final Outcome Report work. The group agreed that, subject to further editing of the report based on the feedback at the meeting being completed, JF could present the findings of the study to HEFCE.

6. AOB

There was none.

7. Future Meetings

The next meeting had been arranged for 19 May 2008, 2pm, Room R300b, LSE Library, to review the Final Outcome Report.

Minutes by JG