5 minute interview

I have been profiled in this month’s in-house magazine Seren (not in the way you profile serial killers, though). The sub-editing managed to ruin most of the attempted jokes; they clearly thought that being a civil servant and having a sense of humour were mutually exclusive. So here, for those who care, is the full, un-butchered profile:

Martin Veale – Risk Improvement Manager

What is your main job role?
To lead on the development of risk management in the Welsh Assembly Government. We have made significant inroads over the past few years, and the proper structures and processes are now in place, but there’s still a long way to go to get all staff thinking about risks during the course of their daily jobs. My focus is to raise awareness of risks, how to spot them and how to manage them.

What do you enjoy about your job?
Being in a role where I can help others to do their jobs. It’s very wide-ranging. I interact with lots of different people and I have to know a lot about the workings of the Assembly Government.

What drives you mad about your job?
It’s often difficult to find out who is the right person to talk to and I can’t bear out of office email responses along the lines of ‘I’m on leave and your email has been deleted’. How does that help communications?

Where would you like your department to be in five years?
Being the best it can be. Somewhere where there are no surprises and things are properly planned and managed. Somewhere where there’s no need for a risk manager – because everybody does risk management every day without thinking.

What’s your favourite book?
Bill Bryson’s The Lost Continent and Stephen King’s Faithful – his diary of the 2004 Boston Red Sox season.

My biggest influence is...
Geoff Boycott, who taught me to get by with what you’ve got, make the most of your talents, and play a forward defensive.

My proudest moment was...
April 28 next, when I get married to my fiancée Cath.

The best thing my parents taught me was...
Play fair. Don’t hit other people. Put things back where you found them. Say sorry when you hurt someone. Clean up your own mess. Flush.

What’s the first thing you’d do if you won the lottery?
Shout ‘Woohoo!’, then pay off the mortgage (a good accountant’s answer) and book tickets for the winter Ashes series down under.

Link of the week

Beaufort Hill Ponds and Woodland Preservation Society is a new organisation set up following the demise of Corus in the Ebbw Vale area to preserve the local ponds and surrounding area. The ponds were built back in the 1800s to supply water to the local iron (and later steel) works. The area starts at the pond at the top of Highlands Road in Beaufort and leads up to the Heads of the Valleys Road.

Coffeenerdness

I succumbed to my first eggnog latte of the festive season at Starbucks in the Llantrisant Borders bookstore the other night. I think that I’ll be beating a regular path to the store for the next month or so.

Obviously keen to take a break from training for tomorrow's All Blacks game, Wales captain Stephen Jones, Martin Williams, Gethin Jenkins, Kevin Morgan and Rhys Thomas were in Starbucks. They had a quiet coffee and signed a few autographs.

Fantasy Football Notes

LaDainian Tomlinson couldn’t do it all on his own this past weekend. He hoovered up 32 points with 4 touchdowns for the San Diego Chargers on Sunday night, but the rest of my team could only manage 37 between them. Still joint top though at 7-3-1.

Hotel Notes

It’s the second time in a week that I’ve stayed at the Macdonald Holland House Hotel in Cardiff. Last week was the CIPFA in Wales conference. This time around it was the annual training conference of the Traffic Commissioners (they adjudicate on the granting and revoking of operating licences for haulage and bus contractors). I’ve been appointed as a (very) part-time financial assessor to the Traffic Commissioners.

Anyway, the hotel is on Newport Road, its quite new and very swish. It's not often that you walk into a hotel bedroom and wonder where the bed is! It had a sofa and a couple of easy chairs, a whiz-bang flat screen TV/computer and wifi access. Highly recommended, but I suspect not cheap.

TV Notes

It’s a pleasure to hear Ritchie Benaud back on TV. He’s doing the BBC highlight package of the Ashes tour. The other commentators include Tony “make them grovel” Grieg and my hero, Geoff Boycott. The commentary makes the sound trashing being handed out by the Aussies thus far more bearable.

Rugby Notes

Gerald Davies was booked to be the after dinner speaker at the CIPFA Wales conference last week. I wasn’t looking forward to listening to another Cardiff-centric lecture on how rugby should be run, but thankfully I didn’t have to. Thomas Gerald Reames Davies was a no-show. He’s got time to meander down memory lane for Scrum V and be in the stands for the Canada game, but clearly not enough to send his apologies to the conference.

The host of the evening did his best to embarrass him in his absence, reading his thank you note despite Davies not being there to be thanked. He also did the old Max Boyce joke: “How fast was Gerald Davies, dad?” “He was so fast that he could turn out the bedroom light and be in bed before it was dark.”