Transcript Slide 1

Seeing the bigger picture
Kathryn Southworth
Vice-Principal
Newman University College
Or…a place at the table
Opening exercise:
• What contributions or interventions have you
considered making at a Board meeting – but
didn’t. Why didn’t you?
• Have you made any contributions or
interventions and then wished you hadn’t? Why?
General principles of governance
“If management is about running the business,
governance is about seeing that it is run properly”
(Tricket 1984)
Governance in HE: stakeholder participation
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Employers (health, education, industry)
Community (civic leaders)
Church (ex officio Chair)
Staff (collegial, self-governing tradition)
Students (ditto)
Alumni???? (Gillies 2011)
Governors’ skillsets
• Networking and influence
• Financial/accountancy
• Business experience and acumen;
entrepreneurial; charity
• Legal/HR/estates
• Public sector management???
• Education??
General requirements on governing bodies
• Ensuring accountability and effective scrutiny
(including appointing auditors and assurances to HEFCE
on financial viability)
• Approving future direction and strategy for the institution (including
change title, validation arrangements, fees) (in post 92 “determining
the educational character/ethos)
• Appointing the VC or equivalent to ensure effective leadership
• Measuring institutional performance (including national PIs or locally
determined KPIs including benchmarking)
• Holding AGM, if company
Business of governors
• Board of Governors
• Sub-committees
– Audit
– Finance and General Purposes (possibly
staffing/promotion/remuneration)
– Estates
– Nominations (possibly governor effectiveness)
• Training/awaydays/social/observation
• Possible joint committees with management/deliberative bodies or
observer status
Position of staff governors
• Elected:
mandated-representative -”independent”
• Internal / independent – external
therefore excluded from potential conflicts of
interest e.g. “reserved business”; Audit;
Remuneration
Why have staff governors?
• Traditional collegiality; modern participatory selfgovernment; check on managerialism
• Direct experience of institutional life
• Links with academic governance
• May be able to mediate decisions
• May be more willing and knowledgeable than
externals to hold management to account;
potential to “ambush”
Possible problems for staff governors
• Unfamiliar with people, issues and procedures largely invisible in
institutional life
• Lack of experience in key areas of governance responsibilities;
technical complexity of some papers
• May have confidence or credibility issues
• Politicised election process may favour popular or
manipulative/skilled (present company excepted!)
• Operational concerns may get in way of strategic appreciation;
could be “hijacked”
• Lobbying and representational pressures and vested interests may
compromise corporate interests and independence
Actual experiences of staff governors 1:
motivation
• Opportunity to find out what goes on at top level
• Passion for institution and opportunity to help steer its future
• Wanting to articulate the experience “on the ground”; making points
to management as well as governors; talking about the “elephant in
the room”
• First thought role “to represent Support Staff” but really “was just
representing myself and “happened” to be support staff
• Removed from the usual day job
• Potential personal development opportunity
• A “seat at the table”
Staff governors 2: own role on Board
• Both Clerk and Chair very careful about making sure I was included
in discussion
• Staff and student members sat together because they didn’t want to
be associated with “management” but then I realised there were no
“sides”
• Was concerned that standing with management might be damaged
if I said the “wrong” things
• It would have been helpful to know more about each governor to
get a sense of “where they were coming from”: many arrived late
and left early so no social contact
• Mentoring or partnering with a current Board member would have
been helpful when first elected
Staff governors 3: observations on the
practice of boards
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Quite an alien environment: heavily focussed on topics rarely mentioned at
other committees or meetings attended
Board a “rubber-stamping” exercise: SMT “excellent at leading the Board
where they wanted to go”
Real decisions made elsewhere; things “hidden” from Board
Important things happened at sub-committees: realised “that’s how things
work”
Felt powerless in Board: more opportunity to contribute in sub-committees
Governors tend to “see the institution as they want it to be”: disconnect
with reality: macho competition to claim ethos is alienating
Governors need to change so Board doesn’t get too cosy
Many governors didn’t seem to understand HE
Routine business of the Board
September: membership; year end financial data; national
PIs; KPIs; report of Principal and academic report VP (each
meeting); receipt of committee papers (each meeting)
November: auditors’ report; accounts; student numbers;
HEFCE assurance papers
March: tuition fees; carbon management; SU constitution;
single equality scheme
June: Budget for following year; risk register; rules for
dismissal of senior postholders; honorary degrees; annual
reports: chaplain; health & safety; SU
The Board from a SMT perspective
• Governance is time-consuming for SMT: need preparation,
cultivation and lots of papers
• Very cyclical agendas and often lengthy; occasional “big issues”:
may disguise everyday business of institution
• “Critical friends” may be distraction from critical colleagues and
reinforce distance or disconnect
• Some “holding to account” but rarely from expected angle: much
goes without comment
• General tendency to support SMT and VC in particular
• Strong interest in student and staff welfare, less in other areas of
accountability
• Expect the unexpected: can have a sense of perspective lacking in
internals
Bigger picture or seat at the table?
• Different perspective
• Insight into policy formation
• Appreciate the workings of governance and interaction with
management
• Have the potential to influence policy: but don’t count on it
• May come to “think corporately”
• May experience at least a virtual round table
• Meet an interesting range of people
• Enjoy good company, if not good counsel, and probably good food
as well