Dear Group
Thank you all for your contributions and for a constructive meeting.
Present: AB, BK, AMF, RC, AH, GM.
Apologies: AW
Herewith actions agreed:
- AGM 12 May would not be the place for substantive debate on R&G; this should be set for a subsequent GM in, say, October, allowing the new Board to endorse any proposed changes of substance. Action: GM to programme
- The AGM should, however, be used to set the tone for the Society's activities over the next year. The Annual Report should be frank about the challenges faced - SCC service review, finances, SCC relationship - but very positive about what the Society offers members, the achievements of the year, and the targets set for the forthcoming year. Action: BK to include in draft section of 2011 Report.
- Disappointing outcome at Frome suggested need to rejig the structure of future GMs to encourage better attendance and lively debate. Action: AMF to bring ideas to next meeting.
- Establishment of "D&P" and "M&M" Committees seen as important and immediate step for Board approval. The first task of the D&P should be to answer the question 'Where do we want the Society to go?' Action: GM to put proposals to Board, based on AB and AH drafts respectively.
- AMF's paper noted for future discussion. Revised arrangements for Trustees covering, inter alia, period of office and position of Subject Committee chairs seen as complex and important and in need of detailed examination before paper submitted to Board. Action: AMF to bring paper to next meeting.
- GM paper on concept of Advisory Panel to replace the Advisory Council still in draft. Seen as another area in need of detailed examination, particularly in relation to the routine administrative functions of the Advisory Council and the debate about the location of the scrutiny function. Action: GM to bring paper to next meeting.
- Important to keep ideas flowing on the Website. Action: BK to continue posting R&G material.
- Noted that the SCC Heritage Service Delivery review is likely to present the Board with some major challenges.
- Noted that the Audit function could take place at a number of levels: the F&GP could monitor financial performance; the D&P the effectiveness of its advice to the Board; the M&M the effect on member recruitment; and the proposed Advisory Panel the comparative performance and reputation of the Society as a whole in the wider world.
- Noted that RC/BK's paper on Executive Power, Scrutiny and Strategy would inform both AMF's paper on Trustees and GM's paper on the Advisory Panel.
- Noted that AW's 'swot' appeared to have been absorbed in to AH's M&M work but that his concerns about the F&GP cannot be discussed in his absence.
- Noted that, once R&G initiatives complete, a 're-launch' of the Society would be appropriate. Currently there is widespread ignorance, both internally and externally, of what the Society does and of what it owns. AH (through the M&M group) is looking at where in the 'leisure' market we sit and what should be targeted.
Next Meeting: 12.15 Monday 2 April at the Hankridge Arms.
G
Executive Power, Scrutiny and Strategy
ReplyDeleteIntroduction : Executive power might usefully be thought of as the exercise of delegated authority, on a daily basis, to deliver results required by an organisation. Delegation would normally be discharged under the twin constraints of strategic direction and internal control; measurable outcomes should emerge from strategic direction, and internal control ensures that performance maintains that strategic direction.
Executive Power : Executive power in SANHS is vested in the Chairman, Vice Chairman, Honorary Secretary, Honorary Treasurer and the elected specialist activity committees (who elect their own chairmen). The Board of Trustees provides the strategic direction from which operational activity and resource budget priorities emerge. The structures through which these delegated powers are discharged are the Finance and General Purposes Committee overseeing the day-to-day performance of the Archaeology, Natural History, Local History, Historic Buildings, Publications and Library Committees. Individual statements of delegated authority and procedure are contained within policies and standing orders. The Board of Trustees remains ultimately accountable for the ends and means in using these delegated powers.
Scrutiny : The Finance and General Purposes Committee, composed of executive officers and chairmen of the specialist committees, oversees measurable outcomes from activity based budgets derived from the strategic plan in the light of the risks to SANHS in delivering these outcomes. The Committee produces a draft budget before the start of a year and then strives to maintain a balanced activity/resource plan at all times in-year through regular monitoring and forecasting end-of-year performance. This level of scrutiny of executive power is essential in providing internal control of the operational activities that support meeting the needs of SANHS beneficiaries.
However, there is an interdependent level of scrutiny that focuses on ensuring that the strategic direction provided by the Board of Trustees will take SANHS from where it is today to where it needs to be in the near future. This strategic level of scrutiny or internal control might be totally independent of those that exercise executive power and partially independent of the Board of Trustees by including representatives of Society membership, beneficiaries and community leaders.
Strategy : It is useful to think of strategy as the grand plan for moving the activities, and their outcomes, from where they are now to a defensible and achievable, future state agreed with the membership. It is developed as the best route taking opportunities and avoiding or mitigating risks to the Society along the way. Best practise suggests that strategy is developed by the Board of Trustees using specialist advice where needed and is submitted to SANHS membership for agreement at its Annual General Meeting as part of the Annual Report.
Summary : It has been argued that executive power, scrutiny and strategy are interdependent. It is useful to think of strategy as the hub of this trio of ideas from which executive power and scrutiny are spokes that radiate as delegated authority and support as internal control of that delegation. This applies at the operational level as above. At the strategic level where the Board of Trustees receives direction from General Meetings of the Membership and scrutiny from an advisory group (Advisory Council or Panel).