On 09/05/2014, Michael Maggs Michael@maggs.name wrote:
I’ll just pick up one point here. Giving committees fully delegated powers to take executive action under the direct supervision of the board would not be consistent with any normal principle of charitable good governance. Not only would it mean that trustees would once again become operational programme line-managers, which is explicitly what we do not want to happen, but it would remove whole swathes of the charity’s work from supervision by the CE. No charity could work effectively within a structure that is partly managed by the board and partly by the CE.
Odd, nobody has suggested delegating the executive's work to committees. Delegating some current activities of the board (not the executive!) who may have limited time to discuss and review detail, to committees who can then report back with recommendations or make choices between proposed options would be perfectly in line with best practices for charity governance.
Examples would be:
1. a grants committee with authority to decline proposals against pre-agreed criteria and recommend suitable ones to the board for funding.
2. a friends committee that might assess and monitor communications or events intended to benefit friends of the charity, and have delegated powers to make choices between proposed options for using funds already approved by the board.
3. a performance review committee that would assess reports of the performance of the charity and make strategic recommendations back to the board and may have some delegated authority to provide (uncensored) feedback as part of the CE's annual performance review.
Fae