Subject: search for trustees

People from a wide range of organisations have spoken of the need to 'find more trustees' for their board.  But when they expand on this, what emerges is a wish for something far more demanding - that is, trustees who have not just the relevant skills for their board but also demonstrate approproiate attitudes and behaviours!

These latter are encapsulated in the Code of Governance, but there are relatively few descriptions or  examples of such behaviours available in the the public domain......

Do you agree?

If so,  what helpful and or unhelpful behavoirs by trustees have you demonstrated or experienced? And what can we can learn from your experience?

What helps to create productive board/executive relations  that enhance the work of the organisation?

At the organisation I work for we have been experiencing problems with attendance at trustee boards.   For the last couple of years out of our six trustees there have been no more than 3 in attendance.  There is a fine line I think between what we expect of our trustees and what they are actually capable of.  We have to remember that they are busy individuals with jobs and home lives of their own and may not be able to commit as much as we would like them to.   When I took over as CX I was determined to resolve some of the issues that the previous CX had experienced with our trustees and embarked upon a mission to involve them more.  Sadly this backfired badly and resulted in our trustees complaining about all sorts of things from getting too much information in their meetings packs to being consulted on too many issues.   It all came to a head when we had our IIP reassessment and one of the areas for continuous improvement was the trustees, I think this enabled us to move forward and look together at ways to improve the experience for all of us.   The end result was more devolution of responsibility to me and my line management team (you can't have it both ways - wanting a say in everything whilst not wanting to be consulted is a no brainer!)   We also introduced a secure trustees area of our website with areas such as policies, management committee agendas, papers and related documents, budgets, strategic and operational plans etc.   Trustees are emailed when new items are put up there and the feedback so far is very good.  One of our trustees also volunteered to go away and write a new recruitment pack for volunteers which we have used to succesfully recruit two new members. We are now planning a more structured recruitment process over the next few months to bring in some of the key skills we need.  

I founded a small charity that has six trustees. Attendance is high at our quarterly meetings, usually all in attendance. I feel that is because we recruited trustees that each have a unique role and unique skill to contribute. There is a clear distinction between the responsibilities of the trustees (in making strategic decisions, ensuring proper governance and direction of the charity) and the staff of the charity, to whom almost all activities are delgated.  As a consequence, our trustees do not feel overburdened.  Also, trustees come and go - we do not give them a"job for life". For example, one trustee joined us for only our first year - their expertise around charity and small company "start-ups". And then that person moved on, once we'd found our feet. Another trustee stayed with us for the 18month period we spent building our website and IT infrastructure, and then moved on.  There are some very capable volunteers out there to whom the day to day activities can be delegated - for example, a retired FD did our accounts for several years as a volunteer, so that the Treasurer on the board of trustees could focus on the strategic level, and not have to worry about day to day financial management.  This suited the volunteer who wanted to do the work but without the responsiblitty of being a trustee. So in our model, the success has been in drawing and maintaing a clear line between the board and the staff, with accountability remaining with the board, but a significant delegation of responsibility to the charity staff.  But also, each trustee is very aware of the particular skills they contribute (our charity includes people whose day job is a senior Speech and Language therapist, a physiotherapist, an IT teacher, a maths teacher, a project manager, and a team leader (who is our Chair)). These skills directly relate to the work of the charity and the trustees were selected for those skills and specifically invited.