Board ready in practice

Who It's For

New and aspiring board members, trustees and non-executive directors across public service, housing, health and the voluntary sector

Overview

Taking a board seat means owning the strategy, the numbers and the standards together. From the Immerse Ready for the boardroom, this half day begins with McNulty and Pettigrew's spectrum from ratify to co-create, then risk and assurance, where the Carillion collapse shows the gap between rigorous language and rigorous practice. It turns to reading the accounts of companies, charities, councils, housing associations and NHS bodies, with ratios as questions rather than answers. Audit follows, with lessons from Slough and Croydon. The course ends with codes and regulators, the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, Porter versus Magill and the Greensill Capital lobbying case.

Aims

The ambition is to give board members the confidence to question strategy, numbers and standards alike: reading an annual report with purpose, treating ratios as prompts for enquiry, challenging audit findings constructively and handling their own interests properly so their voice in the boardroom counts.

In summary, you will be able to:

1. 1Assess where your board sits on the spectrum from ratifying to co-creating strategy, and what that means for your role.
2. 2Use ratios as questions to read an annual report with purpose, whether for a company, charity, council, housing association or NHS body.
3. 3Identify and handle a conflict of interest properly, applying the Porter versus Magill test and lessons from Greensill Capital.

What you'll develop

Across this Explore, you will develop the ability to:

1. 1Explain the board's four strategic roles and place your own board honestly on the spectrum from ratify to co-create.
2. 2Explain the board's role in setting the risk tone and testing that it holds, as distinct from management's job of managing risk.
3. 3Compare the rulebooks and main statements used by companies, charities, councils, housing associations and NHS bodies, and translate between them.
4. 4Explain the four families of ratios and what the current ratio, days cash on hand, gearing, interest cover, reserves cover and operating margin each reveal.
5. 5Describe the structure of the Global Internal Audit Standards and the role they give the board or audit committee in governing internal audit.
6. 6Explain the core functions of an audit committee and why its independence from management is its greatest asset.
7. 7Distinguish a code of conduct, which sets minimum standards, from a behavioural framework, which describes what good looks like.
8. 8Distinguish actual, potential and perceived conflicts of interest and apply the fair-minded and informed observer test.