The Board is the epicentre of any system of corporate governance, by which the organisation is directed, controlled and held accountable to achieve its purpose and create value over the long-term. It must balance the needs and interests of different stakeholders, whilst at the same time providing the entrepreneurial drive and leadership to succeed.

An effective Board should aim to be a learning organisation. They should continually review their collective performance as well as the performance of individual members. All the major corporate governance codes for the private and third sector recognise this and recommend that a regular external review of board performance is carried out.

An excellent way to approach this is through a structured external board effectiveness review, such as BoardCHECK360™ from Elderflower Legal. The review examines various aspects of the Board’s operating procedures, composition and succession planning, induction, meetings management, internal controls and risk management, delegation. We highlight good practice, as well as areas for improvement. An independent board effectiveness review is powerful evidence for funders, regulators and your wider stakeholders that you take corporate governance issues very seriously and are committed to success.

Five easy steps

Step 1 – we meet with your Chair and set the parameters and objectives for the review. You provide us with key documents including your constitution, last two sets of Board minutes, report and accounts.

Step 2 – we use a structured electronic survey method to take soundings from your Board members and senior executives. Typically this requires 45 minutes of their time.

Step 3 – we conduct telephone interviews with a representative sample of board members and senior managers to explore key themes

Step 4 – we analyse the results and trends and identify areas of good practice, as well as areas requiring improvement

Step 5 – we present the findings to your Board meeting and leave you with a concise action plan that you can put to work straightaway.

The process usually takes between 6-8 weeks from start to finish.

The responses we elicit from our surveys and interviews are anonymised, so that only broad themes and issues are identified, without naming individuals. In that way we ensure candid feedback and you get the most from the exercise. The findings are confidential to your organisation and you can choose whether to publicise them externally – which many enlightened organisations increasingly choose to do in some form, in the interests of transparency.