IoD Annual Conference, Albert Hall 28th April 2010

Speaker after speaker talking about the need to upgrade skills:

Miles Templeman: skills agenda and leadership

Vince Cable: skilled workforce, education

Sir Martin Sorrel: training, skills and education

Stephen Green: skills development, UK education leadership

George Osborne: skills

Lord Mandleson: skills,technology, innovation, knowledge

No divergence in this area at least. Everybody seems to agree that we need to up-skill the workforce - and have done for some time now. Government reports, CBI reports, every report on this issues for several years has talked about the need. Then why oh why aren't we doing it?! Almost every university in the Country can offer first class, relevant, practical, cost effective, time efficient interventions in ways that are completely sensitive to business needs.

IoD Annual Conference 28th April 2010

We will be attending and exhibiting at the IoD annual conference tomorrow at the Albert Hall - see you there?

Audit Commission: Corporate Governance Inspection Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council April 2010

Scary business for any Council?!?

http://www.auditcommission.gov.uk/SiteCollectionDocuments/InspectionOutput/InspectionReports/2010/201004doncastermetropolitanboroughcouncilcorporategovernanceinspectionREP.pdf

Appendix 4 – Corporate governance inspection key lines of enquiry

Key Lines of Enquiry

1 Purpose and outcome

1.1

Is the organisation clear about its purpose and intended outcomes for citizens and users?

1.2 Is the organisation achieving its desired outcomes?

1.3

Does the organisation’s leadership ensure that taxpayers receive value for money?

2 Functions and roles

2.1

2.2

Is the organisation clear about the responsibilities of governors, officers and of partnerships?

Is the organisation’s leadership working constructively together, and with partners, to achieve their common purpose?

3 Values and behaviour

3.1

3.2

Are governors and staff putting the organisation’s values into practice and working effectively within the ethical framework?

Are individual governors and staff behaving in ways that uphold and exemplify effective governance within the organisation?

Is the organisation managing its complaints, whistleblowing and ombudsman 3.3 arrangements effectively, and is the leadership and organisation learning from

individual cases?

4 Decision making and risk management

4.1

4.2

4.3

Is the organisation rigorous and transparent about how and what decisions are taken?

Do the organisation’s leadership and management use good-quality information, advice and support to help reach decisions?

Does the organisation ensure that there is an effective risk-management system which covers partnership working?

39 Doncaster Metropolitan Borough CouncilAppendix 4 – Corporate governance inspection key lines of enquiry

5

Capacity and capability

5.1

Does the organisation make sure that governors and staff have the skills and

knowledge they need to perform well?

5.2

Does the organisation develop the capability of people with governance

responsibilities and evaluate their performance, as individuals and as groups,

including when working in partnerships?

5.3

Is the organisation governed and managed by an appropriate body of people?

6

Engagement

6.1

Does the organisation’s leadership understand formal and informal

accountability relationships?

6.2

Does the organisation take an active, effective and planned approach to

consultation, engagement and dialogue with and accountability to external

stakeholders, the public and users?

6.3

Does the organisation take an active and planned approach to responsibility

to staff?

Nice quote from the intro to the Higgs report 2002 - still true!

"Walter Bagehot famously wrote of the monarchy in 1867: “We must not let in daylight upon magic”. In the corporate boardroom, the importance of the non-executive director is recognised but their role, perhaps like that of the monarchy of old, is largely invisible and poorly understood. When corporate strategies fail or governance lapses, however, attention rightly focuses on the contribution of the non-executive director."