SEARCH and GOVERNANCE COMMITTEE
Minutes of a Meeting
9.30amTuesday 16th June 2015
Gordon Canning Room
Present: / Mr Edward Keene (Chair) (EK)Mr Mark Davison (MJD)
Mr Russell Marchant (RM)
Mr Ken Nottage (KN)
Mr Graham van der Lely (GvdL)
Mr C Whitehouse (CW)
Apologies: / Mrs Rosamund Blomfield-Smith
Mr Graham Papenfus
Minutes: / Mr Rob Lee
ACTION / ACTION
DATE
The Chair welcomed Mr C Whitehouse to his first meeting and Mr M Davison and Mr K Nottage to their first meeting as Co-opted Members.
Apologies
Apologies were received from Mrs R Blomfield-Smith and Mr G Papenfus.
Declaration of Interest – Paper S02/06/15
The Clerk advised that members’ interests would be taken as those disclosed in the Register of Members Interests. There were no declarations of members interests for agenda items.
Minutes of the Last Meeting – Paper S03/06/15
Minutes of the meeting held on the 5th March 2015 were agreed to be a true and accurate record and signed by the Chair.
Matters Arising
4.1.(4.2, 8.0) Verbal update on proposal to set up Advisory Committees.
RM advised that we already have advisory groups set up across the FE and HE curriculum areas and a report on these had previously been discussed. RM felt that an annual event maybe the best way to attract an audience. MJD felt that if this was the case there could be a different theme each year to stimulate discussion. EK believed that the objective of any such event was to get ahead of the opposition instead of following. GVDL agreed and believed that it raised the question of how we can engage with these stakeholders to raise the profile of the College. GvdL believed that we should bounce this off our industry experts already on the Board such as Mrs Holderness-Roddam and discuss with Mr R Barnett who had made the original suggestion. KN felt that if advisory boards were set up they would want RM as a member and questioned whether this would be the best use of his time and unless there was a clear focus and need he felt you would not get worthwhile outcomes. EK felt that the view was that setting up an annual event was the preferred course and this would help when reviewing our strategy.
It was agreed that we would trial an event in one of our sectors and gauge the effectiveness before rolling out to other sectors. An update will be given to the next meeting.
4.2.(5.0) Review Governor Skills and Knowledge Survey Questionnaire. Paper SG04/06/15
The Clerk advised that at the last meeting he had been requested to review the questions asked in the Skills and Knowledge Survey to ensure that they fairly represent the College split of HE and FE. The Clerk advised that he had involved Dr Hartley, our external TDAP consultant, in this review. Mr Hartley had advised that a considerable number of questions on the current questionnaire already represent both HE and FE and has suggested no changes.
It was agreed that the current questionnaire fairly represented the College split of HE and FE and would be issued without amendment at the October Board Meeting for completion.
4.3.(6.0) The HE Student Governor for 2015/16 has been elected and the FE Student Governor will be elected before the end of the academic year. The election for Staff Governor is currently taking place. All three new governors will be place for the beginning of the next academic year.
4.4.(6.0) Mrs R Cowie has accepted the position of UWE Vice Chancellors nomination but is away from UWE currently for an unspecified period.
RM will contact the Vice Chancellor of UWE for an alternate to Mrs Cowie for the period she is unavailable.
4.5.(9.0) The changes to the Standing Orders were approved by the Corporation at their meeting in March 2015.
4.6.(11.0) Verbal update on proposal to change Academic Agreement to reflect change in College Nominee to UWE Board.
The Principal advised that the Academic Agreement is updated annually in the summer and this change, which UWE support, will be proposed at this time.
4.7.(12.0) Review and agree process for Corporation Self-Assessment. Paper SG04.7/06/15
The Clerk advised that this item has been held over from the previous meeting to enable us to see the outcome of the review of the English Code of Governance and to discuss with Dr Pember at the Governors’ Strategic Planning Day. Unfortunately Dr Pember was unable to make the meeting. The Clerk advised that the new Code had been issued and referred Members to the recommendations that were relevant to this subject. The Clerk advised that we had previously agreed that we would go for external self-assessment every 3/5 years. In response to MJD the Clerk advised benchmarking against comparable colleges would be part of an external self-assessment and agreed that the new code was much more detailed that the code it replaced and we need to be careful that we do not impinge on management areas. EK advised that the implementation of the new Code was an agenda item for discussion later. The Clerk advised that the starting point for any assessment would be the new Code and how we implement and believed that we should decide on external assessment when we have implemented the new Code.
It was agreed that we should issue performance review in current format at July Board Meeting and review process in March 2016.
All Governor nominations were approved and positions confirmed. / RM
Clerk
RM
Clerk / 17/09/15
08/10/15
08/10/15
09/07/15
03/03/16
Review board membership and consider application from Mrs Barbara Buck. Paper SG05/06/15
The Clerk advised that the current membership of the Corporation is 18 governors against an agreed establishment level of 16 and a temporary level of 17 agreed at the March Board Meeting. The Clerk advised that this level would be reached with the retirement of Mrs Holderness-Roddam in July. EK advised that Mrs Buck would be retiring from the College and therefore retiring from her position as Staff Governor but had applied to stay on as an Executive Governor. EK confirmed that Mrs Buck had gone through the new governor application process and had been interviewed by GvdL and RBS and they had been very impressed. The skills and knowledge that Mrs Buck could bring to the Board were discussed particularly her experience of FE and her understanding of the culture of the College. RM agreed that she had the experience of actually standing in front of a class. EK believed that we should not be restricted by numbers but concentrate on having the right skill set amongst governors. MJD agreed that we should retain Mrs Buck’s enthusiasm and dedication and take advantage of her recent FE experience.
It is recommended that Mrs Buck be offered a three year term as a governor from September 2015.
It is recommended that the establishment level of the Board should be increased to 18 to include 13 Governors, who are neither staff, students of the College or nominated by UWE. / Clerk
Clerk / 09/07/15
09/07/15
Review the frequency of Finance and General Purposes Committee Meetings. Paper SG06/06/15
EK advised that the decision had been made two years ago to increase the number of Board Meetings from four to six and decrease the number of finance meetings from five to three to give governors more input into decisions being made. EK believed that we should review this decision firstly because there was a need to reduce the time spent at Board Meetings. The Corporation now has a far greater emphasis on teaching, learning and assessment and this together with less finance meetings has led to corporation meetings over running. Secondly this has led to later agenda items not sometimes getting the discussion time they deserve and these could often have been discussed in more detail at a finance meeting. EK proposed that we should look at a fourth finance meeting to be held between the January and June meetings and probably before the May Board Meeting to enable fuller discussion on projects that may be required for the next academic year and that would therefore affect the budget. In response to KN the Clerk confirmed that we could delegate power and were able to make decisions electronically but EK felt that we needed more detailed discussions on some subjects.
It is recommended that we increase the minimum number of Finance and General Purpose Committee Meetings from three to four with the timing of this meeting agreed with the Principal. / RM/ Clerk / 09/07/15
Approve the request of Students Union that the Education Officer of the Students Union becomes a member of the Quality, Enhancement and Standards Committee (QuESt). Paper SG07/06/15
The Clerk advised that this proposal had been made at the last meeting of QuESt by the Chair of the Student Union. Currently a HE and FE student are members of QuESt. Discussion took place on the balance of FE and HE students on the committee. In response to RM the Clerk confirmed that it was not proposed that the Education Officer should attend Corporation Meetings.
It is recommended that the Education Officer should become a member of QuESt. / Clerk / 09/07/15
Discuss and agree amendments to Link Governor curriculum areas. Paper SG08/06/15
The Clerk advised that the current process requires link governors to be rotated every 2 years to different curriculum areas and this should be actioned for the beginning of the next academic year. The Clerk referred members to the proposed changes and advised that the two new governors, Ms Barker and Mr Papenfus should remain where they are as they had only just taken on these areas. Also we have less governors and HE have requested three areas instead of two it is proposed that health and safety be joined with safeguarding and this should remain with Mr Crawford. The Clerk advised that it is also proposed that rotation should occur annually. CW advised that it was his proposal that governors should move annually and has suggested this as during a four year term currently governors would only move twice where if this was annually this would give a much broader picture of the College.
The change to curriculum areas is agreed and rotation will take place on an annual basis. / Clerk / 09/07/15
Propose action resulting from the issue of the new Code of Good Governance for English Colleges. Copy of Code included. Paper SG09/06/15
Discussion took place on the best way to introduce these changes. In response to MJD the Clerk advised that it was not necessary to implement the Code on block but where we did not implement particular sections then reasons for this needed to be minuted as we have agreed on governor terms of office. EK believed that we should tick off what can be done easily and bring back to next meeting.
The implementation of the Code was delegated to the Chair, Principal and Clerk and a report will be made to the next meeting. / EK/RM/
clerk / 17/09/15
Any Other Business
10.1.UWE Relationship.
RM confirmed that discussions are continuing with the Vice Chancellor who has offered to attend a future board meeting to discuss and RM was advising him of available dates.
Dates of future meetings at 9.30am
Thursday 17th September 2015
Thursday 3rd March 2016
Thursday 23rd June 2016
Thursday 15th September 2016
Mr Edward Keene 17th September 2015
Chair Search and Governance Committee
Minutes of the Search and Governance Committee Page 1 of 5