These pages are for those involved in the governance of community and voluntary organisations who want an opportunity to tell their story. Whether on the committee, a volunteer or paid staff, this is the place to tell your own story or comment on other stories. You can send your story in any format - see the ‘tips’ page for more details. We look to hearing from you!
Ed. Governance Stories
As money runs out, tough decisions have to be made by the committee.
A group of ex drug users came to us for support. These users met regularly under the auspices of the local social services which lent them a meeting space and a support worker, but now they wanted support to become independent, though it seemed to be the social services worker who was most keen on this idea. After an initial assessment and discussions, it was decided that an away day would be useful to do some team building and clarify exactly what it was they wanted to do. The away day went well and the group then identified a number of individual skills courses that would be helpful, such as chairing and minuting. This approach suited us and them. It suited us because it fitted with existing training provision and costs were very low, and it seemed to suit them because they were all at a point in their lives where they were receptive to new things and needed to learn some new skills.
On the face of it, it all went well. But the move to become independent didn’t really materialise despite the presence of the social services person who was a vital link to the members of the group. Part of the problem is that the social services person seemed central to keeping it all going and there was also a tendency for members of the group to break away as they gained skills and control of their lives. Though paradoxically, some of the group who got most involved in trying to set up an independent organisation found it quite stressful and there was a danger that they would take a step backwards in their personal lives due to the stresses they were being put under. Over time new members would join the group and things would go back to square one and start all over again. Maybe it is the journey – and not the destination, that was most important here. They haven’t arrived yet.
Some committees have too many ideas. To get things done you may have to decide to concentrate on just a few.
Our organisation started when a number of prominent people in the local community came together because they thought that the council was ignoring our part of the area and concentrating on other parts instead. The loose idea was to form a ‘civic forum’ type of organisation, bringing the local people together and feeding their views into the local authority. There were a number of positive features of this initiative – it was definitely locally inspired and not some creature of the local authority (in fact they didn’t really like it at all – this all started in pre LSP times and the local authority had no need for the forum).
The founding group had things most groups of founders would die for – well connected, talented, successful and influential individuals with contacts everywhere (even the local MP got involved). There was no shortage of talented people in the founding group – though paradoxically this became one of the problems. There were all sorts of fundamental decisions to be made early on: whether to be a charity or not (and if not how to limit liability), how to connect with the community and avoid this becoming a ‘movers and shakers’ club, how to connect with all sections of society – was that possible without a budget? Of course, as many have found before – these questions are often interconnected and we soon found that having a room full of powerful, articulate individuals with strong opinions was not always a recipe for reaching a successful conclusion.
It never occurred to anyone that a lack of experience in building grass roots consultation structures was an issue. After a few meetings where it seemed that there was a danger that the fantastic energy was in danger of being dissipated and lost, it was floated that we should have a facilitated session to help reach a shared conclusion. Of course there were those who were convinced that an external person wasn’t needed and it could be facilitated from within the group. Luckily, through the network of contacts the group were able to access some funds, and most importantly get advice on a good facilitator.
Three pretty unlikely things happened – everyone had to be convinced that spending money on a professional facilitator was worth it, the money had to be secured and finally everyone convinced that they really did need to spend a whole day on this. As luck would have it the facilitator couldn’t have been better, the entire group turned up, and everyone went away with a much clearer, shared idea of what was wanted and what needed to be done to achieve it.
Going through this process also had the benefit of getting everyone to look beyond their own experience and realise that there was a whole world of knowledge and experience out there to do with connecting with communities that could be usefully drawn on. The governance structures have evolved to be quite complex and the issue of charity registration has never been resolved – so like many organisations it is a work in progress.
What happens when you’re funding application depends on having premises and you are threatened with losing your premises?
A collective of artists were happy to govern themselves, however, after moving to new studio space it soon became evident that without business rates relief the collective would soon fold. The problem was that business rates relief is only mandatory for registered charities. The collective had benefited from a period of support from their Local Authority, which had in the past exercised its discretion to waive business rates, but following a change of leadership was now only giving business rate relief where it was required to by law.
The only option that seemed viable was to reconstitute as a registered charity, but as the beneficiary rules at the time were more restrictive, it was decided to recruit a board of outsiders to run the newly formed trust.
This arrangement soon created a conflict over who ‘owned’ the organisation. There seemed to be two options - either get some agreement between the collective and the trustees so that the conflict was minimised - or change the structure to one that could be charitable and would enable the artists to govern the organisation. At the time the most likely option seemed to be a charitable Industrial and Provident Society (IPS) - though there would still have been some difficulties an ISP would not be a registered charity (regulated by the Charity Commission) so there would still be amply scope for disagreements with the local authority. The other problem with this approach was cost as conversion to an ISP at the time was costly. Another approach was to amend the Trust deed to allow some artists onto the committee, but as we found out it is much harder to amend a constitution in this way. It would have been much easier to have specified this in the first place - but once the constitution is registered then changes like this are hard to make.
This situation occurred a few years ago. Since then both the legislation and the Charity Commission have moved on considerably. Now the Commission would see the artists, not as members of a collective, but as ‘users’ and as such would almost certainly be happy with at least a third of the committee being made up of artist ‘users’. With such a strong voice on the committee it seems likely that such major disagreements between the artists and the rest of the board could be largely avoided. The Charity Commission will register organisations where the board is made up of all users - but the negotiations may be protracted and they may require additional safeguards in the constitution.