Governance

Improving your organisation’s capacity and accountability

Governance can be defined as an organisation’s approach to ensuring the effectiveness of its overall direction, supervision and accountability. The topic of Governance has a very broad span; Greengage Associates has expertise within the following particular areas:

• Risk Management
• Investment Governance Guidance
• Project Delivery

Risk Management

Risk management is about using your internal controls to help get your delivery right first time and taking appropriate precautionary steps against probable adverse circumstances. Risk management is thus more than a compliance issue.

Greengage Associates - utilising experience of establishing and operating 2-tier (major and routine) risk management systems - can facilitate or review:

• The identification of relevant risks.
• The categorisation of each risk.
• The selection of required actions and risk mitigation steps.
• The operation of the update process – especially at Board level.

The key word is ‘facilitate’ - as opposed to ‘undertake’. The people in your organisation have the required in-depth knowledge; Greengage Associates will encourage a sense of ownership to enable them to take the risk process forward.

Investment Governance Guidance

Greengage Associates - applying several years experience of explaining investment issues to trustees and holding investment managers to account - offers the following services:

- An investment governance health check:

• Are your trustees receiving proper advice on your charity’s investments? They have a specific duty of care to obtain and consider proper advice from a suitably qualified adviser.
• Is the investment strategy appropriate to your charity’s resources and operations? Having a current strategy indicates that your trustees are applying their other specific duties of care: suitability and diversification.
• Do your trustees and staff understand the advice offered – and appropriately manage the relationship with your investment manager?

- Support to your trustees and staff on investment issues: implementation of healthcheck recommendations, explanation of investment jargon, comment on your investment manager’s reports/proposals, and interface with your investment manager if necessary.

Project Delivery

Governance issues often hinge on the delivery of specific changes - major or minor. Greengage Associates delivers workable solutions for governance projects. Examples of successful delivery include:

• Modernisation of a charity’s governance structure.
• Revision of a charity’s performance management structure to meet SORP 2005 reporting requirements.
• Improvement of board meeting preparation – showing how to add value by relevant comment on necessary papers distributed prior to the meeting.
• Enabling the application of previously-dormant trust funds.

There is usually a pragmatic answer - within given constraints - to most governance issues. Greengage Associates will work with your organisation to find - and then help to deliver (often the more difficult part) - an appropriate solution.

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