Board Meeting Summary – June 2017
Chair’s Report
The Chair commented on the meeting he had held with Nick Bitel, Sport England Chair, and the note he had circulated. He reported that overall it had been a positive meeting in which Nick had acknowledged the work undertaken by the Alliance on behalf of its members and being a ‘go to’ organisation.
The recruitment of the new Directors was discussed. The process had been managed internally but, as agreed by the Board, a consultant had been engaged to particularly reach out to a wider pool of candidates to help the Alliance meet its gender and diversity aspirations. One candidate proposed by the consultant was appointed but the Chair felt this reflected well on the quality of the other candidates who applied through other routes.
The Chair thanked the Board for responding to the email [Board decision without a meeting] and agreeing with the Nomination Committee’s recommendations of the three candidates. He felt that Caroline White, Lizzie Noel and Monica Shafaq all had different skills and experience to offer to the Alliance and along with Anne Usher, who was elected by the membership earlier in the year, would all be great additions to the Board.
The next major event would be the AGM on 11 July. In his annual report he would concentrate on the new strategy as well as reflecting on some of the work of the past year with the membership.
CEO’s Report
The Chief Executive reported to the Board under the Alliance’s four new objectives.
Referring specifically to the Sports Summit, the Chief Executive stated that immediate feedback received had been good with reference to some of the speakers, venue and format. Although not as many tickets had been sold as hoped the event was expected to break even. The flagship events would be reviewed to see whether there was still value to them being held; a formal review of the Sports Summit would be reported in the Operational Plan Quarter one report at the July meeting.
Membership
The Board discussed the results of the membership survey and was advised that 89 member organisations completed the questionnaire this year (29%) compared to 114 (35%) last year. Customer surveys typically look for at least a 15% response rate so the Alliance retained a high response rate although the Alliance would like more. The following points were highlighted:
A membership review would be undertaken and the results and recommendations would be bought back to the Board for consideration in due course.
The Board also received an update from the Major Spectator Sports Division held on 3 May 2017. Ben Calveley and Jane Nickerson had been re-elected as Chair and Deputy Chair, respectively, for a further two-year period 2017-2019.
Governance
The Board received a paper which outlined the Alliance’s progress towards demonstrating compliance at Tier 3 level of the UK Sports Governance Code. The Chief Executive was pleased to report that Sport England had confirmed that they were content with the Alliance’s action plan although an official signed document had not yet been received as yet. A draft Code of Conduct and Board Recruitment statement were approved by the Board at the meeting.
The Chief Executive drew attention to the new Principles of Good Governance which had replaced the Voluntary Code of Good Governance. The Alliance had been a signatory of the Code and the Board agreed to continue to be a signatory moving forward with The Principles.
As a matter of routine, the Board considered in June those roles and responsibilities to be allocated to Board members for the year ahead and which would take effect from the conclusion of the AGM in July. These were confirmed as follows:
· Director with responsibility for Finance [including Chair of Finance and Audit Committee]
Adrian Ruth
· Director with responsibility for issues of remuneration and staffing [including Chair of Remuneration and Staffing Committee]
Jane Bateman
· Director with responsibility for Commercial activities [including Chair of Commercial Committee and member on the Finance and Audit Committee]
Lee Mason
· Two Directors of the S+RA Ventures Statutory Board
Lee Mason and Adrian Ruth
· Director to lead on Governance
Tim Jones
· Nominations Committee
Chairman – Andrew Moss; Board representative - Tim Jones
The Board received and noted the current list of external representation at meetings and agreed to surrender its position on the Greenham and Crookham Commons Commission as it was felt that engagement at such a local level was no longer appropriate.
Financial Report
The Board considered a paper which outlined ideas to be included in the proposal to Sport England for a four-year funding plan which Nick Bitel had confirmed to the Chair that he would consider. This would cover the period of the Alliance’s new strategy. At the moment, Sport England had proposed a two-year funding offer but had not issued the confirmation letter, at the Alliance’s request.
The Chair agreed that the Board would discuss the final paper to be presented to Sport England at the July meeting.
The Statutory Accounts for both the Alliance and Ventures for the year ended 31 March 2017 were approved and signed by the Chair and Chief Executive/Director as was the usual letter of representation to the Auditors.
Date of Next Meeting
The date of the next scheduled meeting was Tuesday 11 July at 2.00 pm at SOAS, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG
Departing Board Members
On behalf of the Board, the Chair stated his thanks for the hard work of both Nick Bunting (nine years Board service) and Mike Power (six years’ service) and thanked them both for the support they had provided to him since his appointment.
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