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  • 01 Understanding governance
    • 1.0 Understanding governance
    • 1.1 The important parts of governance
    • 1.2 Indigenous governance
    • 1.3 Governance in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations
    • 1.4 Case studies
  • 02 Culture and governance
    • 2.0 Culture and governance
    • 2.1 Indigenous governance and culture
    • 2.2 Two-way governance
    • 2.3 Case studies
  • 03 Getting started
    • 3.0 Getting started on building your governance
    • 3.1 Assessing your governance
    • 3.2 Mapping your community for governance
    • 3.3 Case studies
  • 04 Leadership
    • 4.0 Leadership for governance
    • 4.1 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership
    • 4.2 The challenges of leadership
    • 4.3 Evaluating your leadership
    • 4.4 Youth leadership and succession planning
    • 4.5 Building leadership capacity to govern
    • 4.6 Case studies
  • 05 Governing the organisation
    • 5.0 Governing the organisation
    • 5.1 Roles, responsibilities and rights of a governing body
    • 5.2 Accountability: what is it, to whom and how?
    • 5.3 Decision making by the governing body
    • 5.4 Governing finances and resources
    • 5.5 Communicating
    • 5.6 Future planning
    • 5.7 Building capacity and confidence for governing bodies
    • 5.8 Case studies
  • 06 Rules and policies
    • 6.0 Governance rules and policies
    • 6.1 What are governance rules?
    • 6.2 Governance rules and culture
    • 6.3 Running effective meetings
    • 6.4 Policies for organisations
    • 6.5 Case studies
  • 07 Management and staff
    • 7.0 Management and staff
    • 7.1 Managing the organisation
    • 7.2 The governing body and management
    • 7.3 Managing staff
    • 7.4 Staff development and training
    • 7.5 Case studies
  • 08 Disputes and complaints
    • 8.0 Dealing with disputes and complaints
    • 8.1 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous approaches
    • 8.2 Core principles and skills for dispute and complaint resolution
    • 8.3 Disputes and complaints about governance
    • 8.4 Your members: dealing with disputes and complaints
    • 8.5 Organisations: dealing with internal disputes and complaints
    • 8.6 Practical guidelines and approaches
    • 8.7 Case studies
  • 09 Nation building and development
    • 9.0 Governance for nation rebuilding and development
    • 9.1 What is nation rebuilding?
    • 9.2 Governance for nation rebuilding
    • 9.3 Governance for sustained development
    • 9.4 Networked governance
    • 9.5 Kick-starting the process of nation rebuilding
    • 9.6 Case studies
  • Glossary
  • Useful links
  • Acknowledgements

5.7 Building capacity and confidence for governing bodies

 05 Governing the organisation
WayneQuilliamPhotographyWestNSW97

Jeanette Barker and Trish Frail, members of the Murdi Paaki Regional Assembly from Brewarrina, NSW. Image, Wayne Quilliam.

Governance capacity lies at the heart of maximising self-determination. Don’t let your governance evaluations and planning work go to waste.

We all know about hundreds of plans and reports that sit in filing cabinets and never get used again.

Unfortunately, many people think that once you develop an action plan for building your governance, it will simply happen. It won’t.

Just like a footy team, everyone in the organisation—the governing body, management and staff—needs to develop and practise their new governance skills and procedures.

The same applies for nations and communities. If you want to change your governance arrangements you have to be able to walk the talk.

5.7.1 Signs of poor governing capacity

It’s easy to tell when there is low governance capacity in an organisation. You will know you have problems if:

  • the governing body is confused about its roles and responsibilities, does not have the skills and confidence it needs, is not making policies or enforcing its own rules, and has a high turnover
  • the governing body is not supervising or evaluating the work performance of their top manager.
  • the governing body’s meetings are poorly attended, dominated by the bullying behaviour of a few and overwhelmed by mountains of complex paperwork, resulting in poor decisions
  • the top manager takes on more decision-making powers than he or she should, and individual people on the governing body routinely interfere with the administrative work of managers and staff members
  • staff morale and work performance are low.

It is critical for the members of a governing body and the top manager to understand their own distinct roles within the organisation, and the responsibilities and limits to their powers.

You will find more information on this important division of roles and responsibilities in Topic 7.

5.7.2 Developing your governing body

Because members of a governing body often have different levels of skills, experience and confidence, it is important they have regular access to a variety of governance training, updates, orientations and inductions.

Governing bodies need to develop governance capacity regarding:

The cycle of sustained governance development

  • their given roles, responsibilities and accountabilities
  • the goals and objectives of the organisation
  • how to develop and enforce their own policies
  • other organisational policies they will be expected to implement
  • how to run effective meetings and make informed decisions
  • their relationship to members and the community
  • the cultural values, role and commitments of the organisation
  • their relationship to the CEO, staff, funders and other stakeholders
  • legal and ethical standards
  • the financial structure of the organisation
  • their role in reviewing reports from management and auditors.

Today, governance training can take various forms. It is best to look for training that suits your needs and local situation.

But remember that one-off training and inductions are not sufficient to build resilient governance. Confidence and capacity build up over time and it takes practice and experience to tackle the real-life problems that governing bodies deal with.

The most successful approach to building governance capacity is one that:

  • becomes part of the daily routine of your organisation
  • builds on your existing strengths and knowledge
  • relates to specific conditions and local problems that need to be solved
  • is carried out on the job so that understanding is embedded in practice
  • is based around identifying culturally legitimate solutions for governance problems
  • includes role-play and problem-solving scenarios that enable solutions to be practised and refined.

This means, for example, that inductions for incoming members of a governing body are best done face to face and then repeated at regular intervals. Also, each member should be provided with a copy of the organisation’s strategic documents.

To be effective and sustainable, governance capacity should be developed as a continuous cycle.

Training to empower VACCA’s governing body

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzbS-jNGZvQ&feature=player_embedded

The Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency (VACCA) was a Finalist in Category A of the 2014 Indigenous Governance Awards. Here CEO Muriel Bamblett speaks about the importance of training to empower directors to undertake their role effectively.

Tips: Policies for promoting effective governance in governing bodies

  • Develop board member role descriptions that are distinct from management and staff responsibilities.
  • Develop values statements for the board, management and staff regarding their roles and responsibilities.
  • Hold some private board meetings without staff in attendance, to allow for more open discussion.
  • Make policies that enable your governing body to draw on independent external expertise and advice.
  • Have the chair or an executive committee set agendas for board meetings so meetings are not only focused on management and its priorities.
  • Provide short, accessible background information for any matters you intend to bring up in a board meeting.
  • Define the skill sets board members need to have. Actively look for people to fill skill gaps and give existing board members the opportunity for professional development.
  • Focus on orientation and training for new board members.
  • Develop procedures for routine evaluation (and self-evaluation) of board performance.
  • Use mentors or management support to achieve more effective chairmanship, if needed.

5.7.3 Produce a governance reference manual

More and more organisations are creating their own governance reference manuals to serve as an information kit that can be used by their governing body and members, and placed on their website.

Template: List of contents for a governance reference manual

DOCXView/download

This list of contents will give you an idea of the kinds of information you could include in a governance reference or induction manual for your leaders. Your community and nation will also be better informed about how you do things if they have access to it.

Successful organisations are those that allocate resources to providing their own regular, in-house governance capacity development—not just to the governing body, but to all managers and staff as well.

The commitment to effective governance has to run throughout the whole organisation.

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Case Studies

NPY Women’s Council – strong culture, strong women, strong communities

  NPY Women’s Council (NPYWC) was set up in 1980 and incorporated in 1994.  The organisation was founded in response to the concerns of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women throughout the APY lands.   The women were concerned about the …

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Murdi Paaki Regional Assembly

Self-determination and community control The Murdi Paaki Regional Assembly (MPRA) is comprised of the Chairs or representatives of 16 Aboriginal Community Working Parties (CWP’s) across the Murdi Paaki Region of NSW. MPRA see self-determination as the key success to their …

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NPY Women’s Council: Building your cultural guiding principles into your rulebook

The NPY Women’s Council became incorporated under new legislation in 2008. The council undertook a significant period of consultation with its members—spread across a large geographic region—in the lead-up to lodging its new rulebook (formally known as the constitution) with …

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Social Justice Commissioner launches 2014 Social Justice and Native Title Report

Mr Mick Gooda is the current Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. The Commissioner has a unique role at the Australian Human Rights Commission, responsible for advocating for the recognition of the rights of Indigenous Australians. As part …

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Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators 2014 Report

The Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage report: Key Indicators 2014 (OID Report) was released by the Productivity Commission in November 2014. The OID Report measures the wellbeing of Australia’s Indigenous peoples. The report provides information about outcomes across a range of strategic …

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The Australian Indigenous Governance Institute

The Australian Indigenous Governance Institute is a unique Indigenous led national centre of governance knowledge and excellence. We know that practically effective and culturally legitimate governance is the staple building block for delivering real change.

We assist Indigenous Australians in their diverse efforts to determine and strengthen their own sustainable systems of self-governance by identifying world-class governance practice, informing effective policy, providing accessible research, disseminating stories that celebrate outstanding success and solutions, and delivering professional education and training opportunities.

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