Unit 4: Good governance and organisational oversight
4.7 Being a critical friend
The Board must ensure that there is a clear oversight over the decisions of management with regards to safeguarding.
To do so, the Board needs to be equipped with sufficient information to ask appropriate yet challenging questions that provide the crucial checks and balances of clear oversight and good governance.
Together with senior management, the Chair of the Board should ensure that:
- There is a safeguarding Board member designated to lead the safeguarding complaint handling committee.
- Safeguarding is a standard agenda item at Board meetings.
- There is a confidential report from the safeguarding committee to the Board.
- A safeguarding register is being kept by management with all concerns being logged.
- The Board includes safeguarding in its organisational management risk framework.
- The Board checks and approves a budget for any safeguarding support that may be required, which may include staff salaries, training, costs of investigations, etc.
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Activity 4.4 Donor requirements Many of the points above may be donor requirements, particularly for those who have aligned safeguarding language in funding agreements adopted by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Identify some of the safeguarding requirements from your organisational donors, which the Board must take notice of, and note them in your learning journal – is the Board aware and of the requirements and actively ensuring they are met? |
