Karen Stace: Good morning everyone. Good afternoon, everybody. Great to see you all kind of completing our poll, we will share the results of that in a minute. But we might actually get started.
Karen Stace: Before we do, my name is Karen Stace and I'm the State Manager here for NDS in New South Wales and I'd really like to welcome you to our Governing for Rights
Karen Stace: And Quality webinar today. Before we get started, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land that we're all meeting on today across Australia and it's been fantastic to see where you're all joining us from
Karen Stace: And I'd like to acknowledge their continuing connection to land waters and culture pay my respects to elder's past present and emerging and extend my respects to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander colleagues that we have joining us today.
Karen Stace: So from our poll which I'm just going to share the results of now.
Karen Stace: From our poll, I can see that we've got people joining us from all over the place, which is fantastic but I can also see that we've got a really good mix between board members, directors, owners
Karen Stace: Or CEOs, senior executives who are reporting to the board and a few other people who have senior executive roles joining us today. So we're pretty much even between board members and CEOs, which is fantastic.
Karen Stace: So what I would like to do, is I'm
Karen Stace: On Your Slide. Sorry, I should start, I'm going to move to some other webinar instructions. So on your screen now you will see some webinar instructions. We have I think become really
Karen Stace: familiar with the webinar environment at the moment and the virtual environment and just want to let you know that we do all have you on mute at this point in time.
Karen Stace: Please use the Q and A section for questions and answers. And we are really keen to make this interactive and our presenters whilst they've said that you can't ask them anything. They're certainly happy to tackle any
Karen Stace: tricky questions that you might have.
Karen Stace: We have got live captioning available today. So if you do need that. Please use the CC button on the bottom of your screen.
Karen Stace: And also, just to let you know that a captioned recording of this webinar, along with the presentations will be available on the NDS website in the next week or so.
Karen Stace: So I guess before I introduce our fantastic presenters. I really wanted to set the scene a little bit and
Karen Stace: really engage with why it is so important for boards directors owners (I'm probably going to use the term boards and governing bodies, a little bit
Karen Stace: Interchangeably I think to capture anybody that has that that sort of role in an organization.
Karen Stace: And CEOs and other senior executives to really engage with this topic. So it's a little bit about, you know, why this webinar and why now.
Karen Stace: So, we have seen that there is absolutely an increasing
Karen Stace: Expectation of a whole range of inquiries and regulators and
Karen Stace: They have funders included and funders as well and community have a really clear expectation about the standard of support and services that we should be expecting for people with disability.
Karen Stace: And we've seen the result of the advent we've seen the advent of the Disability Royal Commission I'm joining a number of number of other royal commissions that you can see on your slide now, including
Karen Stace: The Commission into institutional child sexual abuse, the Age Care Royal Commission and the banking and financial services Commission are some regular some very recent Commission's that we've seen come along.
Karen Stace: And increasingly, you know, we are seeing other regulators, such as work safe become very much more involved in the role of considering organizations and persons responsible
Karen Stace: And their duties under work health and safety legislation.
Karen Stace: We've seen that they extend, you know, beyond providing a safe work environment for staff and that's extending to the safety for people who are with disability who are using our services.
Karen Stace: And there's been some news reports recently that Worksafe or Safe Work, South Australia investigating and the provider and maybe the board
Karen Stace: of the organization that were involved in the tragic circumstances that surrounded the death of Anne Marie Smith in South Australia. And they've also been examples in the UK, where regulators explicitly reviewed the role of Board and service founders.
Karen Stace: Moving on, you know, we have seen these expectations expressed very clearly in findings and comments from the Financial Services world commissioning aged care or Commission.
Karen Stace: So if we have a look at the slide with them the quote from the Financial Services Royal Commission.
Karen Stace: In their final report Commissioner Haine has noted that the industry must recognize that the primary responsibility for misconduct in the financial services industry.
Karen Stace: lies with the entities concerned and does that manage and control them and explicitly their Boards and senior management. He also cautioned
Karen Stace: Organizations to ignore recommendations coming out of that Commission related to governance at their peril.
Karen Stace: If we move to the Aged Care Royal Commission, they've been equally pointed in their views that some providers of aged care have appeared before
Karen Stace: The Royal Commission to be defensive and occasionally belligerent in the ignorance of what is happening in the facilities.
Karen Stace: But which they are responsible on many occasions when case studies presented in hearings providers were reluctant to take responsibility for work here on their watch
Karen Stace: Some providers has shown an unwillingness to accept that they could have and should have done better. If we move overseas,
Karen Stace: And it's clear that regulators are increasingly looking at the role of boards and governance and service quality and safeguarding
Karen Stace: So from the Charity Commission of England and Wales: "Protecting people and safeguarding responsibilities should be a governance priorities for all charities.
Karen Stace: As part of fulfilling their director duties directors must take reasonable steps to protect people who come into contact with their charity from harm.
Karen Stace: Protecting people from harm is not an overhead to be minimized. It is a fundamental and integral part of operating as a charity for the public benefit.
Karen Stace: So whilst we are in the early days of the disability Royal Commission. I think it is worth noting that their remit is extensive and if we compare them
Karen Stace: To the (can we move onto the next slide. Thank you). If we compare them to the Financial services and Age Care Commission's, the Disability Royal Commission
Karen Stace: Is going to go for longer. It has a much greater budget of almost five times that, almost five times that of the other Commissions, the Royal, the Aged Care Commission and it has more
Karen Stace: And it has more Commission more Commissioners to explore the issues relating to violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation against people with disability.
Karen Stace: As the breadth and depth of the review of the sector is likely to be incredibly comprehensive
Karen Stace: And indeed we've already seen questions arise out of the Disability Royal Commission, particularly the hearing into group homes around best practice and evidence based service provision be asked of boards and their governing bodies.
Karen Stace: So, it is clear that the decisions of the board can impact the quality and safety of their services.
Karen Stace: Decisions about other aspects of corporate governance can have a direct effect on the safety and quality of care.
Karen Stace: And conversely decisions about clinical care or service practice care can have a direct effect on other aspects of corporate governance, such as financial performance and risk management.
Karen Stace: COVID-19 has also spotlighted the role of governing bodies even more I think, in terms of managing health and safety risks for their staff and the people that use their services.
Karen Stace: We've seen both the Age Care Commission and also the Disability Royal Commission and examine the responses of their, their respective sectors in relation to COVID-19 and other emergencies.
Karen Stace: For boards and governing bodies I think it's important to, it has been important (and COVID has really highlighted these) to consider the impact that some of the changes in operations
Karen Stace: that have been brought about by COVID have had on some of the mechanisms that would normally support organization manage risks and uphold rights. So these are included things such as a more inward service provision.
Karen Stace: Less contact with community, supports being provided by only one or a small group of staff, more remote supervision of staff, imposition
Karen Stace: of restrictions in terms of activities in business, even where this has been
Karen Stace: Directed by public health units has certainly changed, I think, the way that organizations have operated and have reduced maybe some of the mechanisms that we would normally be relying on around quality and safeguarding
Karen Stace: So to explore all these issues in more detail, I would like to head over to our presenters today and we are delighted to be joined by
Karen Stace: Alan Hough. So Alan completed his PhD in nonprofit governance and was a senior research fellow in the area
Karen Stace: of, at Queensland University of Technology and Alan will be known to some attendees because of his former roles with NDS working on NDIS readiness and
Karen Stace: And presenting at NDS's conference in Brisbane and Melbourne on Boards quality and safeguarding. As you can see, he is now a director at purpose at work consultancy firm.
Karen Stace: That guides Social Care Organizations towards purpose driven work cultures and NDS and purpose at work are incredibly excited to partner to deliver a new program of support.
Karen Stace: Right on Board- governing for managing -  governing and managing for Human Rights, Quality and Safeguarding
Karen Stace: Alan will provide an overview of the Right on Board program. And it's very much focused on developing that capacity and of boards and executive teams in the areas of rights and quality.
Karen Stace: We're also equally delighted to be joined by Graeme Kelly. Graeme is a principal consultant at Optimate
Karen Stace: Consulting, is an experienced successful CEO executive governance leader and consultant with organizations that make a social impact.
Karen Stace: Graeme has worked with and for a number of significant profit for purpose organizations in the disability, aged care, mental health and education sectors
Karen Stace: As well as major health and emergency services. All of these roles have had a strong emphasis on strategic governance and executive leadership in environments that are successfully adapting to and anticipating disruptive change.
Karen Stace: As we said, Graeme is currently the principal consultant and Optimate Consulting and he's advising NDS Victoria on our Safer and Stronger project on COVID-19
Karen Stace: Infection Control responses and business continuity. This is for disability service providers and it is focused at that CEO and board level. Graeme is also currently a board member and Chair nonprofit fellowship committee for the Harvard Club of Victoria.
Karen Stace: We're delighted because Graeme's going to bring all of that and provide his unique perspective and having led several large disability providers, including the Tipping Foundation, which is now Aruma.
Karen Stace: Vic Deaf and GenU and his experience on a number of, on numerous boards.
Karen Stace: At we're going to start off with Alan so I'll get Alan to get ready to go. Oh There he is, look at him in all his gorgeousness
Karen Stace: And so I'm going to hand straight over to Alan who is going to provide an overview around the sorts of approaches that boards and managers can take in upholding human rights. So, over to you, Alan.
Alan Hough: Thanks very much, Karen. Hello, everybody. Lovely to see the people
Alan Hough: Mentioning where who they are and where they're from, and recognizing so many of the names. So just building on the comments that Karen made earlier. How would you answer the two questions which are on the screen.
Alan Hough: these questions need to be asked, because the conditions of inquiry and the regulator's been very clear, protecting people from harm is a fundamental and integral part of the work of boards.
Alan Hough: Historically, some boards place more attention on financial issues and governance issues then they have on issues around service quality and they've left those issues around rights and quality to management, in many cases, because there was no one on the board that was expert in service delivery.
Alan Hough: But the Commission's and regulators are really challenging that mindset.
Alan Hough: So having said that, I want to focus now on how to govern the rights in quality and I am mindful of the different roles of the board and management in that regard.
Alan Hough: So moving on to the next slide, the right on both framework
Alan Hough: We've developed as a way of thinking about building the capacity of your board and your executive team in relation to rights and quality, it's based on a simple seven step and what I'm going to do today is take you through each of the seven steps and give you a flavor of what's involved.
Alan Hough: When we deliver right on board to organizations, it is tailored to the unique needs of the organization.
Alan Hough: Of course, today, what I'm going to do, is be generic in my comments.
Alan Hough: So let's go to the first step, which is understand rights and responsibilities
Alan Hough: So has your board undertaking the training in relation to the implications of the
Alan Hough: UN Convention of the Right of Persons with Disabilities?
Alan Hough: If your organization is brought before the Royal Commission this is one of the questions that is likely to be asked.
Alan Hough: Further has the board and executives set of documents, known as the general comments. That is the general comments of the UN convention.
Alan Hough: Because these can have implications for particular service types and particular practices which are widespread in Australia Disability service provision.
Alan Hough: Turning to responsibilities they can of course be responsibilities for boards and
Alan Hough: Under the Corporations Act, ACNC Act, the NDIS Act, work health and
Alan Hough: Safety legislation and some of the other specific State and Territory legislation.
Alan Hough: Under that legislation sometimes the legal liability rests on the organization and sometimes it rests on individual directors and executives and even on frontline workers.
Karen Stace: Excuse me Alan,
Karen Stace: Alan, apologies, your sound is going in and out a little bit. We're just wondering whether it's your internet connection.
Karen Stace: And whether we might try it with your camera off and just save that improves it
Sure
Alan Hough: Thanks Karen
Alan Hough: So to give an example of one of the penalties, it can be under the NDIS act, individual workers can be subject to maximum penalties of $55,500 and organizations $277,500 for breaches of the code of conduct.
Alan Hough: So also under that act, do directors understand that they fall within the definition of key personnel under the act, and what the implications of that are
Alan Hough: As Karen mentioned Work Safe South Australia are invest - reported to be investigating the members of the board of directors of Integrity Care
Alan Hough: The organization which provided services to the late Annie Smith in relation to their compliance with the provisions of the Work Health Safety Act in that state.
Alan Hough: Presumably investigation will focus on whether the the directors met their due diligence responsibilities under the Act, not just in relation to workers, but in relation to Annie as a client.
Alan Hough: So for those for directors in those states and territories where you are, have a personal due diligence obligation. Do you know the nature of that obligation.
Alan Hough: In Victoria and Western Australia where the law is somewhat different. Do you know your obligations in relation to management and control of the organization.
Alan Hough: And can you explain how you discharge those responsibilities in your organization.
Alan Hough: Moving ahead to
Alan Hough: Step two, you need to know about the people, the organization supports and the people supporting them.
Alan Hough: So for example, in relation to the people, your organization supports, do you support children or adults or both because children are at greater risk of sexual abuse.
Alan Hough: What types of disability to the people you support have because different types of disabilities can involve different risks which begs the next question, What are some of the common health conditions among the people you support.
Alan Hough: For those directors who are subject to due diligence obligations, one of those obligations is to understand the nature and operations of the work and the associated hazards and risks.
Alan Hough: So what's your knowledge of the risks associated with the people you support and the people supporting them.
Alan Hough: So this naturally flows to the next step.
Alan Hough: Which is know the risks.
Alan Hough: The risks will of course be different across organizations.
Alan Hough: Organizations supporting people with intellectual disability will have one risk profile those supporting people with sensory disabilities, another. Those supporting children with early intervention, another still and those supporting people with psycho-social disability, another again.
Alan Hough: The nature of the support you provide also determines the risk, for example, is it one on one support? So is it in a supported independent living setting or is it therapy? So to give you one concrete example, the people living in group homes swallowing and choking risks can be really important
Alan Hough: Every year in Australia people die because of poor practice in service delivery around this risk.
Alan Hough: Step four is about knowing that the fundamentals are right there are two aspects here, one is about the values people bring to their work and of course the board and executive set the tone at the top
Alan Hough: My question is, what are the explicit or implicit messages that your board sends to be organization.
Alan Hough: For example, does the board spend more time on financial issues and financial reporting than it does on issues around quality and safeguarding?
Alan Hough: The second aspect here is the fundamentals of service provision.
Alan Hough: And here a number of terms can be used. In mainstream disability, we use the term person centered support. In early intervention services family centered practice, in psycho-social disability Recovery or for those organizations also working in age care, we talk about re-enablement.
Alan Hough: Whatever term you use are the fundamentals of service delivery sound?
Alan Hough: Because unless your organization gets these basics right you're building on poor foundations.
Alan Hough: So as a board member how confident are you that the basics are right, and how do you know that they right?
Alan Hough: Moving on to Step five. It's about assuring that the research addressed. Now, if I was talking about service delivery at the individual level, I will be using the word angel.
Alan Hough: When talking at the governance level the term is assure. I'm using the word assure as you're not there at the time of service delivery
Alan Hough: to ensure that the risk to the individual client and the worker address. So how do you as a director executive maximize the likelihood of quality and safe service delivery. How do you have reasonable confidence that services are quality and safe.
Alan Hough: So things to consider here are things like recruitment, the quality of recruitment learning development and staff support and some supervision.
Alan Hough: What about your systems and the system controls that includes not only technology, but your quality management systems, including continuous improvement, of course, and your risk and compliance systems.
Alan Hough: How do you resource the quality and safeguarding systems in your organization? How do your managers stay on top of the evidence about what works, that is evidence based practice?
Alan Hough: One of the quality indicators under the NDIS framework is indeed evidence based practice. So how does your organization keep up to date with the evidence base?
Alan Hough: For example, do your executives responsible for service delivery undertake professional development in relation to that research efforts.
Alan Hough: To give another example, if your organization operate group homes does it apply active support principles because they are empirically proven practices which will improve the quality of support.
Alan Hough: Step six is understanding when things are going right but also understanding when things are going wrong.
Alan Hough: Many organizations will have sound systems for financial reporting the management, but some organizations struggle to understand the performance on rides in quality.
Alan Hough: Some of the ways of doing that are, of course, understanding the views of clients and their experience and their outcomes or the views and experience of staff.
Alan Hough: Organizations should also be learning from complaints and incidences and from their internal audit and external processes as well as other reporting.
Alan Hough: In the program we offer a menu of performance indicators or evidence measures to choose from.
Alan Hough: For example, it can be important to know, the extent of use of agency staff or through casuals because they want know the clients as well as staff who have a continuing connection with them. And thus the quality and safeguarding risks we greater
Alan Hough: I want to stress, though the measures need to reflect the unique circumstances of each organization.
Alan Hough: Also more measures are not necessarily better. There is an art to the use of performance measures and there are both technical and social issues to consider in they used.
Alan Hough: So steps seven is our final step in the process and that is embedding Learning and Action.
Alan Hough: And he, I encourage organizations to loopy or pleased to establish learning loops, namely closing the loop after incidents or complaints.
Alan Hough: The concept of double loop learning for organizational learning and triple loop learning from the literature on regulation and if you're not familiar with those terms you Google them you will find helpful information.
Alan Hough: To embed Learning and Action requires both hard skills and soft skills. One of the soft skills involved in being a director is knowing how to ask hard questions in an appropriate way.
Alan Hough: For example, if you have concerns adopting a genuinely curious stats and using a curious tone of voice, almost always get you more information than hostile questioning rule.
Alan Hough: There is no sure way of shutting down communication than shooting the messenger.
Alan Hough: It's also important to know what the red flags are in relation to learning an action. For example, if the response to every incident is one
Alan Hough: Of blame and train, that is blaming the worker and requiring the individual staff members to undergo for the training that might, and I'm not saying this is always the case, but that might be missing the point about the organization's systems.
Alan Hough: So the last thing I want to mention is something we introduce and at the very start of the workbook and that's about inclusion and expertise. And so if we can go on to the next slide please.
Alan Hough: Advocates in the Royal Commission have been asking questions about the inclusion of people with disability in boards and on executive teams.
Alan Hough: If your organization has values around inclusion then does it demonstrate those values in the composition of the board.
Alan Hough: However, the scandal surrounding the Royal National Institute of blind people in Britain, which had a board entirely composed of people who are visually impaired or blind demonstrates that inclusion alone is not a complete solution.
Alan Hough: So there are further questions to be asked about expertise and service delivery.
Alan Hough: How many members of your board are genuinely expert in service delivery.
Alan Hough: This issue also goes to board structures, your board uses subcommittees and there's a finance subcommittee. Is there also a subcommittee focusing on rights and quality?
Alan Hough: But regardless of the structure that the board uses does it genuinely embrace its responsibilities for promoting rights and quality?
Alan Hough: The rod on board program which is on the next slide is a fee for service programs support which has been developed a purpose work in conjunction with NGOs and NDS ministers, even a 10% discount
Alan Hough: It involves desktop review of your key documents speaking to key people, tailored training with a very comprehensive workbook. If we
Alan Hough: report on our view, we always leave you with an action plan. The brochure on the program is on the NDS and also Purpose at Work web sites and it will be also made available with this recording. Karen, back to you.
Karen Stace: Thanks very much. Alan, and that's great. My apologies to people for a little bit of that sound quality there. I think we're all remote today. So it's sort of relying on
Karen Stace: The NBA and network which you know some could say, you know, sort of sending up some prayers there before I hand over to our
Karen Stace: Graeme,sorry, I just have another poll that we thought might be useful for people to have a bit of a think about. So I've actually put together some questions
Karen Stace: that were asked of a provider out of the Disability Royal Commission hearing into Supported Independent Living or Group homes so got a couple of questions there. So I've got our first question is around
Karen Stace: have you provided your board members with training on the convention of on rights of persons with disabilities. So please feel free to vote in this
Karen Stace: Is your board informed about contemporary services and practices and picking up on some of the
Karen Stace: things that Alan mentioned, which is around, you know, trauma informed care active support elimination reduction of restrictive practices.
Karen Stace: And here we've got yep you regularly provide information reports and training presentations by your clinical service staff or external expertise.
Karen Stace: Occasionally, when you have new standards come to bear, or maybe new board members join or you haven't quite got that on your calendar just yet.
Karen Stace: The third question is around. Could you describe and provide evidence of how you bought upholds human rights, again, yes, no, or maybe you have some motherhood statements.
Karen Stace: But you're not quite sure exactly where you could produce some concrete evidence
Karen Stace: And then the fourth one is at a governance level do you actively involve people with disability and decisions reports or service improvement. So I guess this is picking up on
Karen Stace: Alan's last point, which is really around having some processes in place that demonstrate the active involvement of people with disability.
Karen Stace: You've got some formal mechanisms in place that might be a consultative community or you might have consumer reps on your board, but you're not quite sure how effective they are.
Karen Stace: And the third one is that you haven't quite got any of those formal mechanisms in place just yet. So I'll give you a few seconds there because I know that's a little bit of any involve Paul
Karen Stace: And but they were, you know, directly taken from questions out of the disability royal commission that were put to a CEO.
Karen Stace: Just going to give you a few seconds. And while we're doing that we might see if we can get and
Karen Stace: Graeme to show his camera, we'll see how we go with the with the quality and the sound quality, if we have any trouble we'll just get Graeme to close his camera down
Karen Stace: And I'm going to share the results of that poll, a little bit later when we get to questions. And I'd also just encourage you to
Karen Stace: Ask any questions you have in the Q and A box. So Graeme, I'm going to hand over to you, I understand you got bit of of time, so I might
Karen Stace: Jump back on with a couple of questions that I thought we might be able to explore with you time, time permitting.
Karen Stace: It.
Graeme Kelly: Thanks, Karen.
Graeme Kelly: Let's see if we got
Graeme Kelly: We haven't got a camera yet by the look of it.
Graeme Kelly: But you're not missing a lot from that point of view. I trust you can hear me okay
Karen Stace: Yeah, yes, loud and clear.
Graeme Kelly: There we go.
Okay.
Graeme Kelly: So, Karen. Thanks for the opportunity to share some of my experiences as a CEO, as a directo,r as a company secretary and, indeed, as a chair.
Graeme Kelly: What I propose is eight key points that hopefully we'll build on Alan's presentation and it also relates to the poll that you're conducting. So if you have the next slide, relating to
Graeme Kelly: First point around clarity.
Graeme Kelly: Okay, excellent. So three points here. The first one about the need for clarity around organization purpose and strategy.
Graeme Kelly: It's critical that we know what we're governing for. So at the moment, I've got a board hat on, for the moment,
Graeme Kelly: What's the problem we're trying to solve as an organization, what's our theory of change or questions here. It doesn't really matter what approach we take to defining our purpose, but we must be really clear.
Graeme Kelly: what that purpose is. And that's the why and then the have the strategy of how we hope to achieve that purpose.
Graeme Kelly: Now, they must be shared by the Board and the CEO and the other executives and that is fundamental for human rights and quality. Because if you're not clear on where you're going to give. There's not much change you're going to achieve it, let alone. Is it a shared
Graeme Kelly: Purpose for the people that use, your providing support to. I'll come back to that.
Graeme Kelly: Second part relating to outcomes in the context of those and then an opportunity, I think now of resetting them is
Graeme Kelly: What are we measuring in the organization evidence, our impact of our strategy on the purpose, are we getting anywhere and perhaps even more importantly, how we benchmarking those
Graeme Kelly: Indicators or outcomes in a way that gives us some objective assessments, not just an internal review and what a great time to reset your outcomes. So an example I'll give
Graeme Kelly: You would have seen in my CV that I was recently the interim CEO at GenU Victoria deep in the grips of COVID-19 I was there from March through the end of June, and
Graeme Kelly: Understandably, the board were keen to know where we're up to. And one of the things we implemented was a series of KPIs only five we agreed on five
Graeme Kelly: Last year, around client and staff safety and around the sustainability and financial viability of the organization and that kept us all focused on what the most important thing was for the organization, particularly during periods of high stress, I'll come back to that point.
Graeme Kelly: The third point here is around compliance and performance. They're not optional - compliance is purely the bare minimum, the ticket to operate.
Graeme Kelly: It only allows you to operate and not do well, necessarily. It is critical because it does ensure some basic human rights, but our customers, our clients. What do we want to refer as rightfully and reasonably expect more
Graeme Kelly: And what the independent reviews tell us about how the organization is performing accreditation and Sona minimum requirements, do we really know what the client experiences do we measure things like net promoter score and so on.
Graeme Kelly: Let's move on to the next slide.
Graeme Kelly: So three issues here. Number four. So I've done the first three number four is about agreed operational versus governance and risk issues.
Graeme Kelly: We have to understand whether it's at the board level or the CEO or executive level our respective roles, we need to agree them,  we need to document them and we need to then do it, and honor what we say
Graeme Kelly: We need to agree the risks relative to our purpose and to our sustainability, to measure them and be accountable for performance and in time publish our performance, I believe.
Graeme Kelly: The second point around governance of key risk areas aligned to strategy picks up why balance points in more detail. This is around is there specifically a board committee.
Graeme Kelly: For the purpose of the organization where it's client outcomes quality and safeguard client experience, doesn't matter a lot what it's called. As long as it's terms of reference are relative to the purpose of the organization and the outcomes you providing
Graeme Kelly: I'd argue that this committee, whatever it's termed, is more important than the finance and audit committee because of the heart of what organizations like ours do is the impact that we have on our customers and our clocks. I'll talk about that a little bit later to
Graeme Kelly: The third point here is around the appropriate passion and partnership in the way we do it. We've got to really care about the purpose of the organization. That's usually not an issue but to share it on a professional basis.
Graeme Kelly: And then within agreed role. So we're not falling over the top of different roles or come back to that point as well.
Graeme Kelly: The next point around communications responsibilities and clarity.
Graeme Kelly: Three sub points here. So these icons are leading to hopefully better practice putting on Alan's framework around communications responsibility.
Graeme Kelly: For me, one of the fundamental relationships, if not the most important relationship in the organization is between the CEO and the chair.
Graeme Kelly: It's probably as important, if not more than the other key, key relationship in organizations such a human services, which is the relationship between the staff on the front line and the customer.
Graeme Kelly: But we put that to one side for the moment. Let's get back to our governance's responsibility.
Graeme Kelly: In my view, the CEO and chairman need to meet at least monthly, preferably face to face which is a bit trickier at the moment.
Graeme Kelly: And I need to include the basis of doing the normal business you know setting up the agenda for the board meeting to normal practice, you will do
Graeme Kelly: But set up as a sounding board for ideas between both the parties to be able to express your frustrations your disagreements in a private and respectful way, generally respectfully.
Graeme Kelly: And by doing that, you can build trust and that trust is a foundation upon which the governance can work, particularly at the Chair and CEO level.
Graeme Kelly: The second sub point here relates to what happens in the crisis. So if you look at whether it's COVID-19, scrutiny under the Royal Commission.
Graeme Kelly: Some major client outcome problem. You have to have an understanding of who's doing what and when in that crisis.
Graeme Kelly: Not when the crisis hits set it up beforehand and usually you can work out what those issues are well beforehand so understand them set up responsibilities and then practice it.
Graeme Kelly: Because otherwise, it's usually too late, Like when it happens. There's also the significant risk of rogue commentary from board directors, from members of staff from families or whatever it is, it's a much better way of controlling the risk
Graeme Kelly: And importantly to when you understand your responsibilities and agree them, the day to day business of what you do is a hell of a lot easier.
Graeme Kelly: Then my last slide relates to a classic I would expect for most people, which is the no surprises rule.
Graeme Kelly: The CEO and the Chair must
Graeme Kelly: Have a relationship that's they can't be ambushed on issues of viability reputation or their relationship from any direction now nearly all of these issues
Graeme Kelly: are known beforehand and should be rehearsed beforehand, so there isn't a surprise, so that the major client risks you know that exists so prepare your position in relation to what your public comment or beyond what you would want to discuss with any stakeholder
Graeme Kelly: Other issues of other directors getting involved in the day to day business of the organization, the CEO and Chair should work that out behind closed doors, such that the Chair and take up that issue with the directors at an appropriate time.
Graeme Kelly: And by having a no surprises approach the relationship, particularly between the CEO.
Graeme Kelly: And the Chair is a basis for not just business as usual operation, but real effectiveness for the organization when it's particularly under pressure.
Graeme Kelly: And not least of which then there's a common purpose for what you're trying to achieve, which will underline better rights and safety for our clients and customers. Thanks, Karen, over to you.
Karen Stace: I thanks Graeme, so I am going to actually invite Alan to pop back up on the screen, but I did say that I would share the results of our poll
Karen Stace: That we did earlier and I apologize not everybody got a chance to
Karen Stace: Answer those questions, but we will include those in the information that we send around after today because they may be some things that people would like to reflect on outside of the session as well. So I'm going to share the results.
Karen Stace: So just, just quickly to recap. So basically, you know, we've got sort of probably the
Karen Stace: The minority of people on the line would be saying that they have provided the board members with training as opposed to just information. We've got a number of people who have not yet done that. And we have got some people who have got that on their agenda.
Karen Stace: In terms of informed about contemporary services and practices again, we got, you know, around 30% of people on the line are saying that they're doing, they're doing that in an active way.
Karen Stace: We've got, again, the majority are probably doing that when there's a change in standards or when maybe they have any board member or there's a reason for doing it. And again, we still have a few people who are looking at
Karen Stace: You know, putting that
Karen Stace: On their board
Karen Stace: agenda and I guess we've got a little bit of a note there that you know their board maybe have not seen that as part of their role today.
Karen Stace: We've got
Karen Stace: A number of people, a large number of people could actually describe and provide evidence of how their board upholds human rights, that's incredibly comforting to see and
Karen Stace: It's probably offset almost equally though by, I think what is probably quite common in the sector, which is where we do have a range of motherhood statements but providing that concrete evidence would be a challenge, and then a governance level
Karen Stace: Again, you know, I probably got a pretty equals lid on, maybe a few more people are in that section where there's has some formal mechanisms, but they're not just evaluated it not just yet.
Karen Stace: evaluated the effectiveness of those about 30% of people are yet to develop some formal mechanisms around that. So I'm going to stop those and what I am going to do is ask them
Karen Stace: Graeme first, I think, oh sorry, I might start with Alan, apologies, start with Alan. Alan any surprises in this poll responses are they exactly the sort of what you expected to see, have you got any reflections?
Alan Hough: Um, I think in some ways the responses are quite encouraging clearly some some way to go in some organizations, but it's great to see the progress that many organizations have made.
Karen Stace: What about you Graeme, any thoughts?
Graeme Kelly: I think it's largely predictable. What we're seeing, which is there's still some work to be done.
Graeme Kelly: To make this case you're highlighting this point that we often don't put enough emphasis on this area of the operation of human service organizations.
Graeme Kelly: And then when we come under external scrutiny, we all of a sudden rush to strengthen our systems when we can do it as part of our normal business.
Karen Stace: Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes, we do have a couple of questions and we do have some questions coming in. And we've got a really interesting one I think to kick us off with today.
Karen Stace: Which is your views and a discussion around the remuneration for board directors of
Karen Stace: disability organizations and reflecting on the fact that we are moving into a more for purpose commercial environment.
Karen Stace: And in your experience just interested in your thoughts around that. Do you know any organizations that might be remunerating their board members and how they, how they're calculating the appropriate payment?
Graeme Kelly: On happy to open up that can
Graeme Kelly: Look, increasingly, the larger providers are doing so, it's not only larger providers.
Graeme Kelly: I think the Chairs I've spoken to where they are remunerating, the main thing they're looking for, It's not so much
Graeme Kelly: The they are in a commercial environment. But just to hold people to account or they feel that if
Graeme Kelly: A person is being paid for a task as opposed to being a volunteer, they actually can hold them to account for performance in a in a more credible way now. I think that can be argued both ways. But certainly that's the feedback I've got from a number of Chairs. It's certainly trending that way.
I think
Alan Hough: It's been interesting reading some of the material before the Aged Care Royal Commission where the Commission actually flag, the issue of remuneration as an issue - highlighting that
Alan Hough: If board members are going to spend the time and energy they need to
Alan Hough: On the range of issues for the organization, then perhaps it is fair that directors are remunerated
Alan Hough: As a sometimes academic, one of the things I'm interested in is, I see no research evidence as to whether indeed remunerated board members does improve service quality, it'd be really interesting to test
Karen Stace: Right and Alan, was there any I mean especially the second part of that question was around
Karen Stace: What sort of factors do you think would be taken into account to determine what an appropriate remuneration might be?
Alan Hough: Obviously issues around organizational size and complexity
Alan Hough: have to be part of the equation, what the expectations of the board members are in terms of how extensive is the pre-reading, meetings, all of those sorts of things.
Alan Hough: You always about to pick up Graeme's point,  you always need to ensure that people are delivering whether they are remunerated or not.
Right.
Karen Stace: We also have another question here, which is around someone who is very interested in undertaking some benchmarking and they're having trouble accessing
Karen Stace: Either both a service that offers that but I guess to some information around general benchmarking, which leads on quite nicely, I think, to your point, Alan around research around what we know actually improves performance at a board level that directly relates into service delivery.
Alan Hough: And if I could take the lead on this one. Unlike the Aged care sector, the disability sector has a very limited evidence base. And so, apart from financial benchmarking there's not a whole lot of data sources that can be used for that sort of comparison.
Alan Hough: So,
Alan Hough: Hopefully this is something that the NDIS commission will help develop for the sector in time. But the other way that providers can do it, is actually
Alan Hough: thinking about forming benchmarking clubs. If you're doing that you need to actually group with like minded organizations and one of the challenges for achieving that is that the organizations in the sector are incredibly diverse
Karen Stace: Graeme anything you wanted to add to that one?
Graeme Kelly: I think if we waited for NDIS to get their act together and relation to benchmarking and KPIs. I'll be certainly well retired and
Graeme Kelly: The point here is that the some available around person centered active support at Latrobe University Melbourne is one good example.
Graeme Kelly: But there are some others. There's not a lot, but I don't think that we should work on their hands in the absence of that you can do internal benchmarking year on year comparisons of client experience measures.
Graeme Kelly: In previous organizations I've used
Graeme Kelly: Surveys relating to the National Disability standards, so the perceptions of clients, customers and families around their assessment of how they are tracking against those standards and then compare, year on year. So even if it's only internal benchmarking at least you're looking at your progress.
Karen Stace: Great, thank you. I'm leaning on a little bit to a question that I was interested in as well which is looking at how do we build the
Karen Stace: clinical governance, service governance and capacity on boards and when might organizations find potential board members with that expertise, bearing in mind that there could be some conflict of interest issues as well that needs to be managed.
Karen Stace: So I mean I've - Graeme perhaps if you want to kick off with that one
Graeme Kelly: Karen I missed the first part of the question.
Karen Stace: Was around board members with clinical governance and service governance.
Karen Stace: Do we find those board members and build, to build our capacity.
Yeah, thank you. So
Graeme Kelly: It is important. I mean, particular the committee we spoke about - whatever you want to call it, quality and safeguarding - some clinical or disability experience is really important for credibility and context.
Graeme Kelly: But a bit like you know the the the treasurer or the Chair of the Finance Committee, you don't need everybody to have it. You need some good expertise available to you.
Graeme Kelly: health sector can be a good source point of people that are used to clinical evaluation settings, their standard practice and health services for probably 30 years now that can be good for
Graeme Kelly: Others.
Graeme Kelly: Academia can be helpful and I wouldn't underestimate
Graeme Kelly: to these board members increasingly need level of capability and then the second point is involvement of the experience of people with a disability themselves. So it's a balance between all of those.
Karen Stace: Right, Alan any points to add
Alan Hough: No, I agree with Graeme.
Karen Stace: That's great. Um, interestingly, that you finished off Graeme on talking about the experience of people with  disability, sorry with lived experience.
Karen Stace: And we do have a question, they are a user lead board, and the question is around how to not ensure that lived experience is lost. So how not to lose that experience balanced up with the appropriate skills and knowledge that are required in a modern day board.
Graeme Kelly: It's not an either
Or
Graeme Kelly: Sorry.
Graeme Kelly: I use an experience at Vic Deaf, what's now known as Expressions Australia. So working with people who are deaf or have significant hearing loss.
Graeme Kelly: That was a real competition around people with lived experience of deafness or hearing loss, and they were able to get the balance quite well and they invested quite a bit in in developing leadership in people in their community through AICD and other location something it needs to be developed.
Graeme Kelly: And the other so that would be  one from the second point I'd make is
Graeme Kelly: The board subcommittee to be really good places to develop talent and to have inclusion of people with lived experience of disability, you don't have to get
Graeme Kelly: straight on the board, but many can, but it can be almost like a proving ground for both parties because it might not suit either party to go straight on to the board.
Right.
Karen Stace: Any, any thoughts from you on that one.
Alan Hough: I, like, Graeme, I'd emphasize the importance of investment and develop developing board members, including board members with lived experience.
Alan Hough: We know that many people with disability are subject to a range of economic and social disadvantages. And so if we are to have a good pool of people talented pool of people with lived experience then providers need to be prepared to invest in the in the development of that pool.
Karen Stace: Fantastic, we have got some really great comments coming in in the chat as well where people are sharing their experiences around things that have worked really well for them in supporting
Karen Stace: Board members with lived experience contribute to the organization. But also, I think, get a lot out of their role on the board as well.
Karen Stace: This is probably question what you've heard around the traps, I think, which is
Karen Stace: Fiona's interested in hearing different ways that board members are using in the COVID-19 environment to interact with customers
Karen Stace: given the restrictions. So I think that goes to that point I was making where some of our usual mechanisms that we have in place around quality and safeguarding have changed because of COVID
Karen Stace: Anything you've seen around?
Alan Hough: I haven't. In fact, I think there's
Alan Hough: Because of the importance of social distancing. They may be less incidental contact the normal. It is interesting to think about how
Alan Hough: The leadership of the organization, both directors and executives could think about using technology.
Alan Hough: For example, to have more informal conversation with people.
Graeme Kelly: Karen I don't have any direct experience at the moment, but I know using the deafness example but also sensory disability in the broader sense
Graeme Kelly: COVID actually levels the field a bit better because it provides technology options that bring it around the same level. So
Graeme Kelly: If, if you're involved in disability, sensory disability is actually a bit of a game changer and does level the playing field, take advantage of that, rather than it'd be a problem.
Karen Stace: I'm just aware of the time and we because we started a tiny little bit later. We did have that little bit of a technical issue. I'm just proposing that will go to about
Karen Stace: Five past one so I do understand that people may need to leave us at one o'clock, feel free, but we just sort of thought It's such a rich to
Karen Stace: rich discussion and we have got a few more questions that we thought we'd try and get to, and I think
Karen Stace: Both Alan and Graeme have indicated that they can give us another five or so minutes, which is very kind of them.
Karen Stace: And so, yes, I do understand if people need to drop off. That's fine. But just to let you know.
Karen Stace: And so we have some questions here around reporting and KPIs. So the sort of information that a monthly report should contain from CEO to a board around this sort of information. Are you familiar with a template, and related to the site guess is
Karen Stace: KPIs in their board, in board terms of reference and what sort of KPIs might be used so reporting and KPI questions.
Alan Hough: The are many KPIs which could be used, and I don't think a template is necessarily the appropriate solution. The KPIs need to reflect the unique circumstances of the organization.
Alan Hough: And so Graeme's example from GENU where they used five KPIs, or if you prefer the term evidence measures, to help focus people i thought was a really interesting one.
Alan Hough: I'd
Alan Hough: Certainly be happy to share some information that we have with people on on the use of evidence measures, but the
Alan Hough: I always emphasize that it's not just the technical issues which need to be addressed. It's the social issues, it's one thing, having the data,
Alan Hough: It's another thing, having data which is reliable and robust, but it's a different question, again, of having skills in learning from the data and that takes some time to develop
Alan Hough: At least that's what the research evidence shows
Graeme Kelly: Karen,
Graeme Kelly: My experience of most organizations that agonized too much over the KPIs. Try and keep them really simple.
Graeme Kelly: The four or five, I mean if I had to set one up tomorrow for a disability organization I could get it to four: one around the health and safety of
Graeme Kelly: the staff, one around the safety of the client or the customer, one around cash flow and then one around the operating position of the organization.
Graeme Kelly: If you only had those four you actually manage the organization quite well. You can certainly add and expand on it. No doubt. But if you've got those four you you can go online. Plus, if you keep it really simple, people are much more accountable. So a lot simpler to track.
Karen Stace: Great, great advice, then probably the last question, and then I might just go to both of you just some really quick closing comments.
Karen Stace: Just got someone here, which is probably more general question as well, which is around mechanisms to attract board members generally
Karen Stace: So, apart from paying board members, are there other strategies that you know of, that might facilitate and yeah attract board members with the right skills, levels and understanding
Alan Hough: Like
Graeme Kelly: Okay, so I would start with the Institute of company directors. I think it's a really important
Graeme Kelly: breeding ground. Let's call it that. I think increasingly there needs to be that level of qualification for at least half the directors on the board now.
Graeme Kelly: And that level of competence and understanding of the fiduciary responsibilities and more broadly is only underlined by things like Royal Commissions. Remuneration will help
Graeme Kelly: but essentially, it's the technical skills and the understanding of the people who want to be directors and who are directors, would be the first place I would start there are plenty of others, but that'd be the first I'd offer
Alan Hough: So,
Alan Hough: As Graeme mentioned The Australian Institute of Company Directors advertises vacancies, so does the Governance Institute of Australia. I think Unity Directors also do that.
Alan Hough: I've seen some organizations use general media advertising quite effectively, and of course, in this day and age, social media is an option as well.
Karen Stace: I might just add to that, if I mean, the other thing I think is
Karen Stace: In some ways COVID and Zoom probably does make it easier in some ways to connect probably with broader afield with board members that you may not have always thought of,
Karen Stace: Because you've been so much more focused on close to home and the other thing I've seen is, I think, you know, using your board members already,
Karen Stace: I think that's probably one of the other ways is, you know, very much using their contacts and their details and the links that they have to other people in their, in their communities. So, Graeme Was there any last couple of points that you wanted to leave us with before we close off.
Graeme Kelly: Probably one Karen, which is a lot of great content I think we've discussed today.
Graeme Kelly: Getting back to the issue of the Royal Commission and all of those related matters. We can get swamped on the depth and complexity of those matters.
Graeme Kelly: The, the assessment of how you're tracking against the purpose of your organization is a fundamental thing you should do, independent of Royal Commissions, COVID or anything else. So if you strip it back to that, understand it in a sensible and
Graeme Kelly: practical way that will cut through a lot of stuff around what Royal Commissions and others are going to require so keep back to your purpose. Understand it, measure it, and be accountable for it.
Karen Stace: Right, thank you Alan
Alan Hough: I think it's really clear from the Commission's and the regulators that good intentions are no longer good enough.
Alan Hough: They probably never were, we actually have to have not only good intentions, we have to have good delivery, we have to be really focused on the quality and safety of the supports we're providing both through the perspective of people we support and also the people supporting them.
Karen Stace: Great, thank you. So on those last notes, um
Karen Stace: I know everyone online would join me in thanking Graeme and Alan very much for their time today. I think it's been a really great session and then
Karen Stace: Whenever I do these things. I always think we just, you know, scratch the tip of the iceberg and people are always so engaged in these kind of discussions.
Karen Stace: So on your screen now, um you will see a little bit, just, just a repeat of the information around Right on Board, we're incredibly excited to have partnered with Alan and his team at Purpose at Work, for this program.
Karen Stace: would really encourage you to make contact with Alan and have a discussion or you can certainly come through to anybody at NDS as well. And we're very happy to discuss that program with you.
Karen Stace: And I know we have spoken today about some of you know the key ways that boards can improve their knowledge
Karen Stace: In rights and qualities. And for those of you have got board members who weren't able to attend today. We do hope that you will share this recording with them. People have asked whether we will be making a recording available. We absolutely will. And again both Graeme and Alan have said we're
Karen Stace: able to pop this up on our website. So we will do that. We will also have a copy of the presentation and along with some of the other information that we've mentioned today as well.
Karen Stace: And finally, I would just like to thank all of you. We had around 160 - 170 odd people join us today, which is fantastic. As I said, it was really great to get a split between board members,
Karen Stace: and CEOs and people with reporting responsibilities to their board.
Karen Stace: So I'd really like to thank you for your engagement today. It's been fantastic to have you with us and look really forward to seeing you in one of our next webinars.
Karen Stace: And we do have some contact details on the next slide. So thanks very much, everybody. And we look forward to seeing you again.
