View from the governing board: Your member update from the chair

On March 27, the governing board met as part of the governance cycle for CIH.

The agenda provided an opportunity for the chairs of the Audit and Risk, Governance Ethics Remuneration and Nominations, and the Awarding Organisation committees to give valuable updates and reassurance of the scrutiny work they do. Further updates came from the Transformation Task and Finish group, alongside Gavin, who gave his CEO’s report.  

The results of the annual Board Effectiveness Review were discussed. The review gives oversight on where development opportunities exist to make trustees more effective in their roles, and where change is required for areas that are not working as well as we hoped. It provides an opportunity to evaluate skills gaps on the board, which will help inform our recruitment requirements when we come to replace the trustees who are due to retire at the Annual General Meeting (AGM).

As a result, this year’s recruitment will focus on candidates with experience in education and other membership bodies. The review brought into focus our intention to expand our understanding of diversity to include people from a neurodiverse background.  

The board were updated on the professionalism agenda, and we signed off the final version the corporate plan, which has since been circulated to colleagues and is available on our website. We also looked at the risk appetite policy, with a recommendation from the Audit and Risk Committee, and approved it.  

We had a valuable and informative update from the board link member to the CIH Futures group with the work they are doing to encourage young professionals in their careers across the UK.  The trustees noted that it is fantastic to see greater diversity represented by the CIH Futures current chair and vice-chair; an encouraging indication of the progress of CIH’s EDI (equality, diversity, and inclusion) work. 

Another valuable update was provided by the EDI group leads: to discuss how to empower the group and ensure CIH is supported and challenged to embed EDI throughout the organisation, which in turn offers reassurance to members that we are doing all we can to lead in this area. The discussion was robust and informative, and we thank them as leaders and the wider group for their contributions and the changes we are all working towards to increase their influence.  

The board meeting closed with the business and finance update, where trustees were informed of the challenges of membership retention and an aspirational target of 85 per cent. We noted that the position on a Modern Slavery Statement had been approved as part of the financial regulations, and a statement would be issued voluntarily alongside our financial statements this year.

Within the financial update, trustees were delighted to acknowledge the very strong performance for 2023-24, CIH’s best performance for many years.  A special note of thanks was made to all CIH colleagues for their hard work and the great results during the year. 

We were also able to approve the budget for 2024/2025 and look to how we invest in capacity in the business to allow us to grow to effectively support the professionalisation agenda and mandatory qualifications.  

Finally, we were able to note the success of John Hannigan as the chair-elect until formal approval as chair is proposed to members at the 2024 AGM.  

The governing board are grateful to all members for the ongoing contribution and support of CIH and the professionalism they bring to the sector. We would like to extend particular thanks to all the volunteer members who contribute through participation in any of our consultation groups, regional and devolved nation groups, and committees – including Futures, Professional Standards, EDI, and the Awarding Organisation.  

We must also thank our president and vice president as volunteer members, who show great dedication and commitment to CIH. This neatly leads on to a reminder that the closing date for nominations for our next vice president is this Friday, 17 May at 5pm.

• Find out more and submit your nomination