Agenda item

The report demonstrates the importance of trustee diversity in the third sector - the benefits this has for the communities the Council serves and how ensuring this happens demonstrates the council’s Commitment to tackle inequality - this includes leadership on the race equality agenda.  

The Chair welcomed Jamie Hilton, Malcolm John, Dalton Leong and Shad Haibatan to the meeting. He thanked particularly Jamie who alongside Councillor Campbell-Simon had suggested to look at an issue that some H&F charities would like to diversify their trustee boards.  The Council committee might be a good forum to bring people together for exchanging ideas and sharing the good practice.

Yvonne Okyio (Strategic Lead for Equality Diversity & Inclusion) gave a presentation on trustee diversity.  She outlined the protected characteristics, national trustee diversity context, sector standards, benefits of diverse trustee boards, some approaches taken by charities and what the council could do.

Malcolm John (Founder, Action for Trustee Racial Diversity (ATRD)) noted that he had founded the organisation about 4 to 5 years ago after witnessing related challenges for over 20 years.  He had completed a Guide on Completed Diversity about two years ago. He shared his work of recruiting Black  and Asian trustees and diversification of volunteers but sometimes people left after they had joined because of the non-inclusive environment. Malcolm said that ATRD had acted proactively to fill the big gap by looking at challenges and barriers, raising awareness and taking complete actions. However, limited progress had been made since 2017 as reflected in the statistics he shared (page 36), and about 92% of the charity boards were composed of older educated white people which did not reflect the population they served. These boards tended to recruit successors from their own networks of similar background and hence could not be diversified even if intended to. To tackle the issue, Malcolm highlighted their database of over 500 Black and Asian people from network organisations having different skills who might help their boards to become more diversified and providing peer support/signposting advice to their own fellows.  He further noted that last year, Black and Asian Future Chairs Academy was set up with a view to grooming future chairs who shall set the culture and influence the board composition by highlighting the benefits of diversity (page 36).

Dalton Leong (Independent Chair, Surrey VCSE) presented the case study where practical steps Surrey VCSE had taken to address under-representation at trustee boards.  Under his present role after retirement from banking and charity work, he had brought together about 16,000 VCSE organisations in Surrey for their voice to be heard. He had also chaired the Surrey EDI Steering Group formed after the murder of Geroge Floyd to look at the issues around equity, diversity and inclusion within the charity sector. They had recently worked with ATRD and brought together a programme funded under the Surrey County Council’s equity, diversity and inclusion strategies and called “Transforming Trustee Board” with the aim of enabling at least 30 people of diverse backgrounds to join the boards of 19 VCSE organisations in Surrey.  The latter had finished the programmes of 6 modules including delivery of inclusive recruiting practices, and group coaching during and post the appointment process.  The trustee application process was underway and recruitment was expected to happen around April time with outcome to be known by July. It was encouraging to note that according to the programme organiser, the 19 VCSEs were the most engaged group of organisations.

Shad Haibatan (Deputy CEO, SOBUS) referred to his involvement with the borough’s Minority Ethnic Mental Health Landscape Research and noted not much change had been made since the black mental health project he had helped set up some 30 years ago. He also shared his experience in running a national positive action programme and its impacts.  One of the recommendations in the research report was for the providers’ staffing to reflect the community they served and there was a response committing a target of 40% of the senior management to be from minority ethnic communities. At a subsequent meeting with the board after receiving a complaint about its lack of minority and female representation, the trustees just acknowledged they did not discriminate and treat everyone equal.  Shad stressed that’s why a trustee ward with ultimate power was indispensable to steer policy direction and reflect community needs. He added that a dynamic diversity in terms of ethnicity, gender, disability and age could bring in new ideas and challenges to meet the community needs. 

Jamie Hilton (CEO, Fulham Good Neighbours) noted his organisation was led by a committed and capable board which however was nearly fully white, mostly were born in this country, church-going and able-bodied such that the board did not represent the community it was serving. He said the guest speakers attending this meeting all felt passionately about this issue and welcomed any commitment that the councillors could do to support them.

Councillor Andrew Dinsmore was concerned if a charity targeted at multiple protected characteristics, how did the board work and be represented.  Malcolm John pointed out intersectionality was key so most charities did not target at just one protected characteristic, for example, it could be Black Asian disabled with a sexual orientation.  He and Dalton Leong noted in identifying suitable trustees, the board should start with skills gap analysis to see what skills and experience it needed, for example, fundraising or HR, to carry out its function and achieve the mission, rather than just box ticking matching some of the characteristics.  Dalton confirmed Councillor Dinsmore’s understanding that it was more about representing the systems and the beneficiaries.  For example, for a charity for children brain injury, a parent who had supported the child now serving in the board could influence at a government’s level.

Councillor Omid Miri was concerned about economic diversity as working-class people might not be able to join board meetings held in daytime. Also, people from an economically deprived background and/or had not received university education might feel out of place.  As he observed, there was a general lack of economic diversity across the board for charities.

Dalton Leong responded that there were different ways of incentivising those less well-off and in recent years, it became more possible to pay a trustee or reimburse their expenses in honour of their contribution. For example, youth trustees who looked at things differently and brought a refreshing dynamic might not be in the same economic status as other board members yet as they just started their careers. Malcolm John advocated for a more flexible system/structure for charities in terms of pay and day off for trusting work so that the role of board trustees would be more accessible to the majority and not mainly those retired people who could afford it.   Jamie Hilton added that this was partnership beyond the third sector such that trustees could have time off from their full-time job with the private/public sector to compensate for their time in  serving the boards.

Councillor Miri believed that unless the system/structure changed, some people

would still be kept out.  Malcolm John remarked that more experienced charity chairs would be able to bring about diversity for a board of trustees with specific skills.   Dalton Leong added that mentoring and reverse mentoring were also brilliant and important ways to coach the new trustees. 

Shad Haibatan noted that there was an increasing trend for start-up charities to begin as a Community Interest Company (CIC) so that the trustees could get paid for doing the work.   While big charities did pay their chairs, the smaller ones were behind and something needed to be done to address the difficulty in trustee recruitment.  Jamie Hilton suggested upscaling and making the trustee role of interest to people who, through the training found the board more accessible without feeling stepping into the dark. Dalton Leong said that in addition to CIC, there was also Voluntary Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) which could receive income, not for profit, social sector and civic bodies etc. Shad noted that there were some charities who had a minority representation but were still marginalised.  The local authorities were expected to give policy advice to the sector and address the recruitment issues.

Councillor Rebecca Harvey (Cabinet Member for Social Inclusion and Community Safety) appreciated the work that had been doing by the guest speakers. Referring to previous request for recommending someone from her network as charity trustees, she was pleased to note that there were organisations set up for the purpose.  Echoing her views about networks, the Chair shared his experience of serving as a trustee for a charity board.  As there might be many other local charities experiencing the same situation, he considered it might be opportune to bring the discussions together and review how the local authority could support trustee diversity.

Councillor Miri asked about local authorities’ guidance or good practice guidelines, if any, for trustee diversity.  Jamie Hilton remarked that in theory, it was strategically helpful to have the guidance although they might already be out there.  However, with charity commissioning and campaigns launching by organisations like ATRD, things should be taken forward in partnership on a local level by appealing to the under-represented in the local community and understanding their concerns.  Shad Haibatan said the local authorities might consider giving support when necessary to guide the boards to become more dynamic whereby the trustees felt involved and would contribute to the charity in general. Malcolm John said the local authorities’ guide should be specific.

RESOLVED

That the Committee noted the report.