Board meetings

Chair Job Description

Updated: Friday 16th July 2010

The role of Chair includes all the duties of a director.

The key responsibility of the Chair is to guide Autscape for the benefit of current and future beneficiaries by:

• providing effective leadership and ensuring that Autscape has a clear plan for the forthcoming year and beyond;
• being responsible for the performance of Autscape and for its “corporate” behaviour;
• ensuring that Autscape complies with all legal and regulatory requirements;
• acting to protect the long term financial stability of Autscape and ensuring the appropriate use of funds to fulfill current and future goals for the benefit of beneficiaries;
• ensuring that Autscape’s governance is of a high standard.

To fulfill this key responsibility the Chair is expected to¹:

• Articulate Autscape’s values;
• Work in partnership with other directors to ensure that Autscape is focused on achieving a clear plan agreed by the board and that all directors have a common understanding of their goals and responsibilities;
• Ensure that Autscape’s policies support the achievement of its objects;
• Review how Autscape can best pursue its objects;
• Make themselves aware of wider changes which might affect Autscape;
• Seek reports from other directors on progress in their areas of responsibility and to set overall objectives and priorities;
• Chair board meetings and general meetings;
• Act as an impartial mediator to resolve conflict and disagreements;
• Ensure that the fundamental values and guiding principles of Autscape are communicated and reflected throughout Autscape;
• Ensure that Autscape seeks and listens to the views of its beneficiaries;
• Encourage all directors and volunteers to develop their skills, review their own performance and receive feedback;
• Ensure that there are mechanisms in place to maintain good governance and for beneficiaries, directors and others to raise serious issues of concern;
• Be aware of, and to ensure the charity complies with, all legal, regulatory and statutory requirements;
• Maintain familiarity with the rules and constitution that govern Autscape, to ensure that Autscape complies with its governing documents and to review the
• Memorandum and Articles of Association and key policies regularly;
• Ensure levels of delegated authority are recorded in writing (for example by means of minutes, terms of reference for sub-committees and/or job descriptions for key roles) and to ensure that there are clear reporting procedures which are also recorded in writing and complied with;
• Ensure that major decisions are made and policies approved by the directors acting collectively;
• Ensure that Autscape has satisfactory financial procedures and record keeping;
• Ensure that the major risks to which the charity is exposed are reviewed annually and that systems have been established to mitigate or minimise these risks;
• Ensure that Autscape’s income is applied for the purposes set out in the governing document and for no other purpose, and with complete fairness between potential beneficiaries;
• Act reasonably, prudently and collectively in all matters relating to Autscape and always to act in the interests of Autscape;
• Be accountable for the solvency and continuing effectiveness of Autscape;
• Ensure that intangible assets such as organisational knowledge and expertise, intellectual property, Autscape’s good name and reputation etc are properly valued, utilised and safeguarded;
• Ensure that Autscape has a governance structure that is appropriate to a charity of its size/complexity, stage of development, and its charitable objects, and that enables the directors to fulfil their responsibilities;
• Reflect annually on the board’s performance and your own performance as chair;
• Ensure that the board has the skills required to govern Autscape well, and has access to relevant external professional advice and expertise.

Chair person specification

• Commitment to Autscape
• Willingness and ability to devote significantly more time and effort than a typical director
• Good working knowledge of Autscape
• Ability² to manage projects and to plan and organise work (or to ask for help
• to do so)
• Ability to prompt others with adequate tact
• Ability to act impartially when necessary
• Ability to lead others in collective working without unduly imposing their own perspective
• Willingness to accept the collective decisions of the board and act in good faith to fulfil them regardless of personal opinions
• Understanding of or willingness to learn the role of Chairing a meeting
• Knowledge of and/or willingness to learn about relevant requirements of company and charity law
• Ability to delegate tasks to others, support them and provide effective feedback without taking over
• Sufficient tact and diplomacy to be able to effectively manage conflict
• Directness and ability to adjust communication style to the needs of those communicated with
• Ability to maintain an overview of the organisation as a whole

It is also strongly desirable for the chair to have some prior experience of serving on the Autscape board before undertaking this role.

Footnotes

• 1. Specific tasks may be delegated by the chair to others but it remains the responsibility of the chair to oversee these areas.
• 2. It is recognised that an autistic person may well need support to achieve this but a potential chair will need to be confident of their ability to access suitable support reliably.