Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

Not in the US...

I tend to agree with @DaveE that the real issue is about the number of active members and therefore the pool to select from. It's an indicator of organisational health, but not the only one - and the fact that the passing of the chair is a cause for unease suggests an environment where succession hadn't been enough of a consideration for too long.

 

I can remember a time not so long ago the L&B Trust were touch and go on being a legally functioning board due to no candidates coming forward.

With an organisation with so many options, so many ways forward, the pit falls, the authorities to deal with, HSE, HOPs, ORR, etc etc, also so many opinions, so much conflict and at times accusations etc thrown around, all makes finding those who are willing to be trustees infinitely harder and has done for quite some time. No one is going to want to step into what is essentially a war zone and on a voluntary basis with demands being made from all directions.

 

I get the point about regulatory requirements but this serving trustee notes that conflict is not necessarily a part of trusteeship - and may reflect more upon the trustee than the membership.

 

I'm not saying necessarily a trustee causing conflict, it can be from external influences.

 

I didn't say it was or wasn't in this case. Merely that in my experience conflict is caused by leaders far more often than by external influences - and that identifying a resolution for conflict generally lies closer rather than further from home.

 

I think boards which place too much reliance on one person, usually the Chairman, wielding all the power have even more of a problem. It can lead to the Chairman believing the railway can’t function without him. Or worse, the board believing they can’t function without him. Or worst of all, significant elements of the membership believing they can’t function without him.

One organisation I’m involved in has a board where several have been involved for decades- and several newcomers. In recent years Chairmen have tended to serve 4-5 years and then hand over to the next one whilst often remaining on board a while longer. I think that’s a healthy mix.

The Chairman should always be the figurehead but never the be-all and end-all. Boards should always be looking for new blood and potential new leadership.

 

Why have a Trustee that needs to be compliant with HSE/HOP/ORR? Would it not be possible to appoint a member to act as a trust advisor in these areas, thus leaving the trustees to act in an honest oversight role, it would still be possible to have separate Trustee meetings where the Trustees receive reports from the various managers (or Secretaries as we do now with the membership secretary who is not a trustee but still reports to the trust board).

If you are worried that you would end up with too many people at a meeting, I think it would be possible to have part of the meeting where the trustees receive reports and can ask questions of the advisors and then, after a break, have a second, closed trustee meeting where discussion and voting can take place.

I do realise that the buck will always stop with the trustees, but with this method, it would not put people off from becoming trustees if they knew in advance that the board had several appointed specialist advisors.

At the end of the day, it will be down to the Trustees to decide the make-up of the Management structure and how best it would operate for them.

If you are worried about how long such a meeting would last, the ideal would be four times per year

 

yes I have

 

I think that's the big thing, the buck stops with the trustees. Although you can delegate, with some things you have to make sure things are absolutely right, the survival of the organisation could depend on it. How far do you trust someone to ensure all is complied with, how far do you trust them if it could mean you get personally prosecuted if things go wrong? We have a fantastic GM, Stuart, and I trust him totally, but it doesn't hurt to have a trustee who double checks where HSE, ORR and other authorities are involved and in many ways it shows the Trust and organisation as a whole takes safety etc seriously.

 

I don't disagree, but just how often do trustees turn up at Woody Bay to work? Having a regular volunteer who not only works on the railway but also sees the issues first-hand can make recommendations to the Board from a practical point of view.

 

We are a small charity, it is recognised by the Charity Commission that it can be extremely difficult for small charities, any small charity, to find trustees. This isn't unique to the L&B. We have been over this before in this thread.

 

At least two directors are at Woody Bay regularly. More if you include the CIC directors.

 

Sorry, I simply don't accept that logic. The role of a director or trustee is to be accountable* for ensuring that the right things are done. They need to do that by ensuring that the right people and processes are in place, not by second guessing the professionals they appoint.

For context, I'm a school governor and as such legally accountable for how the school handles safeguarding. While one of my colleagues is the safeguarding link governor and will see some detail of the processes at work as part of a periodic assurance activity, we are not legally allowed to get close enough to the detail to get to whether the details are being handled right. That's an onerous accountability, and if it goes wrong, a lot rides on it - potentially including my reputation in the community. And like I suspect almost every school in the country, there are children with active social services involvement in their lives.

* - NB, I'm using "accountable" and "responsible" in the sense of the RACI model - "accountable" is the single person whose job it is to make sure the thing happens; "responsible" is the person who actually does the task. In these terms, trustees are accountable in law.

 

Compliance to operational standards and requirements has nothing to do with the Trust*. The CIC board should own the SMS and the governance around ensuring that the GM and management maintain a compliant system. The Trust safety agenda should be limited to receiving a report on a periodic basis from the CIC demonstrating that they have things under control.

The CIC board should absolutely be checking that the management team led by the GM are doing the right things to maintain compliance. In a well functioning system you check metrics like the number of incidents and near misses with the more important ones being reported in detail to the board. However, the board responsibility is to ensure there is a system, not to write, maintain or manage that system.

*I note that there has been, perhaps continues to be, a situation where the SMS is owned not by the organisation charged with running the operating railway, but the Trust. This is a highly undesirable situation that dilutes the whole system.

 

Safety management by hearsay? Cutting out the chain of management to go from “shop floor” to board decision? Neither is a recipe for a well regulated SMS

 

Tbh, where health and safety is concerned we should all be watching out for each other. Stuart does his job well and I'm sure they are all keen to make sure the railway is as complaint as possible and as safe as possible.

 

Every employee (which means anyone working or volunteering) for the railway certainly has that duty. I was talking about how safety is managed and assured, which is a bit different.

 

That's true in an informal sense, but at a formal level, the railway will have a Safety Management System; and the accountability and responsibility are defined within that - and are separate functions. Typically the role of the board is not to manage the safety process directly; it is to assure itself that a suitable safety management system is in place, is being followed, and on the basis of evidence to look for gaps where it might be improved.

Tom

 

Care to share that information?