Government and NEDs Board Paper

24 June 2010 by Nicky Oppenheimer, Beverley Steel

Although NEDs have been sitting on Departmental Boards for at least a decade, the talented and experienced non-executives who have been attracted to the role have all too often found it difficult to make a real difference to the way Departments do business.

This Paper asserts that the complex decision-making matrix within which Whitehall Boards are located, the increasingly inter-Departmental nature of policy-making and the particularity of Departmental budgetary processes make the governance structure of Government Departments and their relationship to ultimate decision-making power fundamentally different from that of the companies from which the majority of NEDs are recruited. Lack of clarity over the role of Boards has hindered the development of a culture of effective non-executive challenge.

There is a need, as policy attempts to establish for NEDs a more central role in Departmental performance-management, to deepen understanding of the contribution of Boards and NEDs within each Department, to clarify the Board’s role in governance and strategic leadership and to formalise the relationship with Ministers which would lend greater confidence to Boards - and NEDs in particular - as they look to challenge “business as usual”.

View or download the Government and NEDs Board Paper