The Board of a housing association sets standards of leadership and control and helps define the values of the organisation. It is a group of senior and experienced people who scrutinise, and where necessary challenge, how the organisation is run. It provides robust oversight of measures to keep residents, other customers and colleagues safe, whilst exerting a firm grip of risks facing the organisation.
Our Board includes both non-Executive Directors (NEDs) and Executive Directors. NEDs offer external perspective and strategic insight without being directly involved in operational decisions. Executive Directors lead the Onward Executive Team and run the business on a day to day basis. Including both kinds of Director on the Board enables us to have the best quality conversations about how well the business is being run.
The Onward Board has five committees and all Board members are also a member of at least one of them. Committees give Board members the time and space to consider important items in more detail. Our Board committees cover:
- Audit & Risk Committee
- Customer Committee
- Governance & People Committee
- Property & Development Committee
- Treasury & Finance Committee
The views and needs of our residents and other customers are at the heart of our strategic decision-making. Recommendations and ideas from the Onward Scrutiny Board and other customer involvement forums feed directly into discussion at Board and Executive level. You can find out more here.
Onward is committed to maintaining high standards of probity and governance. To support this and to ensure we deliver our regulatory responsibilities our Board members complete a declaration of interests annually.
Details of Board members interests can be found here.
Any potential conflicts of interest are managed within our established governance framework as follows:
- Board members complete an annual declaration of interests and notify any changes as they arise
- Potential conflicts of interest are declared by Board members at the start of each Board and Committee meeting and are recorded in the minutes
- Board members are excluded from discussion and decision making where it is considered that any external interests may impact the outcome.
Our Code of Governance can be found here.
Find out more about the people who make us tick.