New governance arrangements for the History of Nursing Society
An update from Jane Clarke, Director of Governance Support at the RCN.
As you will be aware, RCN Council has been looking very closely at the way it works over the past year and has implemented what it is calling a new reporting and decision-making framework.
This is important because it will help Council ensure that its work programme and decision-making will be informed by members’ views.
The new framework is based on a scheme of delegation that clearly defines where decisions are made and it is supported by a forward-planning document which will set out the work programme of each governance committee for the year ahead.
This new way of working will ensure that members from all parts of the organisation will be informing Council and the Council committees about what their priorities are and what gaps there are in the work programme for the coming year. Members will also be able to see the work being carried out and how they can get involved, and know what decisions are being made, by whom and why.
In addition Council has made a number of changes to its governance structure to support this new way of working.
New committees
Council now has two Council committees reporting into it:
- Nursing Practice and Policy Committee (NPPC)
- Membership and Representation Committee (MRC).
These committees will quality assure all the work we carry out as a Royal College, professional membership organisation and as a trade union respectively.
Each committee has a number of governance groups reporting into it, providing the link between Council and the representative groups that make up the RCN. So there is a Forums Governance Group reporting into the NPPC that oversees the work of all 41 forums. A Trade Union Governance Group is in the process of being set up that will report into the MRC and co-ordinate the work of the UK committees.
Where the Society comes in
This year we are also setting up a Research and Development Governance Group that will report into the NPPC, overseeing all R&D activity in the RCN.
Both the History of Nursing Society and the Research Society will report into this new group. This will ensure the views and concerns of members involved in these areas are fed into the NPPC and, in turn, to Council.
The new Research and Development Governance Group is being set up as this newsletter goes to press. It will be meeting for the first time in mid-November to agree its terms of reference and objectives for the first year.
We will send further information to you as soon as it is finalised on how the group will be looking to work with the History of Nursing Society in the future, supporting the work you do.