Governance actions

Governance actions

A governance action is a follow-up commitment from a board / committee meeting. “DSL to share Q3 safeguarding figures by 14 Nov”. “CFO to bring revised budget assumptions to Dec FGB”. “Headteacher to investigate the absence trend in KS3 boys”.

These actions tend to die in meeting minutes nobody re-reads. The governance actions module pulls them out into a tracked list with owners, due dates, and evidence of completion.

What an action carries

• Title — short, imperative (“DSL to share Q3 safeguarding figures”)
• Description — context if needed
• Source meeting — the meeting it came from (date + body)
• Owner — single accountable person
• Due date — when it’s expected to land
• Status — Open / In progress / Blocked / Complete / Cancelled
• Priority — Low / Medium / High / Critical

The cycle

1. Meeting happens — the clerk captures actions in real-time using the actions admin
2. Owners get notified — automatic email + dashboard surfacing
3. Owners work the actions — update status, add notes, attach evidence
4. Pre-next-meeting — clerk filters actions by due_before:next_meeting for the agenda
5. Next meeting — actions reviewed; completed ones marked Reported, outstanding carry forward

The blocked status is the failure mode to watch. Trusts where every action sits in “blocked” for six weeks have a culture problem, not a tracking problem. The dashboard surfaces overdue and critical items.

Source type

Actions record where they came from:

• Risk
• Control
• Policy
• Meeting
• Inspection
• Other

The source type feeds filtering and reporting — e.g. “all open actions arising from risks” — useful for the relevant committee chair.

Linking

Actions can link to:

• Risks that the action mitigates
• Projects that the action drives
• Policies that the action revises
• Compliance controls that the action evidences

Linking turns the action list into part of the broader governance picture rather than a standalone to-do.

Reporting

The actions report shows:

• Open vs completed by quarter
• Average time-to-completion by owner
• Actions overdue, by owner and committee
• Actions completed without evidence (a worrying number to track)

Surface the report to the relevant committee chair monthly. If they don’t read it, surface it to the chair of the Board.