Stay on top of the Governance role

Monitoring and evaluation

Staying ‘on track’

A key aspect of the board’s stewardship responsibilities is to ensure the organisation’s performance is scrutinised and kept on track. Two principles apply to the board’s monitoring activities:

1. The board should only monitor against pre-established criteria.

“If the board hasn’t said how it ought to be done, it shouldn’t ask how it is.” – John Carver

2. The board should establish criteria for what it wants achieved. If this principle is not followed, monitoring is likely to be ad hoc, misdirected and unfair, all of which lead to lost time, staff confusion, inefficiency and a potentially adversarial board- chief executive relationship.