The NECPT Board

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The role of the NECPT board

The Board directs the affairs of NECPT. The Board’s responsibilities include:
1. Setting the strategic direction. Owning, supporting and demonstrating the mission, vision and values of NECPT;
2. Approval of key policies for the organisation expressed through the Corporate Plan;
3. Setting the financial framework through the Business Plan and Budget;
4. Ensuring there is a current strategy for identifying and managing risk and overseeing systems to give assurance about how these are managed;
5. Compliance with legal requirements and any regulatory obligations; and
6. Oversight and accountability for the performance of staff where employed or contractors and consultants engaged by NECPT.

Board Membership:
Characteristics, skills and experience

The Board has 10 members all of whom act in an independent capacity exercising judgment, skill and knowledge in furtherance of the interests of NECPT.

Trustees are appointed for a three year renewable term. There is currently no time limit on Trustee service. Some members are appointed from nominations received from the North East Child Poverty Commission (NECPC) with which NECPT has a close working partnership. These Trustees will always be in a minority of the NECPT Board constituting no more than 40 per cent of the membership.

As with other Trustees, nominees from NECPC use their independent judgment when dealing with NECPT matters. The Chair of NECPT Trustees will always be appointed as an Independent Member.

NECPT will recruit Trustees who are passionate about ending child poverty. This may involve career or personal experience and/or knowledge as well as a strong interest in the role of charitable and voluntary organisations. We also want to recruit a broad range of people and backgrounds. The following table summarises the additional characteristics, qualities and skills and competencies required:

Personal characteristics                        
Commitment to NECPT’s mission
Commitment to ending poverty
Knowledge of NECPT operations
Commitment to championing diversity                               
Sharing vision and values                    
Experience and skills                 
Wide range of knowledge of social and economic factors   
Operations and management
Financial literacy
Corporate effectiveness               
Strategic approach                            
Personal Competencies
Effective communication
Team and partnership working  
Customer focus  
Demonstrate responsibility    
Leadership  

How the board works?

At present NECPT does not employ staff. Trustees individually and collectively play a vital role in developing strategies and plans to fulfil our mission as well as enhancing what we can achieve through working with partners from the charity, voluntary and statutory sectors. This reinforces the importance of how collaborative working is an essential characteristic of the Trustee Board’s operations with a particular emphasis on:

Working as a team in the best interests of NECPT and its beneficiaries;

Supporting NECPT’s mission, vision and values and demonstrating them in practice;

Working by consensus with open discussion based on proper consideration of information and a commitment to the decisions taken by the Trustee Board as a whole;



Demonstrating public and private respect for each other as colleagues and behaving in the same way towards partners and contractors;

Respecting confidentiality of information where disclosure would adversely affect NECPT’s work or reputation.
 
Formal standards for the conduct of Trustee meetings are set out in the Constitution.

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