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Welcome to this winter edition of the Non-Executive Bulletin.  It is difficult to believe that already we have reached the seventh edition of our newsletter in this format.

Feedback on the bulletin remains positive but we are planning a more formal Satisfaction Survey of our range of activities in the near future and we will be seeking your detailed views as part of that exercise.  Meanwhile, we continue to keep you in touch with the latest news from the Department of Health, as well as our activities on your behalf.

As usual around this time of the year the press have been predicting financial shortfalls within the NHS.  What gives these articles particular weight this year is, of course, the speculation about a general election and the enormous amount of extra money committed to the NHS.  I have read that the department is confident that the final outcome will be satisfactory, but in saying that they have turned the spotlight onto the financial competence of boards.  You should need no reminding that financial prudence is one of the most important of a board's core responsibilities. We have endeavoured to raise the level of financial literacy through training courses we have provided in collaboration with the HfMA on NHS finance and audit and I would urge you to attend one of these courses if you have not done so already. 

However, I know as well as you that balancing the bottom line requires hard decisions and is extremely difficult where different targets compete for attention.  Nevertheless, there is now evidence that effective boards can meet both operational and financial targets which means that meeting your targets is not a valid excuse for overspending your budget.

We feature in this bulletin, the address given by Sir Nigel Crisp to the The Importance of Boards conference on 16 February.  Sir Nigel was very complimentary about the chair and non-executive community but equally forthright about the responsibilities facing boards for improving outcomes and driving forward change.

Talking of board performance reminds me that we are entering the season of Personal Performance Review.  By the time you read this bulletin you should have received your own copy of the appraisal pack, which can also be downloaded from our website www.appointments.org.uk.  You will notice that, in response to your comments, the forms for 2005/6 have been streamlined compared with 2004/5 but are otherwise essentially the same.  However, we have introduced a competency assessment tool which we believe may be useful.  Its use is optional but may be helpful to reviewers who are keen to maximise an individual's contribution.  I will be interested to learn how useful it proves to be in practice.

Several of you have asked about progress with the 360° appraisal tool for chairs.  The intention is that chairs will be able to get a confidential view of how they are perceived by their board members.  We had hoped to have this available by now but the first version proved to be excessively complex and we had to review it completely.  Jay Bevington of the Board Support Team has been working on a new version which is currently out to early pilot.  I am optimistic that it will be available in the next few months.

The outcome from the annual appraisal is, of course, one of the factors that we take into account when considering whether an individual should be reappointed.  However, it is only one factor amongst several others.  We are particularly concerned at the moment about the mix of skills on a board.  For example, where a board lacks a non-executive with the financial skills needed to serve as an Audit Committee chair we may need to prioritise that recruitment above the reappointment of a serving non-executive.  However, we try to be completely open with people in these circumstances.

Those of you who were at the conference on 16 February will have heard me talk about the 'football manager syndrome', where the knee-jerk reaction to poor team performance is to sack the manager.  I stressed that I never want us to get into that mind-set for chairs and non-executives.  Running an NHS board is a difficult task and if we are to modernise the NHS then risks will need to be taken, not all of which will pay off.  Things will go wrong and provided that boards have governed with integrity, with competence and with a full awareness of what is wrong coupled with a determination to put it right, they should be entitled to feel some security in their term of office.

However, my provisos are important ones and unfortunately there have been a number of well documented cases where the Commission has been forced to take the view that a board has needed a change.  Happily these occasions are rare and I hope will so remain.

The emphasis on good governance, which the Commission has been promoting to NHS boards over the past two years, is a common theme across the public service.  We were pleased to be asked to contribute to the work of Sir Alan Langlands and his Independent Commission, working under the aegis of the Office of Public Management, with the remit to review public governance.  They have now produced Good Governance Standard for Public Services (available on www.opm.co.uk/ICGGPS ) which sets out six principles of good governance for public service organisations.  It is very relevant to our own work but NHS organisations who have been following the principles in Governing the NHS should find that they already meet the six standards.

I have written before about the many additional duties imposed on non-executives from the centre, most of which are quite inappropriate for non-executives.  From my post bag the Counter Fraud responsibility clearly (and quite rightly) raised concerns but another one has been brought to my attention - a Design champion!

Once again we will discuss this with the Department on your behalf - in my view it is quite wrong to expect non-executives to divert their time and attention to these other duties which should be the responsibility of the whole board or that of management.

On our own home front, I am sorry to announce that Jane Kelly has resigned as the Regional Commissioner for London.  Jane was appointed in November 2003 but before that had been involved with the NHS in London as a chair since 1992.  Jane has left to concentrate on her own management consultancy.  We thank her for her enormous contribution to the NHS in London and for her work with the Commission.  We are presently recruiting her successor.

Also announcing her resignation as chair of the Commission's BME Advisory Group is Najma Hafeez.  Najma has been chair of the Commission's Advisory Group since its establishment in 2002 and we would like to thank her for her leadership of the Group and for the support that she has given the Commission.  Najma remains a member of the Advisory Group and continues in her role as chair of Sandwell & West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust.

Congratulations are due to William Thomas OBE, non-executive of Sandwell & West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust for his recognition in the New Year Honours List for services to the NHS.

And finally, I hope you enjoy this bulletin and more importantly, continue to find fulfilment in your contribution to our NHS.

You can write to me at WW.Bulletin@apcomm.nhs.uk

Sir William Wells, chairman