Governance

What is governance?

Governance is concerned with accountability and responsibilities; it describes how the organisation is directed and controlled. In particular, governance is concerned with:

• organisation - the organisational units and structures, groupings, and co-ordinating mechanisms (such as steering groups) established within the organisation and in partnership with external bodies, for the management of change

• management - the roles and responsibilities established to manage business change and operational services, and the scope of the power and authority which they exercise

• policies - the frameworks and boundaries established for making decisions about investment in business change, and the context and constraints within which decisions are taken.

 

Why is it important?

New service delivery models, where the citizen drives interaction with government, mean that you must be able to exploit new ways of working effectively. You must be able to coordinate service delivery, possibly from a number of partners and providers, to achieve a seamless range of services from your customers' perspective. Figure 1 shows typical interfaces between the customer, your organisation and providers; you will need a governance framework to address all these interfaces.

Key factors for success

The governance arrangements in the organisation must deal with issues such as:

• the establishment and operation of best practice for the allocation and management of information and physical/human resources

• the distribution of organisational responsibilities for managing change, and the relevant decision-making processes

• the policies, procedures and practices implemented to ensure that the organisation derives maximum business benefit from its investments in business change

• meeting requirements for the effectiveness, efficiency, confidentiality, integrity, availability, compliance and reliability of its information and information-based services

• the implementation of effective standards and controls for the design, development, implementation, maintenance, use, acquisition and management of services and assets to support new ways of working.

Figure 1: Governance interfaces

Who is responsible for governance of business change and operational services?

Who makes the decisions about defining strategy, establishing objectives, prioritising developments, allocating resources, and monitoring results in relation to service delivery - and within what decision-making framework?

Governance of business change and operational services is a concern of senior business management, in the same way as governance of finance and other resources. Management will want to ensure that this aspect of governance fits coherently with the wider governance of the organisation and its business activities as a whole.

Principles

Your arrangements for governance will form an integral part of the wider arrangements for the organisation, management and policies of the business as a whole; governance will need to be consistent with the wider governance issues in the organisation.

Governance will be influenced by a range of requirements and constraints arising from:

• external factors - these are outside the organisation's direct control, and that have to be considered by every organisation. Typically they arise from the legal, commercial and technological environments within which the organisation operates

• sector-specific factors, such as within central government, new targets for electronic delivery of government services

• within your organisation, the wider set of governance arrangements for the business as a whole.

The governance framework

When putting together your governance framework, you will need to consider:

• the nature of relationships with partners and providers

• the structure of the organisation - for example, federal or highly centralised

• the nature of the organisation's business - such as policy work or operations

• the range of business functions undertaken, and the commonalities between them

• the requirements for communication and data sharing across the business functions of the organisation and its partners

• the distribution of authority and the extent of local autonomy

• the power and authority of central units

• the procedures and responsibilities for business planning and defining business strategy

• the geographic distribution of organisational units, business functions and facilities such as IT

• the existence of corporate-wide policies, such as for purchasing and procurement

• the role and authority of cross-divisional structures (for example, steering groups) in the organisation and its partners

• the extent to which standards are enforced across the organisation

• the extent to which work processes are common across the organisation

• requirements for security

• internal control policies.

You may also need to address the issues of governance in a multi-organisation environment.

You will probably have a number of strategies, defined for various domains and at various levels. The organisation as a whole, for example, may have separate (but related) strategies for finance, human resources, workspace, information systems and technology. These 'functional' strategies will be brought together at the level of a 'corporate' strategy which will ensure consistency where required.

Policies

Governance related policies specify and document a rule or set of rules that govern the provision of services and related assets through their stages of identification, planning, development, implementation, operation and review.

The issues for which policies may be required can be classified broadly into Management and Technical categories:

• management - targeted at those responsible for management of the business strategy, and any 'intelligent customer' function. Management-oriented policies are typically linked to procedures

• technical - targeted at those responsible for the implementation of operational and workspace services, typically a combination of internal staff and external providers. Technically-oriented policies generally link to standards.

Quality management is an organisational imperative, including formulation of the organisational quality policy and development of the quality system.

When defining and implementing policies consider the needs and effects on:

• people - who use or have a responsibility for implementing the services

• financial requirements and obligations - for the costs and benefits of investment in business change to the business

• organisational structure - with, perhaps, distributed skills and responsibilities for business and supporting strategies

• workspace

• information - requiring consistent format, content and access within the organisation and across its customer and supplier base

• information system(s) - by which the business applications capture, store, process and disseminate their information

• technology - architecture of current and planned IT systems and services designed to meet the IS requirements.

 

Topics for policies

Policies can be regarded as either 'enabling' or 'restraining'. Enabling policies are those which aim to support, promote and encourage the deployment of effective information systems and services. Restraining policies are those which aim to control or constrain development activities in the various parts of the organisation, either for their own good or for the greater good of the organisation as a whole.

Examples of areas where the organisation may need to introduce enabling policies are:

• central provision and allocation of resources, such as equipment, technical staff, software and services

• arrangements with suppliers, procurement procedures and contractual terms

• the role of providers in the provision of support and training, and user documentation

• the provision of common services, such as generic application systems to meet common requirements, to all parts of the organisation

• procedures for prioritisation of developments, the planning of a phased introduction of facilities to the organisation, and the implementation of pilot projects where relevant

• the use of external services, such as consultants, database services and maintenance services

• policies for provision and monitoring of ergonomic aspects of workspace management

• procedures for project management, such as use of the PRINCE2 methodology.

Examples of areas where the organisation may need to introduce restraining policies are:

• health and safety requirements

• requirements for compatibility and conformance with standards and guidelines on selection and use of technical components

• definition of procedures for disaster recovery and business continuity

• standards and procedures for identifying, validating, storing and accessing shared information at work-group, business function or corporate level

• operating procedures for users of desktop facilities, including policies on local purchase and import of software, and exchange of data media.

 

Further information:

See Strategic Management workbook (PDF) for a more detailed step-by-step approach to strategic management.

See the description of a governance framework and also the governance checklist

See also the briefing in strategic management, the NAO's report on a joined up working at http://www.nao.gov.uk/, guidance on managing business and IT strategies.

For construction projects, where team working and integration requires particular attention, see Achieving Excellence Guides.