Chair

Job Description

Adopted 18th July 2010

The role of Chair includes all the duties of a director.

The key responsibility of the Chair is to guide Autscape for the benefit of current and future beneficiaries by:

• providing effective leadership and ensuring that Autscape has a clear plan for the forthcoming year and beyond;
• being responsible for the performance of Autscape and for its “corporate” behaviour;
• ensuring that Autscape complies with all legal and regulatory requirements;
• acting to protect the long term financial stability of Autscape and ensuring the appropriate use of funds to fulfill current and future goals for the benefit of beneficiaries;
• ensuring that Autscape’s governance is of a high standard.

To fulfill this key responsibility the Chair is expected to¹:

• Articulate Autscape’s values;
• Work in partnership with other directors to ensure that Autscape is focused on achieving a clear plan agreed by the board and that all directors have a common understanding of their goals and responsibilities;
• Ensure that Autscape’s policies support the achievement of its objects;
• Review how Autscape can best pursue its objects;
• Make themselves aware of wider changes which might affect Autscape;
• Seek reports from other directors on progress in their areas of responsibility and to set overall objectives and priorities;
• Chair board meetings and general meetings;
• Act as an impartial mediator to resolve conflict and disagreements;
• Ensure that the fundamental values and guiding principles of Autscape are communicated and reflected throughout Autscape;
• Ensure that Autscape seeks and listens to the views of its beneficiaries;
• Encourage all directors and volunteers to develop their skills, review their own performance and receive feedback;
• Ensure that there are mechanisms in place to maintain good governance and for beneficiaries, directors and others to raise serious issues of concern;
• Be aware of, and to ensure the charity complies with, all legal, regulatory and statutory requirements;
• Maintain familiarity with the rules and constitution that govern Autscape, to ensure that Autscape complies with its governing documents and to review the Memorandum and Articles of Association and key policies regularly;
• Ensure levels of delegated authority are recorded in writing (for example by means of minutes, terms of reference for sub-committees and/or job descriptions for key roles) and to ensure that there are clear reporting procedures which are also recorded in writing and complied with;
• Ensure that major decisions are made and policies approved by the directors acting collectively;
• Ensure that Autscape has satisfactory financial procedures and record keeping;
• Ensure that the major risks to which the charity is exposed are reviewed annually and that systems have been established to mitigate or minimise these risks;
• Ensure that Autscape’s income is applied for the purposes set out in the governing document and for no other purpose, and with complete fairness between potential beneficiaries;
• Act reasonably, prudently and collectively in all matters relating to Autscape and always to act in the interests of Autscape;
• Be accountable for the solvency and continuing effectiveness of Autscape;
• Ensure that intangible assets such as organisational knowledge and expertise, intellectual property, Autscape’s good name and reputation etc are properly valued, utilised and safeguarded;
• Ensure that Autscape has a governance structure that is appropriate to a charity of its size/complexity, stage of development, and its charitable objects, and that enables the directors to fulfil their responsibilities;
• Reflect annually on the board’s performance and your own performance as chair;
• Ensure that the board has the skills required to govern Autscape well, and has access to relevant external professional advice and expertise.

Chair person specification

• Commitment to Autscape
• Willingness and ability to devote significantly more time and effort than a typical director
• Good working knowledge of Autscape
• Ability² to manage projects and to plan and organise work (or to ask for help to do so)
• Ability to prompt others with adequate tact
• Ability to act impartially when necessary
• Ability to lead others in collective working without unduly imposing their own perspective
• Willingness to accept the collective decisions of the board and act in good faith to fulfil them regardless of personal opinions
• Understanding of or willingness to learn the role of Chairing a meeting
• Knowledge of and/or willingness to learn about relevant requirements of company and charity law
• Ability to delegate tasks to others, support them and provide effective feedback without taking over
• Sufficient tact and diplomacy to be able to effectively manage conflict
• Directness and ability to adjust communication style to the needs of those communicated with
• Ability to maintain an overview of the organisation as a whole

It is also strongly desirable for the chair to have some prior experience of serving on the Autscape board before undertaking this role.

Footnotes

1. Specific tasks may be delegated by the chair to others but it remains the responsibility of the chair to oversee these areas.
2. It is recognised that an autistic person may well need support to achieve this but a potential chair will need to be confident of their ability to access suitable support reliably.