The National Council is the Society’s sovereign body responsible for implementing and monitoring policies of the Society, approving and monitoring the strategic plan and Activity Group plans, overseeing / scrutinising the activities of the Society and able to delegate powers to Regions and Activity Groups with reserve powers to overturn executive decisions in exceptional circumstances.

The NC is the company board and members are the directors of the company, with all but the chief executive and finance director being nonexecutive directors. The NC is accountable to the members through a general meeting for the overall sound operation of the society. Nonexecutive directors who are representing the interests of a group will be individually accountable to that group.

The National Council (NC) membership comprises the President (who chairs), the vice presidents and past president, the chair (or other nominee) of each region and the chair (or other nominee) of each activity stream designated as an having a representative, representatives of affiliate, associate, retired and subscriber members and of fire and police members plus the chief executive and the finance director.

TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR NATIONAL COUNCIL OF SOCITM LIMITED

Last confirmed at the AGM 27 April 2006

The main responsibilities of the NC are the development of policy and strategy and the monitoring of how well these are realised. This will be primarily be achieved by:

• the development of the overall strategy of the Society for subsequent consideration at a general meeting;
• the establishment of the annual business plan for the Society, incorporating and coordinating the business plans of individual activity streams;
• holding the chief executive accountable for the delivery of business plan targets; and
• commissioning ad hoc strategic reviews as required.

The NC has 3 scheduled meetings per year:  March to consider issues to put before the AGM, September to review the implementation of that year’s business plan and to scope the following year’s plan and December to approve the business plan for the next year.  Arrangements for the calling of special meetings will remain for use as required.

The NC is the company board and members need to be prepared to be directors of the company, with all but the chief executive and finance director being non-executive directors. The NC is accountable to the members through annual and extraordinary meetings for the overall sound operation of the society. Non-executive directors who are representing the interests of a group will be individually accountable to that group.

The NC has 2 sub-committees to whom specific business is delegated:

Planning & Urgency Group

• agenda planning and review;
• scheduling meetings (taking into account the needs of the Remuneration, Audit and Scrutiny Committee (see further below), business planning timetable & AGM)
• routine monitoring of the financial position before NC meetings (RAS as below being mainly responsible for financial matters);
• monitoring of projects and initiatives;
• consultation with executive officers on general and operational matters;
• delegation to deal with matters of urgency that arise between National Council meetings.

Audit, Scrutiny & Performance Group

• developing financial policy and strategy for subsequent consideration by NC;
• budget monitoring, variation requests and reporting to the NC
• agreeing the annual business plan format and overseeing the production of the plans;
• monitoring performance and reporting summaries and exceptions to the NC
• dealing with scrutiny referrals from the NC
• overseeing contracts
• developing policy on remuneration for the NC and dealing with remuneration matters
• performance management of executive officers (ex-officer roles as originally above).