Making higher education boards more strategic: focusing on what matters most

Aaron Porter, Associate Director of Governance at Advance HE, reflects on the ‘Big Conversation’ event hosted by Advance HE and the Association of Heads of University Administration (AHUA) to highlight sector priorities for transforming governance.

Together with sector partners CUC, UUK, GuildHE, IHE and AHUA, we have begun a discussion about what elements of governance are working well and what could be improved as part of a new project, The Big Conversation: shaping the future of higher education.

In the first of our Big Conversation sessions, jointly hosted with AHUA, we engaged with Chairs, governors and governance professionals across the UK to examine whether higher education governing bodies are sufficiently strategic. We explored how boards can move beyond immediate operational concerns and focus on long-term, high-impact decision-making. 

This reflective blog sets out key insights and strategies that can help governing bodies enhance their approach in the context of increasing demands to become more strategic while balancing regulatory compliance and financial oversight.

Ensuring that strategy itself is strategic

A governing body’s ability to have meaningful strategic discussions is fundamentally tied to the quality of the institutional strategy itself. It will need to be contextualised to the circumstances of the institution. If the strategy is too generic or lacks clear, distinctive goals, board discussions can become vague or unfocused. To counter this, institutions should:

• develop a strategy with clear, measurable objectives aligned with institutional priorities. This may include some challenging discussions about priorities and dependencies.
• ensure clarity about what success looks like over what time period, eg key performance indicators (KPIs) are well-defined, relate to your mission and can be effectively monitored, or milestones over longer periods are clear.
• provide clear and concise reporting so that it is clear what is on track and what needs to be discussed or reviewed.
• regularly review and refine strategies to remain responsive to external changes and sector dynamics.

Prioritising strategic discussions in board meetings

Once the strategy is agreed, strategic discussions often take a backseat over immediate operational matters such as regulatory compliance and financial sustainability. To ensure that strategy remains central and the board is supported in their oversight of performance, governing bodies can:

• allocate dedicated time for strategic discussions at each meeting, potentially rotating through the key pillars of the institution’s strategy.
• break board meetings into smaller groups for focused discussions on specific strategic elements.
• ringfence time at the beginning of each meeting for strategic priorities before addressing routine governance matters.
• ensure there is clear separation between what is delegated to committees and that work by committees is not duplicated by the board.

It was reported that use is made of board away days for strategic deep dives which is positive, but we suggest that this time can be most usefully used for scenario planning, considering strategic options and the opportunity and risk being created by external factors. This is very different from robust oversight of the organisational strategy and performance which should be done regularly and if possible as part of every board meeting. 

Improving the management of board papers

Our ‘big conversation’ highlighted that the quality of board papers significantly influences the effectiveness of governance discussions. The tendency for papers to be overly academic in style should be resisted. Institutions should improve board papers by:

• implementing a more rigorous quality assurance process for individual papers and the pack as a whole before distribution. Empowering the Secretariat to go back to authors to improve their papers to meet the needs of the board.
• utilising cover sheets that clearly outline key discussion points, the input sought from the board (decision, debating options, noting etc.), and regulatory or financial implications and the link to the strategy. It was also noted that the cover sheet is an opportunity to note where the paper has previously been discussed to avoid duplication across the governance system.
• adopting a “main pack and appendix” approach – keeping the main board pack concise while offering supplementary details for those who seek more context.

Leveraging data for better decision-making

Reducing the traditional narrative-style reporting instead supplemented with more dynamic data visualisation tools to enhance decision-making and share information more effectively. This includes:

• using charts, tables and infographics to make complex information more digestible.
• developing interactive dashboards that allow governors to track key institutional performance indicators in real time.
• benchmarking institutional performance against comparable universities to provide context and actionable insights.

The conversation raised the issue of a lack of scenario planning in the sector, which is used regularly in other sectors to support longer term decision-making, that this approach is often quite different to conventional board discussions. 

Shifting from lagging to leading indicators

The conversation reflected that more work needs to be done in the sector around what good leading indicators are, the limitations around using lagging indicators or indicators which add little value to the boards’ understanding of strategic performance in the context of its role to ensure a sustainable organisation.

Many institutions primarily rely on lagging indicators – data that reflects past performance. While important, these do not provide a real-time view of challenges or opportunities. Institutions should:

• incorporate predictive analytics and leading indicators that provide foresight into potential risks and opportunities.
• use real-time data to facilitate early interventions and proactive decision-making.
• regularly assess which metrics provide the most valuable insights into future institutional performance.
• identify ways for the board to better understand how the external environment could impact the strategy with data, information and insights from experts.

Strengthening the governance-management boundary and supporting governors to add more value

Governance and management roles can sometimes become blurred, leading to unnecessary operational details being brought to the board. To address this, institutions should:

• clearly define and reinforce the distinction between governance (strategic oversight) and management (day-to-day operations).
• regularly check with governors to ensure they receive the right level of detail—neither too much nor too little.
• Adjust board materials based on feedback to maintain the right balance of strategic focus and operational awareness.
• Ensure that the scheme of delegations is comprehensive, beyond just financial delegations and uses an approach which distinguishes accountability from responsibility. This should clarify where the board is accountable, but the Executive is responsible.
• make best use of the diverse skills and experiences of the board by ensuring that the governing body and executive are aligned in what success looks like and educate board members about the internal and external environment so that they can contextualise risks to the strategy over the short, medium and long term.

Enhancing the relationship between regulators and institutions

Regulatory requirements can sometimes drive discussions that are more about compliance than strategic development. To mature the governance landscape, institutions and regulators should:

• foster open dialogue between providers and regulators to ensure that compliance processes do not detract from strategic priorities.
• advocate for a more risk-based outcome-based regulatory approach that all acknowledges institutional autonomy.
• a clearer demonstration and evolution from institutions to show how they are able to meet regulatory requirements and proactive mitigation against the challenges they are facing.

Looking ahead: a call for inclusive dialogue

By adopting these strategic approaches, governing bodies can ensure that their discussions are forward-looking, informed and focused on what matters most for the future of higher education institutions. The solutions that each institution pursue will not necessarily need to be contextualised, but they will share the need to be strategic, robust and evidence-led in common.

The conversation about making higher education governance more strategic is ongoing, and input from a wide range of stakeholders is crucial. The turnover in governing body membership and current turnover in staff levels in institutions adds a further challenge to what is already a system which is showing signs of stress impacting continuity, corporate memory and space for transformation. 

Nonetheless, there is also an appetite and willingness to improve and reform the governance across the sector, as our Big Conversation series demonstrates, and we invite higher education leaders, governors and governance professionals to join us in future discussions.