A recent self-evaluation exercise by Otago Museum Trust Board members shows strong support for board chairman Graham Crombie but also highlights room for improvement in other key areas.
All board members surveyed either strongly agreed (89%) or agreed (11%) the chairman brought "a strategic perspective" to the board and viewed decisions in a "broader strategic context".
In the study, board members were asked to respond to a written survey and their disagreement or agreement with survey statements was ranked on a scale of one to five.
Mr Crombie gained consistently high scores on whether he took "prompt action to address barriers to the effective working" of the museum (average 4.7), and effectively led and chaired board meetings to ensure a focus on both "performance and conformance" with requisite standards (4.4). Board member comments included talk of a "breath of new leadership" and "very professional".
Areas of overall strength in the board were identified as including "the mix of skills, experience and knowledge on the board", and progress towards implementing the strategic plan.
Areas of perceived weakness included appropriate levels of delegation to management, measuring the annual objectives of the chief executive officer, and use of performance indicators to monitor the performance of management, the report noted.
Some members commented they had a "lack of financial understanding", and another said the accounts were "more confusing than they should be".
In commenting on board functions, some members acknowledged this was a new board and "we are finding our way" and that "most trustees are still growing into the role".
However, some trustees were "overconfident they were already effective", and institutional knowledge was "sadly lacking" in some cases.
Many board trustees were "neutral"over the quality of management information they were provided, and there were "concerns with the content and timing of management information", the report noted.
Some board members commented on what one termed the "difficult" timing of the arrival of board papers before meetings.
Although board members were often given a weekend to digest the contents, there was "a huge amount of reading" and it was "often difficult to assimilate all the information".
Another board member said papers sometimes arrived one day before meetings.
