Discussion / Briefing Paper by John Crampton, Chair CoSEP

The Governance Review has been on the agenda for at least 18 months. The main publication for review in this process is the “Generic Rules for Colleges”, last ammended at the APS AGM in 2019.

This document is the “bible” that the Member Groups section operate to. Member Groups is a small team of full-time APS staff who are charged with liaison with the many sub-groups of APS Members (see introduction to this page). Any enquiries about procedures or operational plans are referred to the various sub-sections of this document.

APS CEO Zena Burgess’s position from the beginning of her time in the chair has been that there are too many sub-groups in the APS. Zena makes the point repeatedly that none of these groups are separate business entities. These groups are the divisions, colleges, and interest groups. 

As the sub-groups are not business entities, none of them require formal structuring, the production of formal reports, high-end budget management, published operational plans, or the like. Interestingly, the comment has been made that there is around $2m sitting on the APS books notionally allocated to sub-groups (courtesy of annual allocations, the balance representing unspent funds).

One example a bit too close to home, is that the NSW State Section of CoSEP (defunct & inoperative for last at least the last 24 mths) has $11k allocated to it. If a State Section would like to reform, there are significant operating funds available - unless the APS has already other plans to use them.

The Generic Rules could be said to suit another age of APS operations. I am sure that many former Chairs will have stories about the expectations that were put upon them to operate according to “APS practice”. These practices included a far too onerous set of operating procedures / expectations for a group of volunteers already committed to other major responsibilities (practice, family, etc).

In fact, the Generic Rules and associated practices could be identified as a major source of burn-out for volunteers. This is particularly so in a small College like CoSEP (just over 100 full members).. It may also be the case that these expectations are a source of the “why bother” lack of engagement from the membership in general. What is the relevance of a representative body that spends so much time getting procedures right?

There is a major mismatch between what the Generic Rules require and what Zena is now expecting of Colleges. She has on several occasions stated that there is no need for annual reports, no need for minutes of meetings, no need for advanced operational plans - because no one reads them / looks to act on them. The reports do not make it to Board level. The issues contained have no forum to listen and potentially act on.

In this review we have to consider at least one elephant in the room: the paltry 12c in every $ returned to Colleges from the $100 per member annual fee. Zena’s position in the recent AGM q&a session was that this figure is justified against the expenses involved in providing services to the colleges. By this I would suggest that we read “staff costs”. Colleges will be discussing whether they get the equivalent of 88c x their membership in staff time / quick responses from member groups.

From CoSEP’s position, I have a request for update of records / distribution of Fellow Pins that is over a year in waiting. If I request assistance in planning the AGM, I get a list of things that the College is responsible to do – a subset of the Generic Rules document.

It has to be said that the concept of contemporary “customer service”  has not reached Member Groups, largely because of the existence of the Generic Rules. There is a mismatch between Zena’s contemporary view of college operations and the requirements of the Generic Rules document.

There is another elephant. This one relates to the “digital transformation” of the APS. The evolution of the APS website seems to have forgotten the colleges site at present. This is an archaic bit of technology that I refuse to use – hence this CoSEP CommsHub. The Generic Rules cover the access & use of the College pages. Most of the Colleges use an alternative way of communicating with their members. Inluded in this same discussion is the bulk email system.  

Another reform to college ops that has been on the table since Feb 20 is the APS Communities initiative. The Communities Package involves software that is to be added to the web site to facilitate communications between the APS and its members, members and their subgroups, members and members, etc.
It is a very valuable and promising concept that

• removes the need for separate college websites 

• facilitates small group through to whole of society comms 

• has been poorly marketed as facilitating big data value to APS mgt 

• involves a contemporary set of digital services that facilitate community building

There are several additional questions worth considering in this review of college operations:

• which communities do members most relate to? 

• are there communities within the APS interest groups, colleges, divisions that members might relate to better once the walls of formal meetings come down? 

• do we want to break down traditional formal sub groupings with initiatives such as the APS communities package? 

• do we need to retain such positions a secretary, treasurer, newsletter editor when the communities package will more effectively facilitate member comms, and more so when the reality of non-entity status hits home? 

• consider the duplication of efforts in financial mgt (eg accounts payable, reporting by state sections with multiple lines break up, etc - is there a better way?

In considering the current positions on the national committee (and state & regional sections)

• do we really need a secretary? 

• should tertiary education liaison be a role of the paid APS staff? 

• should we add new role of “communities builder”? 

• should there be a communications mgr (participating in communities package in conjunction with other sub-groups reps) 

• should we be appointing a group of Project Managers - AGM, Ann Conf, International Liaison, etc 

• promotion & marketing - what autonomy / local agendas should the colleges be allowed to have? 

• media liaison - again, what local agendas should the colleges have?

Governance review is all about how we do things. There are many traditional practices linked to the Colleges and the Generic Rules that are outdated. There is a need for some fresh thinking to re-energise long lost members (burnt out by expectations, see little relevance in formalities, don’t see relevance in current offerings as a valuable service in return for membership fees).

This thinking should include overall questions about

• what the college should be doing to service their members, value add to membership fees vs the set of services APS staff are offering to entire society 

• colleges retaining identity & operational independence vs agendas being set by overall APS section managers 

• financial autonomy, distribution of sub-group member subs - should colleges operate independently - (we have already heard Zena’s current position: colleges are free to apply for project funds). - If this is the future, will we need to add volunteers to write project funding proposals for submissions to the APS funding source?

The evolution from society to corporate operations is fraught with attitude change issues that have been necessary for a long time, operational practices that can be significantly streamlined & improved while not losing local agenda control, the modernisation of comms systems (already 10 years late), the review of expectations put upon members, perceived return on investment (services for annual fees), what membership actually means / entails

The Generic Rules have already been made redundant by a number of CEO comments (eg no need for formal reports from sub-groups, make submission for project funds), yet member groups still work to it. This review is timely, although change can have many growing pains.

I welcome your comments on these issues , and any of the issues raised in Zena’s document.

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Reply to the bulk email you have received if you would like to comment on this review. If there is sufficient interest we will create a forum on this site for members to discuss some of these issues.

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JC

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