Housing Associations are governed by a group of individuals, known by various titles such as governing committees, board of governors, boards of directors, management committees and council. In this essay they shall be addressed as ‘the board of directors’ or ‘the board’ for short. The overall role of the board is to direct the organisation. The Board is responsible for ‘Strategy formulation, policymaking, supervision of executive management and accountability to shareholders. (Tricker 2012) The average Housing Association board in Northern Ireland is made up of 11 board members. (Shanks & Mullins, 2015) Historical, when it came to board composition, the main concern was having an appropriate balance of executive and non-executive board members and also ensuring that board members had the skills, experience, independence and knowledge to enable them to perform their responsibilities effectively. (ICAEW) However this emphasis has shifted and it is now argued that in order for boards to be more effective and make better decisions, there must be more board diversity. The need for diversity has …show more content…
Boards can be diverse Not only in terms of gender, age and ethnicity but also a group with diverse perspectives. Russell (2015) states that ‘it is the breadth of perspective, not the mere inclusion of various diverse traits that benefits the organisation’. CIH also take this view in their CIH 2020 Challenge Report where it states: A diverse leadership should reflect the full spectrum of communities and customers we work with, offering a mixed representation of skills, backgrounds, options, culture, experiences, goals, perspectives, life experiences, ages, styles, enthusiasms, education, ethnicities, gender, sexual orientation, physical and mental