McNulty controversy highlights need to change board appointment system

Opinion: Why we should follow Northern Ireland when it comes to cultural institutions

Recent controversy about an appointment to the Imma board focuses attention on the governance of our national cultural institutions (NCIs). Governance is what boards do (or are supposed to do), while scholarly/cultural management and administration are what the professionals do.

The recent debacle tends to confirm the suspicion which many of my colleagues hold that there is scant respect for our national cultural institutions in official circles and little understanding of the important role they can play in our cultural, social and economic life.

Board members must understand and care for the purposes of institutions such as the National Gallery, Library and Museum and IMMA. Some of a board’s members must have strong cultural credentials and it is essential for them all collectively to bring skills and knowledge that the institution may not have or which it does not outsource.

Managerial, financial and legal savvy are valuable but boards should not shadow in detail what the experts provide and certainly should not micromanage the staff. A board should provide wisdom and critique.

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Boards determine strategic plans and major policies. Boards take all the big strategic investment decisions and require from the executive the necessary briefings. The executive should constantly draw opportunities and necessities to the attention of the board. It should also propose policies . The research and development process should be led by the CEO (in NCIs usually called the director), but the board decides. Boards should regularly review their institution’s performance.

A good board brings knowledge of how things are done in government and business. Members of boards are normally individuals of distinction in their fields and have the contacts and the ability to open doors for the institutions in their care. It is especially important that the chair should be the kind of person to command the attention of ministers, patrons, business leaders, and senior public servants.

The relationship between the board and senior management should be supportive but with clear distinctions between roles. Boards are corporate bodies and board authority does not vest in an individual member so between meetings that relationship is mediated by the chair working with the CEO and providing counsel on behalf of the board when necessary.

The guidelines for commercial semi-state bodies which are subject to detailed ministerial direction, have been used in the past as indicative guidance for boards of NCIs. They are not appropriate. What is needed are guidelines which are sensitive to the nuances of cultural management and the occasional duty of boards to oppose government.

A more open appointing system has been promised and the Government could do no better than to learn from the rigorous procedures used in Northern Ireland for appointments to the boards of cultural institutions. There, applicants are interviewed and scored against clearly stated criteria which include knowledge of, and interest in, the fields in which the institution operates and also of the principles which underpin public service. The names of qualifiying candidates are presented in an unranked list to the Minister, who then makes the appointments. This impressive system works well.

Michael Ryan is a former director of the Chester Beatty Library and past-president of the Royal Irish Academy.