Considerations summary
- Have you openly discussed and agreed with partners the extent of your ambitions for collaboration now, and with a view to partners' appetite for the future?
- Have you agreed how to begin to develop and continue to work on establishing fruitful relationships between participating organisations' boards and wherever else relevant between employees?
- Have you discussed organisational risk profiles as partners and how risks to achieving the collaboration's objectives will be managed?
- Are your decisions about governance arrangements proportionate to risk and does 'form follow function'?
- Is any paperwork, whether legally binding or not, underpinning your collaboration clear and well-understood, where considered useful?
- Have you ensured any committees or groups formed are lawful?
- Are there clear terms of reference for any collaborative committees or groups and are all partners in agreement?
- Are partners clear about which functions and decisions are reserved to provider boards? Are those with delegated authority clear about its limits?
- Are partner boards clear about their oversight and assurance reporting requirements?
- Have you made risk-proportionate decisions about involving adequate NED representation to provide independent challenge and scrutiny at the point of decision-making?
- Are roles and responsibilities well understood?
- Are partners clear about each provider's individual and/or shared accountabilities and their liabilities?
- Are conflicts of interests managed effectively?
- Have partners' schemes of delegation been updated if necessary?