Governance: Managing your alliance
Roadmap stop 10
While alliance formats will vary, establishing where your alliance sits within reporting structures is key to ensuring it delivers on actions and has a direct route to report on progress.
Accountability is also important for improving engagement of partners. Ensuring minutes and records of meetings are circulated and kept up-to-date will help to ensure actions are delivered and partners know what they’re expected to report on at subsequent meetings.
Good governance should also include evaluating new activity or projects. This can demonstrate effectiveness, helping with sustainability, giving you a basis for reporting leaders and add to the evidence base around effective tobacco control interventions.
Having terms of reference, a strategy/action plan which set out targets and a clear framework for reporting against these are key components to effectively governing your alliance. Check out our Monitoring and Evaluation section to see how areas are doing this.
Reporting structures
Depending on the footprint of your alliance the organisations and boards it reports into will vary.
Different structures your alliance may want to report into include:
- Health and Wellbeing Board
- Health Scrutiny Committee
- ICS/STP Prevention Board
It’s important to establish a flow of communication into these structures so they know what the Alliance is trying to achieve, who you’re accountable to and broader sharing of tobacco control activity and successes.