Nick Talley, Chair, RACP Working Party on Governance Reform has issued a consultation paper on board reform. I think its strengths are that it has gone back to basics. The paper is not offering a couple of options to choose from. Instead it has gone back to the issues. Clearly the Working Party is open to receiving other ideas beyond the six options offered in the paper. Another strength is the structured consultation process proposed. This will see over 20 meetings held around the country to obtain input on this topic. As a piece of communication however, this is not a good document. It is too long and too complicated. I doubt that many members of the RACP will have the inclination or the time to wade through it. The proposals simply do not relate to our way. For example the section on diversity talks about gender, ethnicity etc, but fails to mention the single most important aspect of diversity for us – our diverse practice contained within the RACP. We need to comply with corporate law, but we need to work towards it in a way that relates to the needs of a membership based organisation. As a colleague who has extensive experience in working with such organisations said to me, ‘we are not dealing with products here, we are dealing with peoples’ professional lives’.

Nevertheless this work should be sufficient to stimulate some good conversations in the fora.

What do others think?