LEAP chair and co-chair roles and process

Purpose:

The purpose of recruiting public members of the group to act co-chairs is to increase the shared ownership of the group and its agenda and to allow members to develop knowledge and skills.  We do this in a number of ways:

Encouraging members of the group to lead on sections of the agenda and/or present feedback on working groups they have been a part of.

Public members of the group as co-chairs of the group.

Facilitate a small planning group to work with the co-chairs (including strategy board public partner and Public Involvement  Manager).

Co-chairs to attend executive group meetings.

Use working groups to encourage group members to be actively involved in the work of the group.

What is the role of the LEAP co-chair?

Purpose and activities of the group chairs

– Have pre-meeting to finalise agenda so has a degree of familiarity with agenda items and relative importance etc. – Co-chairs the meeting and makes decisions about agenda timings to keep meeting on track etc.  – Encourages ‘presenters’ to ‘chair’ their section of the meeting. – Have post-meeting contact (meeting or email) as needed to follow up on any – items and check draft minutes for accuracy etc. – Over time develop a more detailed understanding about the items on the agenda, their relative importance and purpose. – Can substitute for Strategy Board Public Partners as needed and when agreed with the ARC Senior manager. – Offered support and opportunities to substitute for the other chair when needed.

We aim to have one co-chair who is more experienced and one who is less experienced.  When recruiting, we will use the skills required section for the post that is vacant.

Experienced co-chair skills required: The key skills are facilitation and leadership whilst also having a sense of diplomacy and democracy.  It can also mean allowing others the chance to contribute while having less of an opportunity to contribute yourself.

Less experienced co-chair skills required: The key the aim is to recruit someone to this role who would like the opportunity to develop the knowledge, skills and confidence to take on a chairing role.

Practicalities: The roles will be reviewed annually.

Selecting co-chairs

• The co-chairs are formally recruited positions, using the information above.
• We use our ‘Who does what’ process to manage recruitment.
• Recruitment is always from within the group, where possible.