Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Alderman William Russell and Alex Tostdevine.

Nicy Roberts declared her personal interest as a member of the CYM Monitoring Group, editor of the CYM newsletter UPBEAT, and organiser of the LSSO Alumni database (this was a standing declaration).

To agree the public minutes and summary of the meeting held on 12 May 2014.

The public minutes of the meeting held on 12 May 2014 were approved as a correct record subject to the following amendments:-

Item 11 – Principal’s General Report – Service Based Reviews

The sentence be amended from “…the feasibility of reducing City of London support for the School by c. £1m, per year from 2015/16” to “…the feasibility of reducing City of London support for the School by c. £1m, per year from 2017/18”.

Item 13 – Enterprise Presentation

The word ‘Knowledge’ at the end of the first bullet point be inserted at the beginning of the second bullet point.

Matters Arising

Audit & Risk Management Committee – Vacancy

RESOLVED – That Lucy Frew be elected to serve on the Audit & Risk Management Committee for the remainder of 2014/15,

To receive the public minutes of the Remuneration Committee held on 16 July 2014.

The public minutes of the Remuneration Committee held on 16 July 2014 were received.

To receive the public minutes of the Audit & Risk Management Committee held on 23 July 2014.

The public minutes of the Audit & Risk Management Committee held on 23 July 2014 were received.

Report of the Principal.

A report of the Principal provided Governors with an update on the issues outlined below:

·          Awards and Prizes

·          Student Recruitment

·          Student Satisfaction Surveys

·          Milton Court

·          Offsite Activities

·          Board Awayday

·          Other Board Events

A discussion took place with reference being made to the following areas:

·          Student recruitment and enrolments were proving successful with 94.1% enrolled or temporarily enrolled.

·          On-going meetings were taking place between the School, the City Surveyor’s Department and the Department of the Built Environment to resolve the issue with the pavement leaks into the basement area.

·          There had been significant improvements in relation to the student satisfaction survey and the main issue arising related to students not being content with the fairness of the assessment process. The School would look to improving the communication of the methodology process for assessments.

·          Milton Court had been opened for Open House London 2014. This had been very successful with a team of 12 delivering guided tours every 15 minutes throughout the day.

·          The Board Away Day had been arranged to take place on Wednesday 29 October 2014 at 22 Mansfield St, London, W1G 9NR. The Strategic Plan would be circulated to Governors prior to this meeting.

·          In relation to the Service Based Reviews c. £1m will be removed from the City of London’s financial support for the School and it would be for the Board to decide how best to achieve savings and/or grow income to address this.

·          It was noted that student accommodation is an increasingly important issue for students, such that sufficient student accommodation should be planned to cope with growth in projected student numbers.

RESOLVED – That the contents of the report be noted.

Oral report by the Head of Marketing & Communications.

The Head of Marketing & Communications provided on oral update on the visual identity rollout. During the course of the presentation the following points were made:-

·          The proposed brand, brand values and visual identity was launched to staff on 2 July 2014 along with sessions with Pentagram taking place for the marketing team.

·          Each department had been interviewed and over 150 items had been identified as needing to be replaced.

·          The Guildhall School website had been refreshed and would go live in due course. On average the website received between 50k to 70k hits per month. In addition the website had been tailored to align with smart phone devices.

·          A trademark application had now been filed and various School brochures were in the process of being redesigned.

·          Options for re-formatting the School’s website address were being explored.

Governors congratulated officers on the impressive progress made to date.

RESOLVED – That the update be noted.

Report of the Safeguarding Lead, Guildhall School.

A report of the Safeguarding Lead updated the Board on the Safeguarding developments during the Academic Year 2013/14 particularly with regard to:-

·      Current Safeguarding Arrangements

·      Changes to the policy and procedures

·      Training undertaken by the Lead Safeguarding Contact, all staff and Governors

·      The number and type of incidents/cases reported

The Principal reported that safeguarding was the largest reputational and non-financial risk to the School. One of the Safeguarding Lead Members pointed out that to assist people wishing to raise issues that the telephone number for the Lead Officer for Safeguarding at School should be included at the front of the policy.

Governors discussed the changes being proposed to the policy and requested that if further changes were to be made in the future that a marked up version be submitted to the Board for ease of reference.

In relation to safeguarding training, Governors pointed out that the online training course was not straightforward to complete and that the Education Board may wish to look at taking a lead on this along with looking at a unified Safeguarding Policy across the three independent Schools and the Guildhall School.

RESOLVED – That the contents of the report be noted and that the revised Safeguarding Policy be approved.

There were no questions.

There were no urgent items.

MOTION - That under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Part I of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act.

RESOLVED – That under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraph 3 of Part I of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act as follows:-

To agree the non-public minutes of the meeting held on 12 May 2014.

The non-public minutes of the meeting held on 12 May 2014 were approved as a correct record subject to an amendment.

To receive the non-public minutes of the Remuneration Committee held on 16 July 2014.

The non-public minutes of the Remuneration Committee held on 16 July 2014 were received.

To receive the non-public minutes of the Audit & Risk Management Committee held on 23 July 2014.

The non-public minutes of the Audit & Risk Management Committee held on 23 July 2014 were received.

Report of the Principal.

A report of the Principal was received.

Report of the Principal.

A report of the Principal was considered and approved.

Report of the Head of Development.

A report of the Head of Development was received.  

Report of the Director of Creative Learning, Barbican Centre.

A report of the Director of Creative Learning, Barbican Centre, was received.  

In accordance with Standing Order 40, the Board agreed to extend the meeting beyond two hours.

Report of the Chief Operating & Financial Officer.

A report of the Chief Operating and Financial Officer was received.

Report of the Town Clerk.

A report of the Town Clerk was received.

There were no questions.

There were no urgent items.