Most governance problems were visible before they became problems. Preventative Governance is the proposition that looking earlier is cheaper, calmer and more defensible than investigating later.
Governance begins before the decision.
Preventative Governance is the organising doctrine on which Integri is built. It complements, rather than replaces, reactive statutory arrangements, by encouraging relevant risks to be considered before appointments are finalised and before engagements are entered, and throughout the governance lifecycle.
It does not replace statutory decision makers, Monitoring Officers, legal advisers or established governance processes, and it does not claim to eliminate risk. Its purpose is to improve the quality of a decision rather than to take that decision out of the hands of the people responsible for making it.
The Lifecycle sets out five connected stages around an appointment, and identifies who is responsible at each of them.
The party or panel identifies a prospective candidate.
Organisational reputational due diligence assessment, and the organisational gateway into the Lifecycle.
The party or panel makes the appointment or selection decision. Integri does not determine it.
Current structured governance onboarding after election or appointment.
A Lifecycle stage with a planned Integri continuation service.
The Lifecycle is a stable conceptual model even where the service capability associated with a later stage is still in development.
The Governance Lifecycle describes an appointment. Pre-Engagement Due Diligence does not sit within it, because the decision it informs is whether to enter an engagement rather than whom to appoint.
Both sit under Preventative Governance, and for the same reason. The material that matters is usually discoverable beforehand, and the cost of finding it afterwards is borne by the organisation either way.
The argument for assessing before appointment, rather than investigating afterwards, is set out separately with the sourced governance context on which it rests.
Read The Case for AssessmentExecutive Briefing EB-01 sets out the standards environment authorities and political organisations are operating in, and what preventative assessment can and cannot do about it. Formatted for print.
Read Executive Briefing EB-01Preventative Governance is a way of working rather than a product. If you are weighing an appointment or an approach and want to know whether independent assessment would help, start with the situation.
Start with the situationAll Integri services and outputs are advisory only. Integri does not provide legal advice or representation, exercise statutory powers, certify compliance, determine suitability or fitness for any role, make appointment, selection, disciplinary or removal decisions, or guarantee any particular outcome. Clients and commissioning organisations retain sole responsibility for their own due diligence, human judgement and final decisions. No Integri output must be relied upon as the sole basis for a governance, publication, appointment, selection, engagement, disciplinary, removal or legal decision.