Webinar: The importance of the board consent agenda

Board meetings shouldn’t feel rushed, reactive, or unfinished.

Yet too often, valuable time is consumed by routine reporting, minor updates, and items that don’t require full discussion. The result? Strategic conversations get squeezed, decisions feel hurried, and meetings run over time.

The consent agenda is a simple but powerful governance tool that changes that dynamic.

By grouping routine or non-controversial items into a single approval motion, boards can:

✔️ Protect time for meaningful debate
✔️ Reduce unnecessary repetition
✔️ Improve the quality of decision-making
✔️ Finish meetings on time — without rushing critical issues

When used well, a consent agenda doesn’t silence discussion — it sharpens it. Directors still have the opportunity to “lift” any item for deeper consideration. The difference is that attention is directed where it truly matters.

Imagine board meetings where:

• Strategic issues receive the focus they deserve
• Directors feel heard and confident in decisions
• Agendas flow logically and efficiently
• The meeting ends on schedule

This free webinar will show you how to implement a consent agenda practically and confidently — so your board spends less time managing the clock and more time shaping the future.

If your meetings regularly run over, this is a conversation worth having.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:08

Okay, I think we shall get started, Julie.

SPEAKER_03 0:11

I think we should. Um, welcome everybody. Really, really thrilled to see so many people interested in board consent agendas and really interested to know whether you're interested because you're using one and you love it and you want to use it more, or because you're not using one, or because you're using one and it's not working. Um so feel free, I keep an eye on the chat. But if you would like me to answer a question, let's answer a question as we go. So type your questions in the QA. And if I'm not clever enough to answer them, I've got some help. So maybe is there a slide that introduces us all?

SPEAKER_02 0:53

There certainly is. So just on the QA, try and use the QA button uh on your toolbar, everybody. It just enables us to keep a track of everything as we're going through the session. Um, and finally, as you exit the webinar at the end of the session, there'll be a short one-minute survey. It's less than a minute, which we really hope you'll complete for us. The results of that particular survey help us plan our future events and speakers. So it's uh it's a really great help to us. Thanks very much. So, for those not too familiar with Board Pro, we are a board software provider, sometimes called a board portal, and we serve just over 35,000 users around the world, about 4,000 boards, and about 800 uh 800, about 8,000 committees around the world. And we enable board administrators, company secretaries, and CEOs to prepare for and run their board meetings more effectively and efficiently with less time and deliver more impact and value for the organization. And as much as we are a board software provider, part of our wider mission here at BoardPro is to make the fundamentals of governance free and easy to implement for all organizations, but especially those organizations with uh resource constraints. And one of the many ways we do this is by providing free access to hundreds of governance templates, guides, and all sorts of great resources, which you'll find, funnily enough, in the resources section of our website. And these webinars that we host every week are a great way of accessing key governance knowledge without the time, commitment, and costs associated with in-person events. So, as Jordy said, just sit back and relax for the next 45 odd minutes, uh, enter the discussion by asking as many questions as you would like. A full recording of the webinar along with the slide deck and the other resources will be sent to you uh tomorrow now. So let me have our team introduce themselves, starting with you first, Julie.

SPEAKER_03 3:02

Hi, wonderful. Good morning. I'm Julie Garland McClellan. I'm possibly known to a few of you because I am the producer of the Director's Dilemma newsletter. I'm very sorry if I'm sounding echoey. I don't normally sound echoey. Um give me better. That's better. Okay, right. There we go. That was easily fixed. Um I work with boards and directors to help them be more effective and efficient, and I just love solving governance problems. Over to you, Graham.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

My name's Graham Markins. I'm based uh mostly in Wellington and New Zealand. Uh I'm the co-founder of a uh specialist in governance practice called BoardWorks. Uh I'm uh gradually working my way out of that job, uh but uh I'm still very interested in contributing to the governance debate about various things that can make governance more effective.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Thank you. Kyoto Koto, everyone. I am Danika McLean from IGS or Independent Governance Services. We're a governance business here in New Zealand that provides um support. So the bottom end of the governance um triangle, we really help boards to do their best work by taking away the administrative burden for them. We um do that by facilitating the admin for all board meetings through being board secretaries or the hiring company secretary work through to helping with some of those foundational governance documents and processes when you are setting up a board. And I'm very happy to be here talking about consent agendas today.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

Thanks, Tanika.

SPEAKER_03 4:53

Right, over to you, Julie. Let's get us started. Wonderful. So I guess I thought I would start by talking about the problem. And because I do quite a few board performance reviews and generally run in packs of directors and governance professionals, the common complaints that I hear are one, that directors don't prepare. They um don't come to the meeting ready, so you get bogged down in having to read the papers and tell them what's in the pack. Um, or two, the directors prepare, but that just leads them to ask lots of questions, or it leads them to spend too much time on the unimportant issues, so your meetings still get back bogged down. The third one is there's too much just general bump. Bump is a technical governance term, um, on the agenda. So you waste a lot of time on routine or non-decision items. And the real impact of all of those complaints is that directors just feel exhausted, the agenda either doesn't get finished or it finishes with a ghastly rush so that the last few things are not done properly, and your strategy never gets a decent discussion. Um, Graham, do you see this too?

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Yes, I do I don't think there's any board I've ever come across that wasn't looking to leverage its time more effectively, and that's why I like uh the consent agenda idea.

SPEAKER_03 6:32

Okay, we've got a question in the chat immediately. Nothing wrong with asking probing questions based on their reading of the board pack. A lot wrong if the questions are on the noting and reporting items at the beginning of the pack, which then soaks up the meeting time so you never get to the substantive strategic discussions later on. Um we might move to the next uh slide. Thank you, Sean. Um in terms of understanding what a consent agenda is, it's a mechanism that you can use in your meetings to extract items from the discussion agenda and place them into a single agenda item that you pass with one motion. So this is where you put routine and non-controversial agenda items, one vote, no discussion. Um, however, because it is your duty, as Paul has pointed out in our chat, um, and thank you, Paul, for getting the conversation going, because it's your duty to diligently ask things, um, it's really important if a director feels that one of those items actually does require a discussion or does have some deep questions for the board, they can ask for that item to be removed from the consent agenda and reinserted back into the normal board agenda so that the board discusses it. But those questions must have a strategic import. Um, is that how you use them, Danica?

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Yes, yes. And it's really important to note that it doesn't say that you cannot discuss any of those things in the board pack. You can absolutely have a right as a director to say that you want to talk about something in one of those items, and then that will be extracted out of the consent agenda resolution, and you'll be able to ask those questions. It's really to be able to take away the formality of all of those kind of back-end governance functions. So the things that we're doing in the in the background, all of your minutes, your interest registers, um, any operational reports, the work is still being done and the groundwork is still there. But unless anything has changed or is new, they can be simply, you know, they can be approved without much discussion unless you've got a question, in which case you have the right to remove that and to be able to ask the question. But things like small typos or things that are just very minor corrections don't need to be discussed around the board table. They can be corrected outside the board meeting and not take up all of that space. So the purpose is really to free up discussion for more strategic items and things that the directors really add value to.

SPEAKER_03 9:30

Excellent. Couldn't agree more. Sean, can you pop us on to the next slide? So the key principles are that the board is still responsible for proper, diligent reading and consideration of all of the material in their PAC. Once they've read and thought about the PAC and undertaken, as is the legal standard in Australia, diligent, specific and independent analysis into the matters they're in, um they get to the meeting and they want to focus their time on the collective discussion, on directors' input to decisions that the board and the organization need to make, to forming a shared view of an item. Um different directors might have different perspectives. So getting that united board view really helps the um the executive team to make the best decisions and to deliver the best performance. And of course, the really important job of the board, which is making the choices and the decisions that create the future you want for the company. I'm assuming everybody's happy with that idea. So we might hop on to the next slide. Um good things to put in your consent agenda, um, non-controversial items that are unlikely to provoke debate. You know, here's a copy of the advert for the new CEO that we've all approved previously. Um, but here it is, and here's a list of the places that we posted it, for example. Um, matters within existing delegations and established practice. Um, you might want to tell the board that you'd used your delegations as the CEO and that you'd done things that they'd asked you to do, but you don't really want to be spending your meeting time talking about that. Um, anything that's previously been discussed or explained that the board has simply asked for a written record of, and any administrative or routine papers. Um, I quite like to see minutes in the consent agenda, but that's because all of my boards do a very quick um treatment of their minutes and they um sign off or they agree that they're happy with them within a week of the meeting, which means when you get to the board meeting, there's not really any cause for discussion. If your board doesn't approve the minutes until the next meeting, then don't put them in the consent agenda. Make sense?

SPEAKER_02 12:23

A couple of questions that have um just come through, which I'll read out uh at the moment, Julie. One's from Rachel here.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

It's the idea that the consent agenda is legalized rubber stamping. And there's a lot of organizations that need to run a decision to the board, even though the substance of the matter has long since been dealt with.

SPEAKER_03 12:47

Yep. I'd I don't like the idea of boards rubber stamping, but yes, I think um when it's something that the board has already previously agreed, um, then yes, I would say that's a a good way to explain it to people. Um some good questions here. Rachel, is the consent agenda only for non-controversial matters, or can it also be used if you have a lot of papers for noting? Yes. As long as your noting papers aren't controversial. Um I'm just trying to think. If I were sitting on a board and I suddenly saw a noting paper that the board has that the company has made a statement in support of one side or the other in a war, um and it's here for noting, I'd consider that controversial and I'd want it taken out of the agenda so I could talk about it. If I've got a paper there that says, you know, here's our usual quarterly report to our bondholders, I'd just note it. I'd assume the that was not controversial. Um, and yes, the chair and usually the company secretary. Um, Danica and Graham, you know more about company secretaries than me, but my preference is always for the chair and COSEC to sit down and work out the final versions of the agenda before the meeting.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Yes, and um that's not to say that you can't at the beginning of the meeting state which items you want to put into the consent agenda. So you may actually decide at the time that you're gonna include items XYZ on the agenda for consenting. And so long as that's really clearly documented in the minutes and that that minute states that everyone's had an opportunity to ask any questions and draw any of those items out, then that can cover that off. So um it is good to have it clearly documented at the start on the agenda as to what's going to be included in the consent agenda, but that doesn't um stop you from including other items if you haven't had that on the agenda to start with.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

But it's good practice, I think, to actually confirm the agenda at the start of the meeting, including the consent agenda, uh, because a lot of things can change between the board pack coming out with the agenda in it and the circumstances that the board faces on the day of its meeting.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

Yeah, I think you're right. Um, that going through the agenda and altering it at the beginning of the meeting um is a very useful practice. And you rarely see a board that makes it through a year without having at least one of their agendas altered. Often because somebody's running late, and so we rearrange things to do things without them, um, or because planes and buses and trains are not running on schedule, or whatever reason. So um auditors and lawyers coming in often change the time at last minute, and you can usually accommodate this. Um, another couple of good questions. Um, the consent agenda is a part of the normal agenda. So, responding to that question there, they run one runs within the other. Um, and we'll get to how that works in a moment. And yes, some boards, Kerry, do put the CEO report into the consent agenda. Um, some boards leave it out because there are things there that need to be discussed. And this is where directorship's all about having good judgment. You have to decide: does this need discussion or can they read it and know it? And any of the things that need discussing are going to come up when we discuss the other items that are on the agenda.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

And if you have a CEO report that you have items that you want to highlight, but it has a lot of dashboards that could just be noted. I would take the approach of saying my CEO report is taken as read, and I just want to highlight these key points. Dashboards are for noting, then the minutes will reflect that that the director's noted the dashboards. It doesn't have to mean because they're there and they're not in the consent agenda, that a lot of time and discussion needs to be spent on those items. You can still have papers for noting or dashboards that are part of the board pack. So the consent agenda is really just to take out those onerous, um, time-consuming items that don't need to be discussed because they are generally acceptable as they are.

SPEAKER_03 17:37

Really good. Um, so I thought I'd pop down. I I just grabbed one of my board meeting packs when I put these slides together. And this is what we had in our consent agenda. Um, so we had the minutes of the previous meeting, which had already been circulated, and everybody who wanted to comment had commented. Um, we had some routine things that staff had done that we expect them to do, but they like to tell us that they've done them. Um we had regular financial and operational reports, so that was the CFO report and the operations report with a few dashboards in there with KPIs. We had some correspondence. Um, we're a regulator, so we had correspondence that we'd sent, and we are also regulated by other regulators, so we had correspondence from them. Um we in that meeting also had some attestations, which is because of the um the timing of that particular meeting and the timing of our lodgement of accounts. So the CEO and the CFO um making a declaration that, to the best of their knowledge, there are no major issues. Um, if you're a grant-funded organization, you might have your grant acquittals in there. And as Danica mentioned right at the beginning, our registered conflicts of interest. We all read them, we all check them, and at the beginning of the meeting, we might mention if any of them are pertinent to any of the items on the agenda, but the register itself is there in the consent agenda item. I think we might move on to the next slide. Um, so this is where the rubber hits the road. Um, when you introduce these to your board, uh, really, really important. Don't just spring it on them. I'm sure you wouldn't, but just in case you were tempted, get talk to them first about what it is and what you're trying to achieve and get them to agree to have a go with it. Um the first time that you give them a board pack with a consent agenda, mention it in the covering letter or in your portal, the note that goes out to say your board papers are in the portal, go and get them. Actually, you can edit that note and say, by the way, please remember, as discussed, we're going to try a consent agenda this time. So you'll notice that these items are grouped in the consent agenda. Uh, start really small. Put very, very simple, non-controversial items there that usually get passed with a nod anyway, just to start getting people used to the fact that the consent agenda is not for discussion. Um be very clear with people. If you want to recognize what's in the consent agenda and what's not, this is how you recognize it. Um, I love color coding. Uh, it just makes it easier. But there are some boards I know that have a slightly different template. Some boards have an asterisk next to them on the agenda page so that when you look down the list, you can see which ones have an asterisk. They're the ones you're not supposed to be discussing. Um, whatever works for you. I also like when I tell people how things are identified, to tell them if you want to talk about something. Um, there's a lovely comment in the chat from Brian about how do you handle items that are technically routine, but there's a long-term strategic implication. As a director or as an executive, you might go look, there are some implications here. I think I'd like this paper removed from the consent agenda because I think we need to talk about those this month. Then you identify this is how we extract them. And usually you either ring the chair or you ring the company secretary. Or you email them. Sometimes it's one and copy the other, sometimes it's both, but that's usually the way. I like to have an extraction window simply because if you are taking something big out of the consent agenda and you're asking some probing questions that are going to generate some real deep strategic thought, you've got to find time in the agenda to accommodate that. So giving people that 48-hour window, and particularly if you say, I'd like to extract this, this is why, this is what I want to talk about. Now it gives the executive a chance to get the information to hand, to be prepared for the questions and the discussion. And it gives your company secretary and chair sufficient warning that they can re-jig the agenda and try to fit everything in. Without a word of a lie, they spend about 11 hours once a month on a Saturday in their board meeting. And they've been using a consent agenda for the last two years, but they still ask questions and discuss the items in the consent agenda. So basically it's just a waste of time identifying the items and separating them out. And when they said, oh, but the consent agenda doesn't work, it's like, well, guys, you have to make it work. So the and people will make mistakes. And the first few times you say, look, I'm really sorry, but that's actually in the consent agenda. Does that question come up in association with any of the other items we're talking about today? Um, or do we need to make an exception just this once? But you really need at the beginning to be quite firm that the consent agenda, unless it's something strategic and you want to take the item out, does not get discussed. Otherwise, you might as well not bother. The other important thing, if you've got sleepy directors, is to remind them that they still have a duty of care. The fact that you're not discussing it doesn't mean that you don't have to read it and think about it and make diligent, specific, and independent inquiry into the issues if you think there's something there. Um, it takes a bit of guiding and reassurance. Often directors are a bit worried. Are you sure we're doing our duty or are you sure this is okay? Um, and it takes quite a few meetings before it really clicks and starts to become part of the DNA. What I have noticed is when I have new directors join a board where we've been using a consent agenda, um, they're always very impressed, once they get used to it, at how efficient it is in helping them to focus meeting time. Danica.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Thanks, Gillette. I just I think it's, you know, what you're saying there, it's important to differentiate that it's not an excuse to not read those papers. You're still very responsible for understanding and have read everything that's in the board pack. Um, and there's just a few questions coming through around the actual mechanics of how you do it on the agenda. And the way that I like to do it is to have on the agenda at the beginning resolution for a consent agenda, and then under that to say proposing that the board approve that these items, da-da-da-da-da, are resolved to be accepted as part of the consent agenda. And that lets you see in advance either which items they are, or you might state the items with an asterisk next to them on the agenda. So it's really clear, both for you as a director, for the chair who's doing the resolution, and for the board secretary or company secretary to know what to record. And so that when you're reading the board pack, you know in advance that, oh, I've got a question on that paper. So when the question comes up at the board meeting, we're going to do this resolution to accept these items. Does anyone have anything that they'd like to pull out to discuss? You have that trigger there to say, yes, actually, I'd like to discuss this point. So can we please pull that paper out? And it's really, it's not there necessarily to make the meeting shorter. It's to make the meeting more efficient and more productive. So items that the chair would normally say, right, now we're coming to the minutes. Can we have an approval that these minutes for a true and accurate record of the previous meeting? Everyone say, All right, can we get a mover? Can we get a seconder? That that time is just taken away because it's already been approved. And when you get to those papers saying, right, now we're at this point for noting, do directors have any questions? That point gets removed. So that's where the time saving comes in.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

If I can just add a point too about uh making the the mat the practice become routine, I think it's a good use of the post-meeting uh board evaluation board meeting evaluation, you know, that 10 minutes or so at the end of the meeting when we say how do we do today? Just to ask the question. Was there anything that we ended up dealing with that actually probably should have gone on the consent agenda?

SPEAKER_03 27:36

Oh, that's a good idea. Yes, I like that one. Um, I shall add that to my post-meeting review list of questions I ask. Thank you, Graham.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

Um I think as you go on with your meetings, it becomes fairly clear where you spend the time on as a board. And when you routinely adjust saying, yes, we had better note this paper, or you have very basic questions, or it's corrections, or it's relating to something else that's in the board pack that you can discuss as part of another paper, it becomes apparent once you start thinking about what can be on the consent agenda, which papers will comfortably slot in there.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

You can reinforce that as well by agreeing on a decision tree for just for consent agenda items. And then just having the discussion in the theoretical sense around something like that is also another way of cementing the idea.

SPEAKER_03 28:35

It is. Um, so we've got a couple of questions about, in fact, strangely enough, the meeting mechanics, which is what we're on to now. Um I would say if you've got things on your agenda for noting, put them into the consent agenda so that it's very clear that there was no expectation that these would be discussed. Um, that way, if heaven forbid, you should be one of those rare companies that winds up in court having their minutes and the recollection of the meetings. You don't have items on your agenda and people saying, Well, I don't remember discussing it. Um, you can confidently say, Well, Your Honor, it was part of the consent agenda. So, therefore, although we read it and considered it, it wasn't slated for discussion time. Um, that's going to be a much more confident response. So, in the meeting mechanics, the consent agenda is a single item in your agenda, um, and it lists the papers that form part of the consent agenda. So, when you look at that page that tells you your start and finish times, it's got one thing on it, which is your consent agenda, and then it lists the papers that are in it. Um I like the chair to ask formally, just for noting, for directors to confirm that they've received and read their papers, and then to confirm that does anybody want to remove an item from the consent agenda? And this is really ideally for the minutes. If you want something taken out, you should have told the chair before the meeting, not at it. Otherwise, you're sort of ambushing. Um, but it's a good idea for the minutes to note that people consented to the items being in the consent agenda, and there was nobody that really wanted to discuss anything. Um, you adopt them with one motion. You just say, okay, now we've got to item four and it's the consent agenda, all in favour, and everybody um glances up from their screens and nods, and then you can glance back down to the next item on your agenda, which is the first one that you're going to start discussing. Um, really important that minutes record that the consent agenda was adopted and that the minutes list the constit constituent papers in the consent agenda, um, and of course, that your minutes note, if anything, was extracted from it for discussion. Your minutes are a really important record. They are the record. Um, the other thing to note is when you adopt the policy of using a consent agenda, it's a good idea to make it part of your official governance framework. Um, so I would look at what does our governance framework or our governance manual or our policy say about how agendas are put together and just make sure that there's something in there about the fact that you will use the consent agenda. Um I would suggest that the governance manual, um, which hopefully forms part of your induction pack and maybe even your letter of appointment for new directors, has a sentence about the use of the consent agenda so that people really start getting their heads around it when they look at how meetings are run. Um, and of course, your policy and your governance framework and manuals should record who can ask for something to be taken out, when they should ask, who they ask to do this for them, um, and how that is noted and handled. Fairly simple, but just make sure you've got all your ducks in a row.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

And I think also just an encouragement, you know, that board culture being there, that it's okay to ask those questions or to take those papers out, that it's absolutely within your rights as a director, so that any directors being on board that aren't kind of frightened away from being able to pull up those items for discussion.

SPEAKER_03 33:06

Even in a not-for-profit board, you are legally responsible and can be liable. Um, so you absolutely have the right. It's just that if you use your right to discuss items that aren't very important, you might then run out of trouble to discuss out of time to discuss items that are. Um, some practical tips on using them. I like to every six months or so sit down and have a look at what was in my consent agenda. And as trust develops, you might start popping more things in there. Um, I like to group similar papers so that all the finance stuff is in one place, all the HR stuff, all the correspondence. Um, I really encourage directors when they ask for something to be taken out of the consent agenda to explain why or possibly share the question they would like to ask. Um, it helps to prepare a better response. And it also helps when you tell other directors, because it's a good idea if somebody said, Can we take this paper out, to let the other directors know so that they can now prepare for a discussion and say, look, this paper's been removed. This is the question, this is the issue that's likely to be discussed when we reach it on the main agenda. Um, make sure you've got a good audit trail in your minutes so that you can see what has been approved or noted. Um, and then go back to point one and have another look, because by that time six months will have gone by and your levels of trust or the level of um volatility in your environment will have changed, and you might want to put less or more into your consent agenda. Make sense. Um I have seen people attempt to put things into a consent agenda to avoid discussion when actually they were pretty important things and should have been discussed. It's not a good idea. I really love the picture on this slide. I just adore it. But going quickly over something which is difficult and needs a careful and nuanced discussion is not a good idea. Um, so don't put anything in that agenda that needs strategic judgment or that has reputational risk or that has a material finance implication or a material policy precedent. And I'd also encourage you if you want management to explain or talk about something, or if you want the directors to debate something and start to form a broad view, even if you're not looking for a decision, I would be very in favor of keeping those items in the main agenda because you don't want to train people that they can talk about stuff in the consent agenda. Um, doesn't matter who they are. That's my theory. What's yours?

SPEAKER_00 36:28

I think if you have any confusion about what could be going in there or if it's appropriate, kind of just asking, you know, why is that paper going to the board and understanding the purpose and what your ask is from the board? Like what do you actually want them to do? Is it just a simple mechanic of, well, they need to note this or this is for their information? Or is this something that you need feedback on? Do you need discussion on? Do you need a robust decision on? Or does it impact the strategic landscape? Does it impact the financials of the company? Does it impact their stakeholders or their customers? Um, anything that has that kind of implication shouldn't be on a consent agenda.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

I look, I agree wholeheartedly with that, Danika. One of my bugbears is when you get a noting paper as a director without any clue at all as to why noting it would be important.

SPEAKER_03 37:28

Yeah. And the other thing is if you've got things going into your agenda, whether it's in your consent agenda or in the main agenda, and you don't know why they're coming to the board, um, it's probably a really good candidate for not putting in the board pack. Um because the whole idea of looking at your agenda and using a tool like the consent agenda is that you want to free up time. So if there are things that you can remove from your main agenda and then remove even further from your consent agenda because you really don't need to know, um, it's worth it. The time they spend not reading something that's not important, and I'm aware of all the negatives in that statement, but the time that they have saved, they can put into a deeper and better analysis of the really high-value big ticket items. Um and the other thing is make sure that you spend more time talking about those rather than at the beginning of every meeting talking about the rules of engagement and how you're going to use the consent agenda. Once you've got it in, you really shouldn't be talking about it very much at all.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

Nudie, one of the really valuable things about having a discussion about these sorts of things around the board table and with the staff supporting the board is that it produces much greater clarity between the board and the staff supporting the board as to what the board wants to see, what it wants to engage with, and what it is merely uh you know dealing with as a matter of administrative convenience or whatever it is. And there's got to be a good reason for doing that as well.

SPEAKER_03 39:19

Yep, totally agree. Well, that is, I mean, it's such a lovely simple concept. Um, I'm almost surprised that we spent 40 minutes talking about it already, but I'm not that surprised because I talk a lot. Um sorry. And I'm also not that surprised because I do think it's a useful and valuable and helpful tool. So um, any questions? Pop your questions in the QA. We have a few, we have a few questions uh in here, Julie. Oh gosh, yes, we do. Let me see.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

Yeah, quite a few of them are about the actual agenda itself and how the consent agenda is represented on there. And it really is the way that I would do it is you have your agenda. This is the meeting of the XYZ company on this day. These are the people that's present, this is the location. Here is the agenda. Welcome and opening consent agenda resolution. Under that, you'd say, we're asking the board to approve that we accept the following papers as part of a consent agenda. And then you have items two, 2.4, 2.6, for example. That might be the interests register, the minutes, the noting papers, for example. And then you'd still have underneath that minutes of the previous meeting. You'd have your interest register, you'd have your actions list, you'd have your CEO report, your CFO report, etc. So it looks like a normal agenda. You just have that item slotted in saying approval for the consent agenda. So it doesn't remove those items from the normal agenda. It's very simply just a line item, and it comes through as procedural when you start the meeting to say this is the approach we're going to take. Everyone's accepted that they've read these papers. Does anyone have any questions that they want to pull out? Um, hopefully they have let you know in advance and you don't have to actually go through the mechanics of that. And then you move on. And so that means you can skip over those items. You can skip over the minutes, the interests register, the noting papers as you come to them on the agenda.

SPEAKER_02 41:23

What about the question from Lisa, Julie?

SPEAKER_03 41:26

Yes. Um, absolutely, Lisa. Uh, you can definitely have more than one consent agenda item. That's why we call it an agenda. So, for example, your consent agenda might say Um, here are the items in the consent agenda, item one, policy one, item two, policy two, item three, policy three. Each one of those would have its little paper in front saying this is what's been updated, and here's a copy of the policy. And you would just note the consent agenda, one item for those six, plus all of the other things that are in there. It really, when you start approving five policies in one go, it really saves a lot of time. And to answer Michael's question, yes, there is a document that will be sent out to you, and you will be able to see a sample agenda and also some carefully written, um, slightly more coherent consideration of how you use it. Um decisions can be pro forma, and um, just looking at the anonymous question, where there are regular certification type matters, is there merit in alternating the item into consent agenda? Yes, sometimes you might have things that you discuss, and then when they come back to the board, it's in line with what the board wanted. So that would be popped straight into the agenda consent agenda because you don't need to discuss it again. So that's a really good use of your consent agenda.

SPEAKER_00 43:14

And I'd just like to give an example of what you would have in the minutes as part of this. So you would have the agenda item consent agenda, and then you'd have a simple note saying something along the lines of the chair invited directors to identify any items for extraction from the consent agenda. No items were extracted. The board resolved to approve the consent agenda comprising the items 4.1 to 4.5 as circulated. Or that same thing, but item XYZ was identified for extraction, and the board resolved to approve the consent agenda covering off items 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, and 4.5, because 4.4 was the one that was extracted. Yeah. Good point. Yeah, it just needs to be simple. But it does need to be there and clearly documented.

SPEAKER_03 44:02

Yep. And just quickly picking up on some of the um the other questions, um it's a good idea in your board in camera to have a chat about we've tried this consent agenda, we've given it a go for three or four meetings now. How do we feel? Is it improving our quality rather than just shortening our meetings? Um as long as it's not detracting from your quality, I would still use it. A short meeting's a good meeting. Um and my advice to Catherine is when I've had granting bodies that say this must go through the board, they are quite happy if it's on the consent agenda rather than the main agenda. In fact, they don't seem to treat it any differently because as directors, you're on the hook for everything on your agenda.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

And you can clearly see, if you're being audited, that those papers were in the board pack and that they were. So therefore the directors have seen them, and then there's the minute saying that directors have accepted and approved that those papers would be approved, you know, noted under that consent agenda. So they've acknowledged on writing that they've seen those and it's there in the board pack to evidence that that was there and they've seen them too. Perfect.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

Well there's something to confirm or support Brian's call meeting that makes the distinction between shorter meetings and better quality meetings. I think that's the ultimate tension of a consent agenda. Is it improved the quality of the meetings, not just the timeless thing?

SPEAKER_03 45:39

Yeah. But if it's reduced the time and the quality is the same, it's still a good thing. Sure. Now it's a question of what do you do with that extra time you've saved. Um personally, I'd go to the gym, but hey.

SPEAKER_02 45:56

We're out of time, team. So please feel free to connect with our great presenters today on LinkedIn. I'm sure they'll look forward to your connection. If you'd like to be put in touch with Julie, Graham, or Danica, uh, please indicate your interest on the survey just as you exit. Uh, we have some fantastic webinars coming out over the next uh six to seven weeks. Next week's agenda uh item, or not agenda item, but um webinar item is your new board director journey. Where do you start? That's with Lisa Cook. That's going to be a great webinar. So I'd highly recommend you have a look at that on our website. So you'll receive an email from me tomorrow, which will include uh a recording of today's webinar, the transcript and the presentation slides as well. And they'll also be hosted on the webinar library on our website 48 hours after this session. Um, if you're considering board management software for your organization, then obviously we'd love to hear from you. So better still, why not try our three 30-day free trial? It's really simple and straightforward. Um, there's no risk, you don't need a credit card to get started. So here we are. Thanks again, everybody, for your attendance. I hope you've enjoyed the session. I know I did. Please don't forget to complete our one-minute survey as you leave the webinar. It really helps us to deliver this program for you. Thanks again, Julie, Danica, and Graham, for your great conversation today. I look forward to seeing you all at our next webinar, everybody. Have a great day.