3 Corporate Governance Report
The results of the review were presented to the Nominations Committee where the outcomes and proposed actions to address any areas of improvement were reviewed. They were then formally discussed and agreed at the March Board meeting. The results reflected that Anchor has a dynamic Board with a suitable balance of skills and experience; and governance remains strong and resilient. Actions taken forward include: • More opportunities for the Board to meet informally. • More flexibility regarding executive attendance at Board meetings. • Consistently ensuring the Board has early sight of material issues and challenges. • Improvements to timeliness and length of papers. • More opportunities to increase engagement between the Board and Residents’ Council, and Board and Senior Leadership Team. At the end of each Board meeting, time is allowed for the non-executive directors to hold a private session with the CEO in the absence of all executive team members. ATTENDANCE AT BOARD MEETINGS (APRIL 2023 – MARCH 2024) Fred Angole 5/7 Nicola Bruce 9/10 Elizabeth Froude 6/7 Mike Green 10/10 Peter Hay 8/10 Amanda Holgate 9/9 Christopher Kemball 10/10 Denise Peart 9/10 Richard Petty 4/4 Katy Taylor 9/10 Peter T ruscott 8/10 Sarah Jones 10/10 Board Meetings The Anchor Board met 10 times during the year to 31 March 2024. Nine were regular scheduled meetings and one ad-hoc meeting was called. In addition to the regular performance, risk and strategy matters considered by the Board, particular consideration was given to the following areas in the year: • Anchor’s Development Strategy was refreshed in 2023 and then reviewed again in 2024. The Board remains committed to building new homes and will develop an average of at least 500 per year, the majority of which will be for social rent and some for shared ownership. • A new Environmental Sustainability and Net Zero Carbon Strategy was approved. The strategy has four themes – cutting carbon usage, protecting the environment, mitigating climate impacts and living well.
• Anchor has had consistent business objectives, the Four Mores, for a number of years. The Board refreshed the Business Plan during the year and reaffirmed the Four Mores as still relevant and central to delivering Anchor’s charitable purpose. • Diversity and inclusion remain a core part of the Board’s work. The Board Diversity Policy was reaffirmed and continues to inform recruitment. Input from our resident, colleague and other stakeholder forums has played an important part in Board and Board Committee discussions and strategy creation. All Board members make visits to Anchor properties on a quarterly basis and they talk to residents and colleagues about what works well and what could improve. The Board meets annually with the Residents’ Council to hear their views and feedback on where the Board should focus its attention. These conversations are invaluable in helping the Board shape and triangulate Anchor’s priorities and strategic direction. In 2023, colleagues from Anchor’s diversity network groups were involved in the recruitment of new Board members. The approach for 2024 Board recruitment has been to include both members of the Residents’ Council and colleagues from the diversity networks in the selection process. Stakeholder engagement in Action Anchor has a diverse group of stakeholders and each year we seek to engage with different groups so that we can take their views into account when developing strategy and policy. During the year, engagement with, and consideration of, all groups of stakeholders has been critical to our work around sustainability. Our residents and colleagues will be key to delivering our sustainability ambitions and have been asked to input at various stages of our sustainability work. Our externally set ESG KPIs, which were agreed with our external finance stakeholders as a part of our re- financing, have also helped drive the Board’s discussions on sustainability. We have engaged with wider industry peers through the Greener Futures Partnership which has allowed us to work with other organisations to drive the sustainability agenda across the sector for the benefit of our existing and future residents. We secured more than £2.2m of funding for Anchor through the Social Housing Decarbonisation fund which will make a real difference both to residents' homes now, and to our capability within Anchor to skill up and scale up how we retrofit to achieve net zero carbon (see the Sustainability and ESG section for more details). We have also continued to work with our existing and potential suppliers to further explore how we can best deliver our sustainability targets, with minimal disruption to our core services, in a cost-effective way, and with resilience and future customers in mind.
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