Committee Matters

Nearly 34,000 individuals are involved in management committees in Northern Ireland and are at the heart of the voluntary and community sector – yet until now they have been an unknown and under-researched population.

The Volunteer Development Agency has launched the results of a major piece of research called Committee Matters, an assessment of the characteristics, training needs and role of voluntary management committees in Northern Ireland.

The Agency commissioned NICVA to carry out the research, overseen by a research reference group representative from the voluntary, community and public sectors.

The research, the first of its kind in Northern Ireland, indicates that most people join management committees because of their commitment to the cause, and most are over the age of 45 years old. Individuals under the age of 25 years are very much under-represented, making up only 3% of the current committee population.

The research indicates that the two most important training and support needs are ‘roles and responsibilities’ and ‘legal responsibilities/issues’.

The most important message to emerge from the research is that ‘size matters’ and greatly affects the characteristics and role of management committees. For instance, larger organisations tend to be more structured, make more use of sub-committees, have more people involved on the committee and are more likely to have a budget for committee training and development. Smaller organisations tend to have more formalised election processes, but face more difficulties recruiting new members.

The management committees of the smaller organisations were found to have less access to support compared to larger organisations.

It is clear from the research that support services and guidance for voluntary management committees should more accurately reflect the diversity in committees, not just size, but also the stage of development and the activity of the organisation. This includes more appropriate support resources, specifically targeted and made more accessible to smaller organisations with an income under £100,000.

Read a summary of the report:
Summary of Committee Matters (834Kb)

Read the full report:
Committee Matters (453Kb)

Over the next few months the Agency will be considering how to respond to the recommendations in the report. A new project, Investing in Building Active Communities through Governance, will develop and support work in this area. Already new courses have been designed as part of the Agency’s annual training programme.

For more information on support and training available to voluntary management committees contact Kelli:
kelli@volunteering-ni.org
028 9081 9332